Epiphany – Part 1 – The Coffee House

I spent yesterday with a perceptive and wonderful friend. We spoke of…well, just about everything, in the way you would with someone you seem to have known forever, even if reality assures you it hasn’t been that long at all. The walls of the coffee house were red, lined with books, eclectic works of art and collected things, and menus featuring an endless variety of coffee-based beverages. Guitars lounged expectantly, strategically reposing amongst the tables, chairs and booths, awaiting the wanton caress of restless, calloused fingers.

How was your morning? Well, I got lost, but then you know that. The coffee’s too sweet. Yeah, I noticed. Not a problem making conversation. Where’d the time go? I’m distracted. Been there, done that. I’m so sorry. What’s that phrase? Stream of consciousness. Exactly!

And so it went, and then I listened to a story; the story of a someone who had gone to see a guru, a monk, an oracle incarnate high atop a mountain. It was a search for meaning, something we all should go through, a journey every soul must undertake and in the end hope for the courage to view our lives, our selves, and find them either aggregate or wanting. Never fully consummate, let there be no doubt.

Playing against type, for he was flesh and blood, and not a stereotype within his given life, this wise man told this someone not to strive to find himself, but instead to accept the greater probability that he would, as most men do, spend a wasted life in the seeking. The point is not to find oneself, but to instead believe we were not meant to be found.

This point was illustrated by my friend, who recreated on a notebook page what his friend had drawn for him, itself a derivation of the drawing of the monk. Small circles formed another circle, and within them all, the center being, representative of our most inner selves. The first circles represented all the things we are, that we do, that we show to everyone, everything that makes the outward projection of us. But deep down inside them all rests our true self, the one that even we may never truly meet. And the freedom comes from understanding that in the end, no matter how hard we search, we may never fully get to know ourselves. But isn’t that what makes life interesting? How many times have we said, “I can’t believe I did that.” or “That just wasn’t like me.” Really? How do you know? You did it, didn’t you?

As someone who’s always wondered who I really am, what drives my heartbeat oh-so-deep down inside, what’s my motivation when it comes to living life, it struck me suddenly that if I never got to know, then I would be okay with that. Of course, somehow I’d have to be. But really, how exciting and exhilarating a thought that we can spend our entire lives getting to know others, and ourselves. And, in a sense, perhaps know someone better than we could ever know ourselves, and vice versa.

I kinda like that thought. Last night I went to sleep with a smile on my face thinking about it, and red walls, eclectic things, old guitars, friendships formed, and happenstance. And, of course, some other good advice: dream carefully.

 

 

For Joi: Left Upon the Mantle

Nestled in the shade, the red house stood. Small but vibrant, unadorned. A studio and storage hut the lone companions to the relic of a life that had been lived there. The laughter of six children must have echoed off the walls, and through the trees, and floated upon the breeze and the tide within the waters of the darkly wild lagoon. So fitting a home for an artist such as Joi.

 

Cautiously, I approached, feeling her spirit somewhere, everywhere nearby, for it had to be. A being so astoundingly eccentric would most certainly venture freely when set free of earthly bonds, and yet somehow not stray too far from the home she had so loved.

 Entering the small building that I knew had been her studio, I called out, my voice returning to me hollowed by the close walls and the heat. There was no answer, yet I spoke to her, calling her by name and asking her permission to visit, explaining that I had so much to tell her, wanting to share my thoughts and even more to be aware of hers. I told her that I knew she’d raised her children there, that I respected her for her decisions and the way she’d lived her life. I said I was a writer, not a famous one, but one who loved to listen and share stories, and I so wanted to share hers.

 I looked around the room and saw my own reflection in a mirror by the door. Oddly, I wasn’t very startled, perhaps though expecting to see Joi, not myself. I only know I wanted to, so very, very much. There was so much she could tell me, I was sure. So many things that she might know. Or then again, she may not have the answers that I sought. I somehow felt the answers may yet dwell inside her house, and so I journeyed on.

