The long and winding road

Like most children I grew up watching what people did instead of listening to what they said.  The road might have been shorter and easier if I had done otherwise, but it simply wasn't in my nature.

I heard the things I wanted to hear, "follow your dreams, do what you love and the rest will follow, be yourself . . ." and edited out all the rest.  My maps had lots of uncharted territories on them and as much as that terrified me, it must have intrigued me too, because I never chose to change my ways.

There were a few constants.  As a child whose first three years were without television, I was never without the story in my head.  

When I discovered writing, life got even better.  I love the look of a blank sheet of paper, or blank screen.  I like the feel of ink flowing from my pen onto a paper and when I learned to type, everything about it drew me in from the sound of my fingers hitting the keys, to the way the words magically appear.  It is as if there is a direct line between my mind and my fingers.  It is a heady feeling, a god-like feeling to create stories from scratch.

Even if no one reads them.

Today as I sit in this chair, typing out my humble thoughts on an English professor's computer I realize that I came here the same way I have done everything else --  through the side door, but it has been the most incredible and satisfying journey you can imagine and I wouldn't trade one day of it for anything else.

My life was evidently never meant to be on the straight and narrow.  It meanders along, struggling up mountains when there are trams that could make it easier, fording streams when there are ferries galore, sniffing out the odd thoughts and and experiences that are richer and more satisfying for me because I stumbled on them myself in my own time

For better, or worse, that is who I am.  I am a watcher who has learned to listen and I need an extraordinary amount of time to savor it all so I can write it down.  Only in the writing does it become real for me.