A newborn baby pulls air into their lungs for the first time and the journey of life begins. There is no map for this journey it is written as one goes. The traveler does not even get to choose where they start geographically. Is it fate that we are who we are or is there someone with a giant atlas somewhere and our course already plotted with a specific destination in mind? Perhaps it is the job of the traveler to merely find the coordinates and steer their ship in the right direction. The journey for most is ordinary and uneventful. Most do not even realize they are on a quest, but for those cherished few the journey takes on a whole other meaning at the moment of awareness. This miraculous moment comes when they realize that they are not just a part of eternity, but a piece of human destiny. Destined to be remembered long after their bodies have decayed immortalized by the words they have recorded for all of mankind. This is the journey of a writer. I strive desperately to find the coordinates so that I too may have the privilege of riding my life’s ship on the wave of words of those that have gone before me.
My personal journey began at an early age when my grandmother gave me a journal filled with the endless possibilities of hundreds of empty pages. I filled them with new thoughts, old thought and the dreams of worlds yet to be discovered. I lost and found myself many times on these pristine pages I discovered that through writing I could share my inner most thoughts with the world. I could chronicle my own life as I traveled through time so that one-day my children would be able to share in my journey.
There is another place that a writer travels to and it is the nearest thing to heaven that I can think of. It has the faint scent of old leather and the sound of silence is golden. This hollowed haven is called a Library. Here I discovered other peoples thoughts and ideals and this part of my journey all started with a little piece of green paper with my name and address on it. An entire world was opened up for me when I was old enough to get a library card. While other children were playing baseball and swimming I was flying on spaceships and pulling marlins from the sea with my bare hands. There was nothing else I would rather have done that to find a quiet corner in the basement of the Library and visit another world or pull out my pen and paper and create my own. My writer’s heart had found a home.
The coordinates of my life’s ship were taking form rapidly. I had found my true north and that was words. Words filled my heart and head like a burgeoning river just after springs first thaw. I would continue to ride that raging river of words throughout my journey. Words are my life’s companion. When I get lost they give me direction. When I am afraid they comfort me and when I am in despair they fill my heart with hope. There is no other boat upon which I would travel and no other journey to partake of other than the one chosen for me by the great map coordinator in the sky. It is with a humble and thankful heart that I am privileged with being a storyteller of life.
Truly a philosophical word weaving, Vic! I too have been to some of these places you mention, libraries (I helped found my old-country town library as a child in the 60's.) I can still smell the fungus on the book pages, a good literary high! A source of inspiration for many a great writer! It is here in the dark, racy corners that I discovered pulp fiction and tucked away those books and snuck them out. And I navigate by the constellation Draco on an old sea-faring map. I love old maps that are tucked away in someone's old book passed to me. True North is a compass that points us writers in the four directions N-W-E-S! Thanks!
GLIMPSE OF AN ANGEL IS NOW AVAILABLE. A PORTION OF ALL SALES WILL GO TO HOSPICE TO THUS ENABLE THEM TO HELP OTHERS WHO ARE SOON TO PASS TO THE OTHER SIDE. NO LONGER AVAILABLE.
