Beginning a New Season

This year will be ending soon and in it I 'celebrated' my sixtieth birthday. Actually there was no celebration of any kind which suited my contemplative frame of mind. I've watched other years flow by without much of that except on rare occasions. This year was different. Both of my parents were gone and I was reading about the passing of old high school classmates on Facebook, one by one. There are still a great many of us left but it brought home to me with crystal clarity one simple idea: I had stories to tell. Yes, stories half-written. Outlines and character sketches. All begging to be completed. . . to be told. Now. I half started at 40 when my husband died but other issues pressed in, along with other negativities.

1. You are a highly and expensively trained professional and you want to give it up for what?
2. You can't support yourself writing. No way. No how. Even if you could, it's not going to be a decent living. You like beans and cornbread?
3. Do you actuallly want others reading your stuff? Who would pay to read it?
4. Do you really have anything to say or contribute?

OK, number 1 is accurate in the first part. I am a highly and expensively trained professional but even though there parts of it I loved I was not happy with other parts of it. No, I don't particularly like living on beans and cornbread (a carry-over frugal plan from my childhood/early youth) but I can do it. The decision to write comes from my heart where my profession came from my mind.

When it comes to number 3, does it matter? Does it really matter? Oh, yes, it does. I want my stories to be read. I do want audience. I have one story, rough and in need of editing, posted elsewhere and it surprises me how much I want that. If anyone will pay to read it that would be a bonus. It really would but I am at the point where I hav to write those stories regardless. Whether or not I have anything to say or contribute I can't really say. Readers will make that decision. I did take 12 hours of writing in college and remember my professor explicitly telling us to refrain from putting 'meaning' into what we wrote. It would come out.

So here I am at another season of my life. It's time. Hence the title of this blog: Different Seasons. What will it consist of? I'm not quite sure about everything. There will be poetry, an occasional essay, and more. We will see.

Today's Quote:

"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma —which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." -Steve Jobs