A nice number of people, over a period of about 14 years, have told me that they enjoy what I write. Some have encouraged me to keep writing. At one time I considered writing a marriage book and the first draft is actually most of the way completed.
There is huge power in encouragement. I am quite uncomfortable self-promoting. However, at the same time, I do want to express what the person that has encourage me the very most said: “I would read every word of every book that you write in the future.” I repeated that here because it evokes a very kind and generous emotion. It feels good.
I have felt a bit unsettled about writing for a few months. I feel some pressure to do something significant and intentional with my writing. Maybe I should put together something formal. But I don’t know what it is quite yet.
I do know that I am a writer because I write. But more importantly that feels true because of the way that it makes me feel. There is a splendid emotion when I put words to the events of the lives of the people that live in my story. I have to write. I want to!
I typically write very early in the morning while everyone else is sleeping. Everyone else describes my wife, who fills my tank every morning with sweet and important conversation after she wakes. She is a steady flow of goodness that keeps my heart full of joy. And, at the same time, I write completely alone and usually between about 4-6 in the morning.
Right now, I am writing on our patio watching the sunrise sky. I am sitting among a Master-Built gravity smoker that was given to me by a longtime friend, a big and heavy flat top griddle that has sizzled hundreds of burgers, a small and fun Big Green Egg charcoal grill, an electric “mini-fridge” smoker that has smoked Gouda many times for our life group, and a small and portable Blackstone 22 inch flat top griddle that my granddaughter uses for making omelets. Each one of these devices has their own story of how they were acquired, what they can do, the meals that were cooked on them, and the conversations that flowed around the dinner table and beyond. Several hundred meals have been grilled, griddled, or smoked here. My back yard is saturated in good food, nice friendships, wonder and beauty. Those things all continue to sweetly resonate.
A whole lot of the best moments in life, connecting with life-giving friends and family, have happened right here. I have shared how to make smash burgers on the flat top with 34 different people on this porch. We have sipped some mighty fine espresso martinis several Sunday afternoons, that were formulated by my daughter-in-law and our friend Cheryl.
Several months ago, we poured some concrete to extend this patio. I am sitting on the new part looking out over my wife's garden playground.
Lush green grass that we have tenderly cared for, and mowed and edged carefully for almost five years, is right in front of me. This is the yard that we mow together with our matching mowers. It’s the place where the grandkids and I play hide and seek. My neighbor strolls expectantly across that grass for patio chats. His 6 pound fluffy dog, Winston, bounds and barrels across it and runs circles when he sees my wife. Good things happen here.
And I can reach out and touch the fire pit that Jonathan, my philosopher friend, made for me about nine years ago. On top of it is the beautiful round stainless lid that Steve P, my Portable Burger Machine escapade friend, hand-fabricated in his metal shop.
I just noticed that my wife has slipped into the garden and is methodically pulling weeds. She draws life in this space. The garden is a continuous source of goodness for her. Everything is colorfully blooming; lavender, red, pink, light yellow, orange-yellow, and white petals with a yellow middle that looks like a sunflower. The only one I know for sure is roses, but she knows each one by name. One of them has pink and red flowers in the same bush.
So, I sit and write on my laptop while tilting back in a matte black wrought iron rocking chair with a large cup of strong coffee in my blue and brown ceramic kintsugi mug, that I glued back together with clear epoxy and gold glitter, while sipping Nicaraguan dark roasted coffee that I roasted right here on this same porch. A cup of goodness flavored with maple syrup and heavy whipping cream.
The magnificent blue, white, and gray sky is making me feel blessed and grateful that God makes it uniquely beautiful and mesmerizing every day. The morning and evening sky is the most beautiful free work of art in the world. I am thinking seriously about making large canvas prints of my sunrise and sunset pictures and placing them throughout our home. Each stunning image is associated with a rush of good memories. My friend and former boss from early in my engineering career, Jim, used to say that life is just a series of memories. Perhaps he is right. Is it both that and the positive expectation of making many more sweet memories?
So I sat down to process my emotions about writing and just started writing. I love this.
I am in the moment right now where I feel immersed in the moment. It's fantastic. I am capturing my emotions and feelings with words, trying to describe some of the best things that happen to me.
There is a tiny red headed bird on the long yellow finch feeder. My wife most enjoys the tiny beautiful bright yellow finches and that is why she got this specific feeder. In a little bit there will be about five of them coming here for breakfast and conversation over some special seeds.
The neighbor’s sprinklers are shooting an arc about 20 feet into the air. One of them is mis-aimed and it keeps our maple tree well-watered. They are the kind that go tick, tick, tick, tick,tick, tick, shhhhhhhhh and then repeat that pattern as long as they are on. The landscape guy calls those “water wasters.”
It amuses me to see that lone mis-aimed sprinkler soaking our tree, so I just keep quiet about it. Thanks neighbor.
What am I going to do with my writing?
I do it for fun. I write because of how it makes me feel. It is an easy flow. Some mornings I wake up with an idea going around in my mind and I have to write. It makes it easy to get up and slip quietly downstairs. Often the words are about something that happened the day before. Other times I am processing something that seems important.
I think alone by writing. I sort things out with the words and ideas that come to mind.
I am no closer to figuring out what to do with my writing. And I am in no rush to do so. If I never do anything with this than to simply enjoy collecting word pictures several times a week in the early hours of the morning I will be well satisfied. And, at the same time, I have promised several people that I would write more for them. I want them to get something good from this. I will figure this out. I get the sense that there will be a naturally occurring thought or event that will occur in the next few months, or so, and then it will be settled.