It’s funny how sometimes, you go through a period in your life where things seem to start clicking together. Disparate things, odds and ends, the shredded remains of past days that somehow appear to be forming a picture. It’s kinda been that way lately.
You might have heard that Ray Bradbury died recently. I know I’m not nearly alone when I say that Ray’s passing leaves a big hole in the world. He was a prototypical writer, a new kind of writer for his time; it’s probably safe to say that without Ray, there would have been no Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison or any number of other well known creative talents. He was a major inspiration for a whole lot of them, a case proof that you didn’t need to be Faulkner to be a writer. Ray showed that all it really took was determination and the ability to have fun with your work.
Back in the mid-1990s, carlessly temping around Orlando with a backpack slugged across my back, writerly daydreaming was my main escape from the depressing stupidity that was my life. I read a lot of Ray and Harlan. Frank Herbert, too. But the cool thing about Ray was that his work was so accessible, and everything about his writing said out loud, “You can do this too!” So as I was busing into some basement data entry center at 5:30am, preparing to kill my hands for eight hours mindlessly punching in AAA signup forms, I was reading and telling myself that someday all this crap would be good story material.
It was a great end-all writeoff for everything unsatisfying about life. Eventually it would all be good story material and I’d chuckle about it later on in life.
It’s been almost twenty years since those days, though it doesn’t feel that way most times. I haven’t lived out of a backpack in a long time. Married life is pretty good. We own a business that’s doing very well and keeping us both busy and surrounded by nice things. My hands don’t hurt anymore, and very rarely am I up before 8am, and we have plenty of good family and friends, and probably more than any time in my adult life, life is feeling pretty complete. (Which of course bugs me – it’s quiet, TOO quiet. And Kristi reminds me that I’m looking for trouble basically because, deep down, I’m not quite sure what to do with being happy. She probably has a point.)
So anyway, in early April I was pushing burnout pretty hard, overworked and stressed and depressed and just generally not fun to be around. Finally Kristi looked up one day and announced that we were taking a vacation. Pack your ass up and we’re going to Key West. I didn’t have the energy to argue.
Since then it feels like I’ve been going back and finding long-ago planted seeds and discovering that trees have grown up in those spots over the years. All these little moments from long ago, tiny chapters of escape, now make more sense and seem more useful. There have also been all these little creative reflection moments. Taking the Hemingway House tour in Key West. Hearing a damned great speech by Neil Gaiman about the life of an artist. Enjoying the cartoons of Zen Pencils.
And processing the death of Ray Bradbury. Thinking about eating lunch out of a brown paper bag on an outside patio on a temp gig, reading his October Country stories and thinking about writing.
Along the way, the last few months have also involved a lot of weeding. Family reconnections, learning important things, answering old questions, processing those as well. That’s been an adventure that, while certainly complicating things in many ways, also strangely enough has been clearing my mental ground for that new growth. Suddenly certain things don’t matter as much as they did. It’s nice to finally see past old issues and to get some closure on old conflicts.
We’re doing more creative things on a day to day basis, and that’s a good thing. I’ve been writing stories again, and recently completed my first full one in almost ten years. We’re getting things done around the house. I’m learning that if you want to live a creative life, you need to surround yourself with a life that’s creative. Kristi and I are having fun doing that.
It’s not a bad way to live. Planting seeds, watering trees, pulling weeds. Enjoying the shade.