XC Run Day 19

It was Hemingway, I believe, who said that a writer is someone who wrote yesterday, writes today and will write tomorrow. Even when one has nothing to say.

So it is important to continue, notwithstanding the only recipient is the dust bin.

Back in the 90's, I wrote a radio commentary for an NPR affiliate. Doing so, I discovered a number of things. I found that, at the root, I am a poet and write like one. Too much Frost and ee cummings and Ferlinghetti as a youth, I suppose. I found that short formats were my métier. I found that if I went back and tried to edit, I just screwed it up worse. And, above all, I found that, like most who attempt this insane craft, lots of the time I really didn't like it much at all. The process or the result.

With the commentary it wasn't that hard (a little aside,here -- I've timed a few of these blogs out. With my delivery and cadence they tend to hit right on 4 1/2 minutes. "Surprise, surprise..." said Gomer.). Once a week. I'd procrastinate and fume and think for the whole week. Then I'd sit down, pour it all onto the page, roar on down to the studio, grab my frantic Producer and lay it down on tape at the very last second.

Ah, V.J., girl, maybe some day you'll forgive me.

That was weekly -- this blog is a daily affair and, as I'm finding, that can be hard. 4-5 hours a day of trying to shape, craft, express, the thoughts and feelings and experience of the day in a manner not too self indulgent and maybe even entertaining. In looking back over these pages, I've found that, (even though this entire trip is, of itself, a huge self indulgence), on a very few occasions, I may have even succeeded. But that didn't make it easier.

The other thing about this blog, is that it is about a trip. A journey. I've now been in the same place for five days. And not just any place. The place where I grew up and lived and discovered so much. The place that is no longer anything like my little home town, but still is taking me back to the old Love-Hate feelings of so many years ago.

The time with my family is wonderful and a big part of me doesn't want it to end, but I'm realizing that, at the end of the week, when it is again time to kick a tire, light the fire and follow that skinny front wheel down the road, my heart will not be broken. I'm, with the exception of my family, a stranger here. Riding about not recognizing much of anything or anyone. A westerner on the East Coast. Flashes of memory occasionally sliding by, sometimes too fast to catch.

I'm sitting in a Starbucks where we used to hunt panther and nothing here calls to me anymore except that old ocean to the east and I find myself staying away from her and the only time I feel at home is in the warm love of my sister's house.

And, for someone like me? Suppose that's how it should be.