When I sit down to write after too much time has gone by, it feels like I’m starting all over again, a case of creative amnesia. All of a sudden, I am standing center stage, in front of a full house, lights blinding my eyes, having completely lost my breath and the damn opening line eludes me. There is nothing wrong with being melodramatic to make a point.
I am not sure if I’d be considered a bona fide procrastinator, but on occasion, I will spend more time worrying about some things, rather than simply doing them. When the discomfort level gets too high on the awareness meter, I reluctantly drag myself into my fabricated crisis and heroically rise to the occasion, most of the time.
It is very strange being an intensely private person, juxtaposed with this stuttering compulsion to write to you. The moment I finish and walk away from a story, I am lighter and relieved on some level. After around two weeks, the glow begins to fade and I feel the quiet rumblings of doubt and discomfort nibbling around the edges of my mind.
Around seven years ago, I fell under the spell of writing, deciding it was the perfect way to share my life with my grandson. I started this discipline on a regular basis, writing nearly every day for a year and a half. It was a deeply personal experience with no precedent. I began to tell the story of my life, integrated with a purposeful spontaneity, taking turns going backwards and staying in the moment.
When you publish a book, not surprisingly, you are considered a writer. I quietly confess to enjoy being confused with one and I sometimes wonder if it is the need to say something or the need to be one that moves me. I wanted to tell my story to my grandson so badly that I charged ahead and the second sit down was all the affirmation I needed to believe I could do it.
The fragile nature of time is the engine that is driving me these days and it pervades all. The month of May always dislodges the mental impasse that comes over me before it arrives. Whenever April is peeled off the calendar, exposing month number five, I know there are a couple of emotional tattoos looking at me in the mirror. I was born toward the end of May and it has always been my forever time to look at where I have been and where I am going.
After forty-two years, I left NYC right around my birthday, because it was time and the Southwest was my destination. I created a whole new world for myself in the high desert country of northern New Mexico. I was now a guy with an earring and cowboy boots and a member of the Turquoise Trail Volunteer Fire Dept. Fifteen years steeped in the majesty of northern New Mexico was the time I was supposed to be there.
I drove my red, Toyota truck to the docks at Long Beach, CA, beginning another journey, like my ride from the City to Santa Fe. This time, Kauai was my new spiritual harbor and May was the month for the move.
The night before my one-way flight here, my brother called to say our mother, Ida, had a massive stroke. I flew to NYC and spent ten days helping her to move on. She died on May 22nd and after a couple of days of straightening out her affairs, I made it to Kauai right before my birthday. I carry that time with my Mother in my heart and it will stay with me until the end of my time.
Every year, when May approaches, i know I will exhibit all my symptoms of having absolutely nothing to say, putting off having to deal with it and not wanting to poke into my cocoon of privacy. Then, my relatively new found desire to write and a growing appreciation of the finite nature of time come together, pushing my manufactured obstacles aside and here we are.