 Peering in the front windows, beside the locked door, I saw with my eyes a house in disrepair, but in my heart I pictured it as it may have been, so filled with light and laughter and eclectic things. Across the yard again, around the side, stepping carefully towards the back and the dock and the lagoon that lay beyond the overgrown yard. Rotting boards cushioned my footfalls while they creaked and sang out with a music all their own. My pounding heart accompanied their song as I realized the sliding glass door was unlocked and I felt the little red house welcome me inside with open arms.

 Tattered curtains waited, calmly patient, ever still. Not one ripple of movement, no sound, as the sun poured down upon the aging floor from a skylight in the middle of the room. I spoke to her again, hoping still to hear her voice, to sense her presence, to somehow know that she was there. Nothing. And so I asked her, if she’d be so kind, to please let me know if there was something, some remnant of herself left in this place that I could take, because I wanted so to know that I had been there, to remember the feeling of everything and nothing all at once. So encapsulating. So freeing. So alive but wanting more.

 

 

 I wandered through the broken rooms, spotting objects here and there still strewn about the vacant, lonely place. These were the things that had remained after the estate sale, after the pondering and the pillaging and the raping of this life no longer real. She’d had a collection of cassettes, her musical tastes as varied as I’m sure were the stories of her days. I almost hoped one would jump out of the wooden case upon the wall; would leap into my waiting hands. Then I would know. I would know that she was there.

 Still nothing stirred. No movement. No sound. Just my wild imagination prodding me onward, into other rooms, round in circles, all the while speaking, emoting, sharing all my thoughts with her, my secrets. I somehow felt I needed her to know, or maybe just because I knew she’d never tell.

 I asked again if she could give me anything, let me know somehow if there was something I could take. Finally, thinking that perhaps she’d gone away, I turned to go. Happy for the time I’d spent there, but lacking one more thing I couldn’t place.

 My gaze fell upon the mantle; an old fireplace I’d glanced at as I’d made my way inside. And there it was. A single die, red in color, like the house, lying there, so unassuming. Suddenly I knew, with everything inside me, that she wanted me to take it. I wondered who was crying, then I realized it was me. All the things I wanted her to tell me, everything I needed her to say; all of it was wrapped up neatly in one single, faded die. I picked it up and held it in my hand, thinking of how well she must have known me already. I would be the one to find this, and she’d known I’d understand.

 “It’s all about the chances that we take,” I heard her say, though not in spoken words; they were unnecessary now. “Go and live your life and take your chances. That’s what I did, girl. Give it time, take your time. It doesn’t matter when you get there, only that you do.”

 And so I thanked her, wiped my eyes and left that lovely place, so grateful for the chance that had been given me to learn about the woman who had lived and died there. Inspiration. Words to live by.

 And still, as I left, the silence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Magic 8 Ball of Life

My feet carried me along Midnight Pass Road this morning as I marched to the tune of my thoughts, caught up in random, disassociated things, pondering life as I know it, and as I don’t, or just not yet. What should I do about this? How should I word that? Where is my life going? Am I on the right path? And how will I know if I am? I had meant this figuratively, of course, but suddenly in my literal path, leaf blower in hand, was a character straight out of my first novel: Mrs. Babcock, my imaginary (though inspired by real-life ladies I’ve known) older downstairs neighbor. In my book she’s in her sixties, keeps herself up nicely and has a mad love for gardening, which she does barefoot, showing off her painted toenails. I couldn’t help but notice that this lady, after I made the connection to Mrs. B in my mind, was barefoot, her toenails perfectly manicured and a sassy shade of silver-gray. We got to talking after I told her she had a lovely home and I also mentioned she reminded me of a character in a book I’d written. She smiled and asked me, “In what ways do I remind you of her?” So I told her, and she then said, “Well, since you’re a writer, I know you’d love to hear the story of how I got my beautiful home.” Of course, she was right; I did want to know.

