Friday’s Bumper Sticker
Wednesday’s Theme Music
The monthly black mood is coming on, one with a rich ore of self-pity. Trying to wrestle myself out of the mood this morning, I started telling myself what I really wanted. That transitioned to all I really want. Lyrics from the Alanis Morissette song, “All I Really Want” (1997) crashed the stream.
And all I really want is some peace man
A place to find a common ground
And all I really want is a wavelength, ah
And all I really want is some comfort
A way to get my hands untied
And all I really want is some justice, ah
What I really want turns out to be a complicated network of hopes, dreams, desires, and longing. Some of it requires a time machine. I think more of it requires different DNA.
The Muses and Me
Some days, I require a word count because the muses are behaving like children. The words won’t come. A thousand pounds of pressure is required to press the computer keys. It is exhausting. Computer games call, sunshine beckons, books that I want to read whisper, “Come here,” and to-do lists acquire enormous importance. The word count is necessary to get some frigging work done. That’s in the writing process stage.
In the editing and revising stage, the muses are generally mute. Their work, they tell me, is done. Chapters are the masters. X number of chapters must be completed today. Sometimes the muses show up and start talking about another project. Other projects, with the glorious feeling of creation that they impart, are always seductive. I beat the muses back with sticks. “Not today, damn it. You know that I need to finish this first.” They don’t care. Muses are self-centered. They run with their own agendas.
There’s always a stick for the days when it’s needed. But some days, the muses are waiting, tapping their little feet or fingers, eager to begin. Just give them a sip of coffee, and off we go. I don’t always know if I’m going in the right direction and harbor this terrible fantasy that I’m a football player in a tight game, running with the ball toward the wrong goal.
A table full of muses are here today. Each is learning forward, ready to feed me their input. Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Friday’s Theme Music
Today is all ’bout looking ahead. We were discussing different things while drinking beers the other night. The conversations invited nostalgia into my streams. I’d been in the military for twenty years. Being in the military with a mission and purpose was much different than this semi-kind of life of writing. After that came some startups and then more than a decade at IBM.
There was a gap in mil service though. I got out after four years, bought a restaurant, was running it while going to college, and then got mighty sick. Broke and weary, I went back into the military. My break in service was almost one year. It was a tumultuous twelve months.
1979 was when I went back in. This song, “Don’t Look Back” by Boston, was out. Back in a barracks at Brooks AFB in Texas, waiting for my wife to join me, this song struck me hard. Don’t look back.
I look back often. It’s mostly in context to remember where I’ve been and helped me adjust my course and remind myself where I’m going. It’s uncharted lands. Walking the next day after I had my conversations and bursts of nostalgia, I reckoned there are different ways of looking back. Looking back is fine as long as you don’t shove yourself into reverse and try to get back there by driving via your mirrors. The mirrors of nostalgia only show a few items.
Of course, the filters of the futures let’s us see even less. That’s why the future is more fun; there’s far less known and much greater potential to be shaped.
Michael Seidel, writer 