today’s Musing written and published from
Morning walk: -8C/17F, strong north breeze, fresh snow, combine for walking adventure; Gusta encountered pink sweater sporting mini-lap dog which held her interest as much as that monster Husky she encountered yesterday .. both built for fun and friendship.
I’ve learned much about myself and about life; in this process, as much from the writing as I have from the responses to it, and I’ve been asked, many times, why I do it and just as often why I keep on doing it. The easy answer: it helps people. It helps me. I learn, grow, think, act/react, and become a better struggler in the process. It helps others. I know that, not out of some ego-belief, but because they tell me. They tell me in notes they write or calls I get, in chats over lunch or a tap on the shoulder at a cocktail party – they tell me.
Some things work, some don’t. I keep trying to write a better sentence, a tighter paragraph – to be less verbose, shorter, snappier, to get to the point directly – because it is important to me, to this work and to keep faith with those who take time and trouble each day, to invest some of their time reading what I’ve written.
Readers do me that honor. How can I not honor them back with substance? Some days I’ve written brilliantly; some days just trash that seemed a good idea the time.
One day this milestone may not seem like much, but right now, this 2500th consecutive daily column seems like a lot. When it began it was a one time/first time thing, snarky dialogue with my daughter. On the 2nd day it was a thing, by the 3rd it was a thing I’d started, by the 4th it was a regular thing, by the 5th, - ‘how can I possibly keep this up?’
My fears, then: on any day, any one of three things – that I wouldn’t have the dedication to do it every day, that I wouldn’t have anything to say anyone would like to read, that I wouldn’t be able to manage it when I traveled etc. etc. . All excuses, not real obstacles.
Writing this column began as an experiment. Nearly seven years later it is very different kind of experiment, results often wildly off course from expectations. I continue because it has value, I continue because I get so much out of it, and, I continue because I don’t know how to stop. In that, I suppose, I’ve captured how I came to be someone who calls himself a writer. The balancing act, the tortured empty-headed mornings, the electronic glitches – they are just part of the process now.
Recent events have sent me, and others, on an unexpected thinking/learning path; that results in people saying things they might one day wish they hadn’t said, doing things they might wish to un-do later on. I’ve struggled, albeit unsuccessfully to explain this to those close to me, and those who used to be; I think I said it best (in a way that seems clearest for me) in a piece I wrote, LOST AND FOUND, after the Maui trip last October.
Walter Elliot wrote: ‘Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.’
This column, goes on. It will go on as long as I find value in it. In Robert Frost’s words: ‘In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.’
Mark Kolke
325,084
195.4
RESPONSES/COMMENTS ALWAYS WELCOME; send to musing@maxcomm.ca
January 22 Responses
January 22 – GOLDEN MOMENTS - Congrats on tomorrow's "2500". Well done! The smallest "golden" moments are huge! The 10th of a mile. The first step in new direction. And yes angels wings make "sound".........a soft rustle....... if you listen real hard. Right after you have "felt" them touch your heart. It is an unmistakable, overwhelming feeling. Another true blessing, LAR, Winnipeg, MB
Comments