 

Brenda (the real-life Mrs. B) told me she’d had a best friend for 50 years who had passed on about a year ago, very unexpectedly, from a brain aneurism. Throughout their years of friendship, they had traveled together and had many fabulous adventures and through them all they never spoke of money or material things. So Brenda was very surprised to learn, following her friend’s passing, that her friend had left her a substantial amount of money. Still in mourning, and having absolutely no idea what to do with the funds, she accompanied her son on a trip to Sarasota. Her son happened upon a house for sale and knew his mother would love it. The house was Mediterranean in style with a garden in the rear that opened up to a lagoon. He convinced Brenda to visit the house, and the moment she stepped inside, she knew the home was meant to be hers. This feeling was intensified when she walked out to the back patio area and spotted two statues of cranes. In her previous home, two cranes always visited her back yard. She’d named them Ralphie and Joycie after her brother and sister-in-law who had since passed away. She purchased the home, which the previous owners had called “Casa de Las Flores” and re-named it “Casa de mi Amiga” in honor of her friend.

 

She took me inside, gave me a Coke and a grand tour of her house, then told me a funny story about her two brothers. While in St. Thomas, they knew her husband had planned to buy her an expensive ring, but wanted her to pick it out for herself from a local jeweler. The brothers went on ahead and told the jeweler that a Portuguese princess would be stopping by soon. Brenda had no idea why, when she entered the store wearing sunglasses, dressed in a long white dress, her lips bright red, and with a large hat upon her head no less, everyone inside hurried to greet her, then took her to the back of the store and began pushing trays of jewelry towards her to try on. Once she heard them calling her “Princess” and saw her brothers doubled over in laughter, she realized what they’d done. Upon leaving the store, she walked down the street only to have the owner of the next store run out and greet her, saying, “Princess! Come in!” Apparently, the word had spread.

 

Next she asked if I’d noticed the old, red, dilapidated house down the street that was for sale. I told her I had. She went on to explain that she had known the owner, who had recently died. (Yes, I did realize at this point that Brenda had lost a substantial amount of people, but that’s to be expected at 67, I suppose.) The woman was very eccentric, having once been married, becoming a mother to six children, then deciding she wanted her freedom, left her husband and took all six children to live with her in the tiny red house. Her name was Joi (as she introduced herself, “Joey with an ‘i’”) and she was an artist. The property, which I prowled around on my way back (please don’t report me) and will write more about in another blog/poem/I’m not sure what yet, included not only the little house, but also a studio and tiny storage shed. She worked in the studio on various pieces of eclectic art, causing a neighbor’s husband to return to his wife following a visit to the studio exclaiming, “Remind me to never go over there again!” When his wife questioned him as to why, he replied, “Because she’s carving giant wooden penises! They’re everywhere!”

 

At this point I burst out laughing, as did Brenda as she told the story, and we leaned upon one another for support. (I love people who will laugh in a pile with you when they’ve only just met you – they’re quite special and rare and should be cherished like precious gems). Apparently the penises sold quite well. When Brenda went to see for herself, all of the pieces had been sold save one, which Brenda did not happen to purchase, unfortunately.

 

When Joi passed away, an estate sale was held at her property. Brenda went, as did the other neighbors, to see what parts of Joi’s life they might collect for themselves. Not actually planning to buy anything, Brenda was surprised to find herself drawn to a paint-splattered carved stone face of a woman. She didn’t realize until she got home that the face was Joi’s. No one else had even noticed. I got chills and we both began to cry together, after laughing together just moments before. (The only thing better than a new acquaintance who will fall upon you in fits of laughter is one who will then cry with you as cathartically as they have laughed.)

 

With each story that Brenda told, I began to feel lighter and more sure of where I’m going. My walk back was filled with inspirational thoughts, and thoughts of people I’d never even met, and would never have the chance to, but now felt as though I knew thanks to a woman who happened to be gardening when I walked by. She said she believed it was for a reason, and so do I. I won’t always know what’s going to happen, or if I’m making the right decisions, but I believe there will always be people who show up at the most appropriate times to shine a brief light for me to follow. Even if my destination isn’t always clear, I know that wherever it is, I’ll get there while enjoying the adventure along the way. And in the end, isn’t that the most important thing?

