Words in Space and Time

Wow, this year is already coming to a close. I can’t believe how fast time has flown in 2013, and yet, I look back on all that has happened in my life this year and can’t believe it’s only been a year! At the beginning of the year, we were blessed with our little rock star Rory Gibson. Over the past ten months, I’ve watched him grow and learn and blossom into the bloomin’ little sunburst he is today. I’ve received promotions at work and I’ve made great strides in school, putting another three quarters under my belt. Only three more (or so) to go! The girls have grown, not just taller, but I can see how much they’ve changed since our family dynamic has changed, and at some point in the next two weeks, I guess I need to sit down and really take a look at what’s going on around me… because life is flying by, and it feels like, one more blink…and it will all be a thing of the past.

I’ve started submitting pieces for publishing this year. This was the first year that I've really paid attention to reading periods and publishing houses and magazines, and the first year that I've had the courage inside myself to put my words out there for others to read. This is the first year I've attempted to work as a writer. This is the first year I've written a resume in the hopes of finding a job that requires a pen and excellent grammar. This is the first year I’ve read my poetry in public – and I loved it! This is the first year I’ve allowed myself to explore this possibility of having pages with my words on them in other people’s hands.

At the end of last year, my fair ginger lover and I took a trip down to Naples, Florida to see his family. I had never met any of them before except his father, George. (Whom we should have named our son after, but I stubbornly held out for Rory so as not to doom our son with a little old man’s name for his entire life, which was subsequently made completely awesome by the royal couple naming the future king after him instead. So I’ll just say that I gave Kate and Wills the name and opted for naming mine after the Last Centurion, the last part of which was absolutely true.) 

While we were down there, we met some super groovy people and I completely and utterly fell in love with the place. The beachy vibe, the slower pace, the wonderful strangers who embraced me without knowing my name or story. I played bongos on the beach and knocked off so many things off my Bucket List, it was insane.

Then I came home, kicking and screaming the entire way. I haven’t stopped missing it, and I haven’t stopped fantasizing about a nice little ranch under the palm trees, somewhere only a bike ride away from the ocean. I could live that life, drumming on the river with a group of old hippies, getting my groove on and throwing my words out into a corner of the Universe that still wants to hear them.

It was the end of December, and yet, I forgot more than once while I was down there, what day it actually was. I forgot what month it was – because it felt like summer and not just because of the weather. The atmosphere down there was just so damn cool.

Well, I’m still in Michigan. There are too many things holding me here right now. Work, school, a home I like with a landlord who is pretty awesome, if I were to rate him as a landlord. I have family here, and my girls are here – and so are their fathers. So, Michigan it is right now. But here’s the issue: I still crave that creative space!

With three kids and a Labrador, my house is not the most peaceful place to be all the time. It seems that when the mood to write strikes me, everyone is home and the volume is full blast. Throw in the noisy neighbors, the traffic noise from being the middle street between two major roadways in town, and the constant wail of sirens (I wouldn’t say I live in the “hood,” but I can definitely see it from my front porch!) and it is a bit obvious that this environment isn’t exactly conducive to creativity.

So what’s a girl to do?

I like to think I’m pretty efficient. I’m a big multi-tasker and I don’t like to make two trips. (Ask anyone on a Sunday morning at Bob’s while I’m carrying two trays piled high with breakfasts.) So I’ve taken to keeping a Memo app on my phone’s homepage, and now I have a little notepad wherever the mood strikes me! There are just too many things that fly through my head at any given moment that are too good to let go. Sometimes I just have to stop and write it down.

Many times, I’ll come up with things as I’m driving. I can’t exactly stop and whip out my pen and paper, or even get my phone out to jot down a quick memo. In those cases, I try to repeat it to myself over and over again, or expand it into a song so I can keep it in my memory. Sometimes I’ll get really into it and start narrating an entire story to myself. As soon as I get to my destination, I stop, scribble down the good parts in my server book or cell phone and continue on my merry way.

I forget these little notes sometimes. I forget them, tucked away in drawers and glove boxes, slid between pages and piles of papers. (I tell myself not to end up like my mother, and I always seem to tell this to myself as I’m doing something she would do, like rearranging large piles of junk mail into smaller piles tucked into other piles of mail. Weird.) I find them months later, sometimes years, and it’s amazing how easy it is to go back and remember what I felt in that moment.

It’s awe-inspiring, how words on a page can change a mood, can transport someone through time and space. It’s really cool to think about how powerful words can be. They can change the environment, they can change the mood, they can change the way people feel, act and think. Words are agents of change and I want to make changes. I want to make words worth reading, worth making a change for.

I guess I don’t really have a theme for this week’s update, but if you get a message out of this post, let it be this: Words are the lightest things we pack ourselves with when we venture out into the waking world, and sometimes, they have the heaviest weight. You can take them everywhere, but you can’t just use any of them anywhere. If you don’t have a place for your words, tuck them away in the piles of junk mail in your mind and come back to them later. Hold on to the good stuff.

Where is your creative space? Where do you find your inspiration? When you’re in the middle of something and the creative lightning bolt hits you, how do you cope with the awesomeness of it all? What’s your sorting system for holding it all together?

Please comment and share ideas and thoughts. I’m so thankful for anyone who reads my words, but feedback is so greatly appreciated!

Thanks, all. Have a fabulous week. xoxo : )