Monthly Archives: September 2014

writing

Season of the Writer

autumnfantasyThey say writing is a vocation you can pursue anywhere, any time.

There’s some truth to that. Thanks to technology, you can live among the dunes of the Mojave or the ice caps of Antarctica and still find your readers and meet your deadlines…internet connection permitting, of course.

But I honestly believe every writer has a season. Not talking about success here; not saying you’re ‘in season’ when something you’ve created is snapped up and lands on the New York Times bestseller list.

I’m talking about when the calendar flips a page and some gentle change in the atmosphere links to your primal spirit. You wake up literally and figuratively. An energy that’s been slumbering beneath the surface begins to froth and bubble and foam. And you just know…

…this is your time of year.

For many it’s winter when dark days and solitude invite long hours weaving tales.

For some the spring, surging with life and fresh, new possibilities, is the call to convert that energy into the written word.

For others, summer’s heat is a slow, sensual burn that spews literature like lava.

But for me, it’s autumn.

I don’t want to inspect the magic too closely. It’s enough that it exists. It’s enough that it feels like waves cresting, tossing more…and more…and too much…up into the crisp, silver-gilt light. It’s breathing air like cider and being alert, pounce-ready all the time.

It’s autumn.

Welcome to my season…

autumncat

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Just bitchin', poem

Letter to the Ghost of Osama Bin Laden

World-Trade-Center-9-11-cross-1

The page has turned.

Another anniversary.

There is a qualitative difference this time around. Previous years were rife with remembrance. Sharp shards of unavoidable history.

But this year, I was hard-pressed to find them. What had previously been a deluge, now a trickle.

Maybe it’s me.

With the extraordinary adaptability of the human animal, I have subsumed you into daily life, feeling not terror, but wariness.

Such a lukewarm legacy. Was it worth it?

I see no time when our beliefs and cultures will mesh.

Enemies eternal. A common view, me and you. I bet it bothers you to share something, anything with the likes of me.

Like children in a schoolyard; one offering his lunch money, eager to make friends, form bonds, buy them if he has to. A little desperate to be liked.

The other filled with nameless rage and bared teeth, hating those whose very existence he feels invalidates his own. Acting out.

You envisioned a roar, but left only an echo.

Part of it is the passage of time.

But most of it is because I love my country with a ferocity that surpasses your fanaticism.

We’re still here.

wtcmemorial

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Just bitchin'

Incorrigible

boxerOver the course of a weekend, I was robbed. Three times. Three. All three while I was at home, not five yards from the epicenter of the crime.

Three. Thrice. Triple. Hat trick.

Three.

The culprit was possessed of uncanny expertise, unparalleled stealth, and I’m sure came from a long line of thieves. Only congenital disposition could account for such dastardly success.

The first theft was committed when I’d returned from an outing with friends. As I stored my hiking boots away… the criminal entered my home. It was a near perfect crime. If he’d wiped his feet before entering, there would have been no clue other than the theft itself.

But this burglar added insult to injury, leaving his large, ungainly footprints with flagrant disregard for secrecy. Such was his contempt for my security measures.

But these things happen. Feeling philosophical, I cleaned up the crime scene and resigned myself to the role of victim.

The second theft of the same nature occurred the next morning. This time I was alerted by the look of outrage on my cat’s face. Intruder! Come quick! Expel them! But I was too late. No footprints this time, but a plate licked clean where seconds before had been a full one.

Theft three happened mere moments ago as I idly channel-surfed, debating between book or television for an hour of recreation. Slowly, so slowly…ominously…the front door swung open.

“Who’s there?”

No answer. Instead a brown blur took its fate in its paws and rocketed past, going for broke, taking a chance, drawn by the inexplicable lure of Friskies. What is this tasty thing, and why is it earmarked for cats alone?

In a flash I pursued the transgressor. Too late. What takes a cat all day to nibble, takes a split-second for a canine tongue to demolish.

Yet in the midst of success…defeat. The sneak thief was trapped. No escape. But he was not without recourse. What speed can’t accomplish, a tilted head and large, pleading, brown eyes can.

He was punished for his multiple crimes with ear-ruffling and meat loaf.

He has learned his lesson: use the front door, and look soulful. His penance is a full stomach and clean paws for the rest of his days. Or until his owner comes forth…

boxer&cat

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