I've decided Mother Nature must be just completely ticked at us...why else is the weather completely bizarre? As I sit and write, I marvel that in late May, I'm COLD! Yes, that's right...COLD! Usually in mid-Missouri, late May is the lead-in to 90 degree days, tanning, and getting the pool warm enough to swim in. But no, after the hardest winter in well over a decade, the spring has been complete with enough rain to fill the pool without need of a hose, and now, the cold front moving through sparks my belief that the world might just be ending.
Thunder snow, ice storms, tsunamis, earthquakes, landslides, wild fires, tornadoes, floods...and I'm sure droughts are on the horizon. If this isn't punishment for all our humanly destruction of rain forests and everything put on earth to help us live, then what is it?
We've treated our resources the way we do everything else: to fulfill immediate gratification without regard for our future. And why not? We won't be around to suffer the consequences.
That mindset has worked SO well for us so far...
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
Wow Moments...
Wow Moments…
This weekend, I participated in the Kansas City Literary Festival. Reading excerpts from Dregs always means a lot to me, to share insights into what it might take to stop school violence, and I feel every person I touch might help. The weekend was a success, and I feel humbled to have been part of a wonderful literary event.
Highlights for me started Friday night when I got to see the original copies of books by Sir Isaac Newton, Copernicus, Charles Darwin, and Galileo. It puts everything in perspective… And then only an hour later, I met the last U.S. astronaut to walk on our moon, Harrison “Jack” Schmitt. What an amazing man! His wife, Theresa, was just as amazing and interesting to talk to. After chatting with him and getting his autograph, I realized that exploration and constant evolution is what keeps this country alive. So when I got home and had an email sending me to a moving video by Lizzie Palmer called Remember Me, I watched it.
Humbled again, I wanted to share and be part of the generation that says, “I may not believe in the war, but it doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the warriors.” Men and women fight for our country, they do what they’re told, and they do it without hesitation. And for that, we sit in our homes without fear of foreign countries barging in.
To all the men and women who fight for our nation, to all the pioneers who strive to better our world, thank you.
This weekend, I participated in the Kansas City Literary Festival. Reading excerpts from Dregs always means a lot to me, to share insights into what it might take to stop school violence, and I feel every person I touch might help. The weekend was a success, and I feel humbled to have been part of a wonderful literary event.
Highlights for me started Friday night when I got to see the original copies of books by Sir Isaac Newton, Copernicus, Charles Darwin, and Galileo. It puts everything in perspective… And then only an hour later, I met the last U.S. astronaut to walk on our moon, Harrison “Jack” Schmitt. What an amazing man! His wife, Theresa, was just as amazing and interesting to talk to. After chatting with him and getting his autograph, I realized that exploration and constant evolution is what keeps this country alive. So when I got home and had an email sending me to a moving video by Lizzie Palmer called Remember Me, I watched it.
Humbled again, I wanted to share and be part of the generation that says, “I may not believe in the war, but it doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the warriors.” Men and women fight for our country, they do what they’re told, and they do it without hesitation. And for that, we sit in our homes without fear of foreign countries barging in.
To all the men and women who fight for our nation, to all the pioneers who strive to better our world, thank you.
Monday, May 12, 2008
The Blank Page
When I see a blank page, like Donald Murray, I see the promise of what could be…
I live in an era not of erasers or trashcans but of delete buttons and recycle bins, but the goal and triumph is universal. To write something beautiful, eloquent, readable, entertaining, inspiring…is nothing short of amazing every time I attempt it. I, too, am not sure if I’ve completed anything deserving of accolades, of that point in which you stop and think My god, I’ve done it. I never feel finished.
No matter at what stage I’m in with a project, I could continue to edit, revise, elaborate… when I pick up a copy of one of my novels in a bookstore, I don’t actually read the lines or I’m afraid I’d want to take out a pencil. However, the rush of emotion as I gaze at the product is overwhelming. The product itself never satisfying, it’s the journey that evokes the sense of wonder, of completion, of a sheer euphoria only experienced while writing. Many hobbies satisfy, exhilarate, even intoxicate me, but none elicits the response of writing something I feel worthy of reading aloud. First to myself, then to my dogs, then to my best friend. If it survives the triad, I surge ahead with edits, revision, and the ultimate goal of finding where it fits: a blog, a chapter, an essay… That component may signify the end of the journey for the child I’ve created, but for me, it’s the point in time at which I created it that exudes the memories. Isn't that what conception truly is? I think so.
I live in an era not of erasers or trashcans but of delete buttons and recycle bins, but the goal and triumph is universal. To write something beautiful, eloquent, readable, entertaining, inspiring…is nothing short of amazing every time I attempt it. I, too, am not sure if I’ve completed anything deserving of accolades, of that point in which you stop and think My god, I’ve done it. I never feel finished.
No matter at what stage I’m in with a project, I could continue to edit, revise, elaborate… when I pick up a copy of one of my novels in a bookstore, I don’t actually read the lines or I’m afraid I’d want to take out a pencil. However, the rush of emotion as I gaze at the product is overwhelming. The product itself never satisfying, it’s the journey that evokes the sense of wonder, of completion, of a sheer euphoria only experienced while writing. Many hobbies satisfy, exhilarate, even intoxicate me, but none elicits the response of writing something I feel worthy of reading aloud. First to myself, then to my dogs, then to my best friend. If it survives the triad, I surge ahead with edits, revision, and the ultimate goal of finding where it fits: a blog, a chapter, an essay… That component may signify the end of the journey for the child I’ve created, but for me, it’s the point in time at which I created it that exudes the memories. Isn't that what conception truly is? I think so.
Monday, May 5, 2008
6-word memoirs
In honor of the 6-word memoir trend (thank you, Ernest Heminway for your powerful: for sale, baby shoes, never used), I have dabbled with these for myself...
Glass half full, cracked but functional.
Pen to paper is my oxygen.
To love is everything to me.
Apathy only abated by enthusiastic innovation.
Fame matters only to get read.
If you try this and come up with some really powerful ones, share!!
Glass half full, cracked but functional.
Pen to paper is my oxygen.
To love is everything to me.
Apathy only abated by enthusiastic innovation.
Fame matters only to get read.
If you try this and come up with some really powerful ones, share!!
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