 

 

 

 

Accountability - brought about by random thoughts beside the shore

Accountability

 

Nothing haunts

Like a stargazer’s memory

Unfathomed and reborn

Each thought unfurled

To take its place amongst the clouds

 

No reason

Never enough time

Or ample space

To set apart what was

From what was never meant to be

 

For so long

I blamed the wind

Believed it told me secrets

Always turning into lies

Either way I said I’d never tell

 

Once I thought

The fault lay with the sand

And then the stars, the moon

The sun, the sky

And finally the rain outside my door

 

It had to be

So little of myself

So much of you, all intertwined

Love beginning now to breathe

Fashioning ideas in its wake

 

Oh please come true

If only once, if only now

With everything so right, so well aligned

How could it not endure

And spread its wings?

 

The simple truth

So immaterial

Standing here with no one

And nothing left to blame this time...

But me

 

A Shadow Left Upon My Wall of Summers

Passing by the theater, I had the strange sensation we were haunting it already; the ghosts of our memories—phantoms of the children we had been. How many precious summer days were lived and lost upon these streets, beside these shores, within the brick and mortar structures ever housing all the days we’ve left behind? So countless—never gone—ever replaced. Rites of passage through uncertain, yielding doors. Don’t look back, just move ahead. Cross the bridge into another world, or maybe just another you.

That summer job—you were an usher and you’d sneak us in the side door. I don’t remember any movies, but the image of you grinning with such mischief in your eyes; that’s what seemed important. That’s how memories are made.

Years later we played basketball together at the park near Nana’s house. We tried our hand at tennis, too, and found that we were equally bad at both.

And there were days without you when I wandered on the beach. Days that bloomed and wilted while I watched the drops of water, tender as tears, make their way across my skin. While the tide surged to and fro, finally taking with it all the things we never thought we’d miss, but now we wonder where they could have gone.

When I visit here, I find I later dream, in faded color schemes so vivid from the shadows they replace, reminiscent as the sinking sun and soft as angels’ wings. And it’s almost like I’m there again, waiting just outside, knowing soon you’ll open up the door. So I wonder if it may not be that in some other future day and time, these memory ghosts who come to visit me are the parts of us already long since gone. Haunting those old places, those old streets…wandering alone beside the shore.

 

 

Unspoken...a poem written on a train

Unspoken

 

Planted, immobilized

Ripped jeans and wind-mussed hair

I'll miss you madly

What I want to say

But want and need are different

Set apart from one another

By the power of a heart or mind

Or often simply due to whim or chance

 

Ever, maybe never

Who knows when or how or why

Or even if?

But still I'll hope and maybe dream

With wishes that it won't keep you awake

And if, then just a little

Not for long, I promise

I won't fade away this time

 

There isn't much to tell

Nothing I could say you'd need to hear

Or that I'd want to share

So shy, so proud

(Most likely that's the case, we both know well)

 

So far apart, the miles stretching thin

They fall away and disappear like time

And somewhere in the distance

Lies the past already written

It glistens like a memory

Or dream forgotten

Held within a rhyme

Will I stay awake tonight

Watching shadows traipse across my walls?

The echoes of the progress of my life

So bittersweet these thoughts of make-believe

But different now and willing not to sleep

Aware (and maybe hoping)

That the reason is

I'm wandering through your dreams

 

 

Washington Square (inspired by the song of the same title by the Counting Crows)

Washington Square

If I left right now, would the ghost of you follow me, or would it wait in the old building we called home for so long? A heavy object, a faded thing you left behind, not meant for relocation – not now, not ever. Just a particle of us, of a something that once used to be and cannot be forgotten.

 

I flip a light switch, half expecting to see you sitting at the piano we’d bought together, poised to touch the keys. Some random, phantom song you’d played still lurks around the corner, a fragrance in the motionless, cold air.

