I felt a little different while walking around the craft store today. I was shopping for Christmas and "Thank You" cards for my business. I have to keep up on my client appreciation. Mailing good ol' hand crafted notes, an art form I'm trying to keep alive.
I think I felt different walking around the store today, because I have been thinking more about writing. About the idea of taking my writing more seriously.
It's funny to look around in an everyday circumstance, and in the back of your mind, to think about if any of this will be inspiration. If anything will trigger something that will make a good story. If any observations, any of the people or things will become immortalized by way of the story. The story formed from nothing.
Created from an everyday circumstance.
Inspired by life.
Why not?
This feeling lasted about 2 minutes and 49 seconds before it started waning. It's tough to stay inspired and highly observant of everything when you're trying to find something specific. After floating around the store for a few minutes I finally gave in and asked an employee where I could find "Thank You" cards.
"Like for a wedding? Wedding thank you cards?" She asked.
"Um, just like general thank you cards. I just like to tell people "thank you" sometimes, I guess."
She gave me kind of a funny look.
I continued, "You know, for no reason, just a good ol' surprise thank you for this or that, or whatever, just in general."
Actually, I didn't say it exactly like that. I confess I did mention my Real Estate business as I try and add shameless plugs in where I can in case of the off chance I meet someone looking for a Real Estate agent. It never works, though, and I never feel great about trying to shamelessly plug myself, but that's my lot.
I followed her around the store as she whispered into her magic little microphone hanging from her ear piece. I was actually impressed by how smooth and quick her communication was with wherever the wizard behind the curtain of the store sat that fed her the intel. It made me think of James Bond; like anything that's even close to being spy related always does.
We arrived back around the front of the store where I had first walked in.
"We have all kinds of different cards in these little baskets up here. This is where you should be able to find some, which is good, because all of this stuff if really cheap up here." She says, in a congratulatory tone. As if she already knew "cheap" was my middle name. Maybe she really did have James Bond training.
There were a few dozen different little baskets spread around the front of the store. All kinds of cheap little junk. Rubber chickens and tablets. I found a butt load of cheap cards. I got a good assortment, 6 different packs of different kinds of cards. Some were slightly Christmasy, because I wanted to send my passed clients from this year Christmas cards, but I didn't get all Chistmasy ones, cause one of the families is Jewish, so I wasn't really sure what to give them.
I was finally ready to leave after 23 minutes of card comparisons when my phone rang. My brother was calling me back, I'm guessing because I called him earlier because he had called me yesterday and I never got back to him and so I had tried to return his call earlier (it's weird that the word "ear" is at the beginning of the word "earlier", just noticed that) but he hadn't answered.
I knew I should answer because my wife was making caramel with his wife yesterday and he made a comment to my wife about how I hadn't returned his call and she mentioned his comment to me last night. I answered and I told him I was at the craft store and as I did I remembered I still needed to get Esther stocking stuffers. He gave me a couple dumb recommendations, and I can't remember why, but he started telling me about how Sareh, his wife, was wanting to to take a writing workshop. "Really?" I asked, "I've been thinking about writing a lot this week, and have been thinking about signing up for a workshop or something myself!"
He went off on more tangents, like he always does, and he told me about how Sareh's idols are going to be at this workshop, and it was probably completely women, so I probably wouldn't want to go. He told me about how the workshop instructors are Mom's and photographers who are big bloggers or writers, or whatever, and how he said that's a niche that just about everyone Mom in the world is a part of. I guess lots of Mom's like to take photos and write and stuff, so we're talking about big niche's. Which I think niche by nature usually makes me think of small categories, but anyways.
He says, "yeah everyone has either tried to be a photographer or a Real Estate agent at some point". I think he's trying to take a jab at me being a Real Estate agent, but I let it happen and it makes me think out loud, "yeah, maybe I just need to write about Real Estate." In my mind I am thinking short stories or a narrative I think Realtors would like, because there are actually a ton of Real Estate agents out there, so that could be a good big niche. He then starts going off about how anyone can write about anything if they just read enough books about it and then they can just plagiarize all the different books and it's not plagiarism if you cite your sources. I think we were on different pages.
So anyways, on my drive home I was thinking more about that feeling. The feeling I had when I first walked in the store, and walked right passed what I was looking for. I've always had a feeling about writing, I've always been drawn to it. I've just never taken it seriously. Probably a combination of being too scared to take it serious, and too scared of what might happen if I did take it serious. I am already a decent writer by nature, I think. I'm a pretty good thinker, a little bit a wordsmith. I'm good at random little nonsensical nothings.
My Mom writes sweet (or cheesy depending on your opinion) little poems for every special occasion. I think a lot of the time they're kind of cheesy, but someone almost always cries. I think I just tell myself there cheesy so I don't get too emotional. Endearing special occasion poems are a powerful anecdote, you know?
I shared a poem the other week, and someone told me "you get that from your Mom". It was funny cause I had been thinking about that in the weeks previous, I think my wife had mentioned it. "You're good at writing poems just like your Mom". So I had been processing it, so when someone else told me I just let out a real quick matter of fact "I know", with a little laugh on the side.
I'm not completely fond of the word "poem" in general. It creates too much expectation and therefore feels limiting. I bit too loaded. I don't like to label my writing as some type of "thing". Of course, that's probably a part of my whole avoiding taking writing too seriously thing.
What if I really did dedicate myself to writing? Little pieces of me I would put out to the world to be judged by everyone. How terrifying. That's assuming I could even get my work out there; a far reaching miracle in itself.
I can't help but be enraptured by the magical possibilities of writing, though. About how you could recreate the mundane in a magical way, and immortalize these menial moments so that they would not only stand for something once, but stand for something over and over. Helping who knows who, and how many generations, and for how long. Magical, all those limitless possibilities.
I tried to summarize it in my mind as I drove, almost as if I was creating a mission statement.
"Writing is creating magic out of the everyday, and immortalizing the intangible." Something along those lines is what I tried to button up in my mind, feeling magical again as I neared my house. "I need to get home to write this down", I thought.
In hindsight, it all feels a little less magical now. I little more "fear filled". Having to wonder what I'm doing. "What am I spending my time doing?" I think to myself, in a not so rhetorical nature.
"WAIT!" It's a trap, I rationalize with myself. If I think there's magic in writing, the same way I do art, I ought not rationalize the Mona Lisa. I'm not saying I'm Michelangelo, I'm just saying, a real artist should not be their own judge. At least not me, because once I let my judge in and the rationalization starts, wheres the room for art? For exploration, and all that's magical? Potential to create limitlessness? Sad but true, I'm far too practical to subject my inner artist to rationalization.
God created me in this mysterious world, and it's so tempting to suck out the mystery. Every time I get a weird idea or a fun thought. I often hold my dreams down, tie them right down to the ground and kick dirt over them in an attempt to be responsible, I guess. Always trying to be practical and productive, and letting beauty be an after thought. Such as shame. I think I have been locking up my inner explorer more and more the older I get, too.
Sure, I could manage to have an alright life living safe and rationally. But if I muster up the courage to talk to my future self when I'm on my death bed, looking back on this life, I feel an insurmountable sorrow of allowing myself to continue on in such a cowardice manner. "The narrow roads always the right road", my future self reminds me. "It may not be easy, but no one said the purpose of life was to be easy." Plus going to the craft store wouldn't be nearly as much fun either.