 

Unnecessary things worn threadbare, mended and re-mended parts of wounded spirits now flown free, but somehow pining for that long-ago solidity that kept them tethered and not drifting in the dark.

 

I wonder where your feet are walking now; if you know how far they’ve taken you from me. Do you ever look behind you? Do you listen to the birds sing, like we used to in the park? Do your memories feed the loneliness that kept you up at night, or do they soothe you like a lullaby, bring comfort to you in your dreams? A solitary presence in this absent place and time. Like the everything and nothing that you left for me to find.

 

Do you dance between the shadows and the glow from distant streetlights? Does anybody know you now, and did I ever know you then? The clock on the wall is stagnant, and as my vision of you vanishes I can feel the numbers fall and pile upon the floor. Or perhaps they fly away, slip past me through the open window – the one without the candle I’ll always wonder if I should have left burning there for you. A token of my wish that you could find me in the dark. Or maybe I just wonder if you’d try to.

 

How many days have I outnumbered in my many incarnations, turning old things into new, recycling tears and faking hopeful strength? Turning moments into years that pass me by without a word from you, without a thought of me. These walls around me breathe but never let me draw a breath. They keep me close with hollow, empty arms. No warmth – no beating heart to give them life. Only vacant rooms with cloudy windows – views that look back on the things that used to be. Surrounded by the past with you while you keep moving on. Forever here; forever far away.

 

I walk to the hill to watch the sunrise, thinking it’s still nighttime where you are, or want to be. You always wore the evening like a blanket, traveled with it to another new escape. When the sun comes home tonight I’ll leave this place for good – lock up the memories and all my thoughts of you and leave them here to wait for nothing. Only linger with the ghost of someone – just a someone – who never wanted me to find him and is never coming home again. Traveling onward, away from me. Away from here.

The Favored

The Favored

Center of attention

Knaves and would-be lovers tangle rapturously in words

That slip from her tongue in silken eloquence

A sweet cascade of wanton thought

All ears within this space entombed

Wait restlessly to hear her next remark

And breathless expectations hang in silence

All the more fulfilling for their pains

 

They wonder at this mortal who, so much unlike myself,

Can serve to them their hearts upon a tray

While yet they watch

So helplessly bemused by artful guile
 

Here I, the keeper of the peace with aching heart

Wish desperately to catch the falling crumbs

And form of them a way to learn this grace

To hold within my hands this thing elusive

This riddle that I’ve failed to understand

While all the while these words

Held captive in my mind

Begin to tremble with the need to be set free
 

“Look at me!”

“See me!”

“I’ll never hurt you, tease you, leave you, break your heart!”

“I want only to be known and to be seen for who I am -

Held separate and apart, not part of her

To have something that is ever all my own

That cannot be distracted by the banter and the guise

To see me, and me alone – be mine, all mine

To fascinate, to love, to form a thought.

Is it really all too much to ask?"
 

Laughter bleeds back into my hearing

I look around at nothing that has changed

And all that is the same
 

Center of attention

So far away from me, so unconcerned

I am companion to the favored - nothing more

As still and calm I sit

In utter silence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If time flies, but there’s no one there to hear it, does it still make a sound?

I think it does, but it’s more like an echo. Perhaps you’ll notice a slight whistling in your ears, like the sigh of air escaping from your life. It’s a somber, melancholy sound, and it makes you stop and think. “What was that?” you may ask yourself. Or, “Is there something I’ve forgotten?” Well, yes. You’ve forgotten many things. And, sadly, you’ll never know because…you’ve forgotten them.

We sat in a dusky bar, my dear friend James and I, bemusedly conversing while sipping gin and tonics. Moments before, we’d walked the High Line above Manhattan’s enlivened West Side streets, gazing through apartment windows, inventing stories about who may live there and what we’d be like if we did. The sun slipped past and downward, following a familiar course while we ventured along this new one. Pausing to sit and watch a projector display on a blank wall, full of colors and music and light, we saw a black balloon drift by above our heads and turned to look at one another, mouths agape, eyes brightened by a touch of magic. It was the most inside of inside jokes; a little game we played from across the seas – James from his flat in London, me from wherever I was residing at the time, be it St. Augustine or Miami –  a ceremony of sorts related to our shared passion for the written word combined with music. And here it was: a section of our separate worlds entwined and brought to life. What were the chances? How could this be? Why ever now, at this time and place?

And now, having traversed the boardwalk, allowed the wood to slip unhindered beneath our soles, we lingered at the small and hazy room hidden within a restaurant we assumed to be a front for something else (or at least in our most wild imaginations), for why else would they hasten us into the bar, uprooted and dislodged from our comfortable al fresco table? We had laughed then and gone along for the ride.

“At least this will make the night more memorable,” one of us most likely quipped. Which, in turn, would have led to the conversation which I now recall. Such a slender thread of consciousness, such a delicate display; yet somehow feral in its need to be fulfilled. The transcendence, the translucency, of memory was the chosen topic, or perhaps the one which had chosen us. James related how he’d always thought of memory as being a series of blurred images, like a group of photos taken, one after the other, while the subject keeps moving forward. Motion blur, I think they call it. And isn’t that what life is all about? The always moving forward, not able to go back, while everything blurs around you, and into you, and you into it. Into everything.

When I look back on that night, I wonder if James remembers the same things that I do, if our memories are interchangeable, if they shift or overlap. I’m certain that they do, and will continue to do so, at least at certain moments. We share these themes, my British friend and I; fascinated by our minds’ ability to recall the smallest details, yet forget the bigger picture. And how, sometimes, it all can seem so real again; so vivid and alive. In just a memory.

Time has passed, of course. It’s been nearly a year since that night in Manhattan; our few days in New York. I find myself remembering so clearly what we said and what we did, how the light reflected on the windows and the streets and the lake in Central Park, the skylines, the fire escape, taking photos from the Brooklyn Bridge, the subway and the adventure of it all. Meanwhile, time moved by unmentioned (as something one would choose to look away from – avert your gaze and maybe it won’t sting). Another year to tuck beneath our belts. New friendships forged and others broken; old ties that had weathered with the years, unnoticed, untended, and eventually worn through.

 And so I’ve taken to this blog again, another thing that slipped and fell upon the wayside. I’ve been writing, I’ve been living – still existing, but so fettered by my thoughts of what I should and shouldn’t do. And why I should or shouldn’t do. I’ve missed this, the flow of writing something that isn’t a poem, not a book; no characters to follow but myself. Just me and my own thoughts. I’ve come to accept, as I think I needed to, that this is more a diary than I had allowed myself to believe. Others will read it...or they won’t. But in the end, that doesn’t matter. This is for me, so here I am again.

Listening…

 

 

Eager Young Author Seeks Others of Her Kind

I watched a movie with Da yesterday. It wasn’t the one we’d intended to watch, but my dvd remote was on the fritz (what did I honestly expect from an electronic gadget priced at under $20?), preventing me from skipping to the second title on the homemade disc. And so, we settled in for a viewing of The Prince of Players, a 1955 gem starring Richard Burton as overwhelmingly talented Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth. (Some of you may have heard of his younger brother John. If not, just Google him, along with Ford’s Theatre, Abraham Lincoln and the phrase Sic Semper Tyrannis. I’m sure you’ll come up with something informative.)

Honestly, as is often the case when I sit down to watch a Da-selected movie, I’ve already gone through several grains of salt during his lengthy description process and have a handful more squirrelled away in my pocket. “It’s a great movie,” he said. “You’ll really enjoy it if you just give it a chance.” I did, and was enthralled immediately. It didn’t hurt that I’m a rabid fan of all things related to Shakespeare, but even if I wasn’t, I’d be forced to admit it is a great movie.

But this isn’t a movie review. That little tidbit only served as some much-needed inspiration to get me blogging again following month upon month of deafening silence. Not to give away the best part of the movie (I’m about to do just that, so if you plan on watching it, you might want to avert your eyes while you read this), but there’s a lovely little scene right at the end when an angry mob of erstwhile fans have crowded into the theatre to pelt Edwin Booth with all sorts of rancid vegetable matter, understandably upset that his brother has recently murdered the president. That, in and of itself, is nothing to write home, or even blog, about. What got to me was what Edwin did in the face of that adversity. (And this is a true story, by the way. I asked Da. He was there.)

Sitting alone on the stage, abandoned by his startled fellow thespians who fled to the wings rather than face the onslaught of vegetation, and God only knows what else, Edwin Booth moved not a muscle. He simply sat there, immobile, resolute, allowing the crowd to vent its collective anger upon him, and him alone. Eventually the ammunition was used up, the hostility abated and a hush fell over the theatre. In the silence, one man called out, “You’re all right, Booth!” and began to applaud. Soon, others followed suit and before long the formerly bloodthirsty, would-be mob was cheering their hearts out for the very man they had wanted to rip to pieces only moments before.

I watched that final scene, tears in my eyes, and thought how brave he was to sit there and take, quite literally, everything they could throw at him. It reminded me how, as a writer, I must be willing to do the same thing, although (I would hope) not quite as literally as all that. I’ll admit it sometimes feels that way. There are critics hiding under every rock, waiting to hurl their opinion as soon as you walk by. It takes a brave soul to expose their beloved creations to a jaded world. I thought about a fellow author I’ve been communicating with. He wrote an incredible book, one I read and loved more than I’d expected to. I immediately wrote a review for him and was shocked to find, in reading some other reviews, that nobody else seemed to have gotten what I had out of reading it. He’s understandably shaken, and I know how he feels. It must be quite similar to how Edwin Booth felt up there on that stage, all alone.

So far in my career I’ve been lucky enough to have been ignored by a few agents and publishers who didn’t feel like taking the time to read my manuscript, let alone comment on it, constructively or otherwise, but have also thus far avoided the slings and arrows of outrageous reviewers. They pick and claw and mangle what we’ve written, turning our very words against us. And all the while we’re expected to sit there and take it, often even thank them for taking the time to review us at all. They feel they deserve our gratitude – after all, where would we be without their acknowledgement of our efforts? I sometimes think they forget we’re even human.

But human we are, and thus we shall remain, if for no other purpose than to feel all the agonies and triumphs that propel us on to better writing. And so I asked myself if I was willing to sit upon that stage, the stage of literary presentation, before a world that may not understand or welcome me, knowing full well that I may be shunned or even pelted within an inch of my life. I pondered whether or not I could truly handle everything that surely awaits me as a struggling first-time author with little to no qualifications that seem so important to the critics and the almighty publishing muckity-mucks. Can I stand there, day after day, falling back at times, but pushing ever onward to my goal of eventual success (on my own terms) in this great big sea that is the literary world?

Yes, I can. I can, and I will. And I’ll stand there all alone if I have to. But wouldn’t it be great if others joined me? There is, after all, strength in numbers. I’m dreaming of an army of unknown authors by my side, advancing our troops, going forth into the hungry masses that yearn for well-written novels, spreading our works throughout the land. In the end, we are the ones who will be left standing when this great publishing empire as we know it crumbles in upon itself. We must not fall, we must not turn tail and run, for our goal is to gain the respect we so richly deserve.

It is with high hopes that I now extend the hand of friendship and invite my fellow starving authors, poor in coin but rich in spirit, to join me in this quest to endure all for the sake of our writing. If we network enough, get a slew of like-minded people together, who knows what we can accomplish? But it’s bound to be a heck of a lot more than we can manage to do alone. My plans are sketchy, but I’ve got to do something. To quote the lyrics from Paint Your Wagon, “Where are we goin’? I don’t know. When will we be there? I ain’t certain. All I know is I am on my way.”

The journey begins today. Let me know if you’d like to come along. I’m infinitely reachable at devonpearse@aol.com. (Those not willing to be pelted with vegetables need not apply.)