Category: Uncategorized

Online friendships aren’t real relationships…are they?

There’s no substitute for spending real time with someone, face to face…is there?

All these social websites do is give you a superficial glance into someone’s life…don’t they?

* * * * *

The rest of today’s post is over at Inkling Media. To read about my take on the validity of internet friendships, click HERE.

Or, if you’re visiting my blog for the first time, you can learn more about our trip, take a look at the books I’ve written, or find out a little bit about my upcoming e-book, “Building a Life Out of Words.”

In just a few weeks an e-book I’ve written will be available: “Building a Life Out of Words.” Here are three reasons why I’m super excited about its release:

• I get to share the story of my first year making a living as a writer – the projects I worked on, the stress and  joys of being self-employed, and what it was like taking a semi-blind leap of faith into the profession of my dreams.
• It’s my first e-book, and I’m interested to see how people will interact with this new (for me) medium.
• In addition to my own stories, I’ve managed to strong arm the following nine writers into writing a short piece for the book about writing for a living. Some share thoughts on the writing life; others give some practical thoughts on how to make money as a writer. Even if you despise me as a writer and a person, it will totally be worth purchasing the book for their insights. The nine writers are:
  

  AndiCumbo  BryanAllain  EdCyzewski
  JasonBoyett  JeffGoins  JenniferLuitwieler,
  KenMueller  KristinTennant  StacyBarton

Stay tuned for more details regarding the e-book’s official release date. In the mean time, here’s an excerpt for your enjoyment:

* * * * *

The moving truck idled in the short driveway, its back door bulging. Maile was out in our mini-van, parked on the street and pointed in the right direction.  The van she drove, like the moving truck, was stuffed – it looked like the migrant workers’ vehicle from Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, loaded down with food and suitcases and mattresses hanging over the side (minus the mattresses and the deceased Joad grandparent).

We had to shoehorn the four kids into their booster and baby seats. Then we stacked even more things on top of them. The rain started to pour down, and the night seemed very, very dark. Maile’s parents sat in their car, parked behind the minivan, their headlights illuminating the street, their windshield wipers fighting off the weather.

I waved at Mai to wait and ran back through the garage and into the house for one last walk through, just to make sure I had locked all the doors.  My wet shoes slipped and screeched on the hardwood floors.  The stillness in the house seemed surprised at my being there, as if someone new had already moved in and I was no longer welcome.

I walked up through the empty levels. This was the home where we had brought Abra and Sam after they were born. Lucy’s favorite hide-and-seek spot was in that bedroom closet. Cade’s first bus stop was just up the road. Abra had taken her first faltering steps on those slippery hardwoods. And how many times had I made the middle-of-the-night treks down that hallway to retrieve a crying Sam?

I paused, still inside the house. What was God trying to do with our lives?  Why had he brought us to Virginia in the first place – was it just to straddle us with more financial debt, introduce new friends and then uproot us once again?  Why had he, with such seeming felicity, helped us buy this house, only to put us in a position where we had to give it back?

I just didn’t have the answers.  I locked the front door, put all the keys on the kitchen counter, and walked out through the garage, the door dropping down behind me, the light vanishing inch by inch by inch.

It was true what Tolkien wrote in The Fellowship of the Ring – adventures seem wonderful in the daylight, when the weather is good for hiking and the wind is at your back.  But at night, when it’s cold and it starts to rain, memories of sitting in your warm house beside the fire push a kind of dread in on the corners of your heart and make you doubt your fortitude. The reasons for leaving that make so much sense in the light of day hide very well among the nighttime shadows.

I climbed up into that huge moving van and pulled on my seatbelt as the final beams of light from the closing garage door slid down on to the wet street.  The diesel monster grumbled.  We hit the road, soon cruising north on Route 15, roaring towards our new existence.

Our new adventure.

I led the way.  The 26-foot UHaul bounced and heaved like a lunar module, and I could hear some of the contents creak and sway in the back.  The headlights threw a beam into the night, and I followed it north.

Then I remembered a quote that Anne Lamott uses in her book Bird By Bird.  It’s actually a quote by E. L. Doctorow, and it goes something like this:  “writing a novel is like driving a car at night.  You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

I think something started to shift inside of me on that drive.  I began to realize (just a seed of understanding that had a lot of growing to do) that my perspective on this move would shape my entire life.  I could look at this event as a failure, a disaster, and our move as a sort of retreat from the battles of life . . . OR I could see it as an opportunity to try something that I always wanted to try, an opportunity to live out my identity.

I could try to make my living as a writer. I could try to build a life out of words.

“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” John Steinbeck

* * * * *

We all struggle to maintain some sense of control over our lives. Some of us attempt this by orchestrating the behavior and activities of our children. Some of us are unhealthy because allowing ourselves that next treat or extra helping is the one thing we feel we can control in our lives. Others of us create rigid, judgmental boundaries defining acceptable behavior – meting out judgment on those who do not reach our lofty standards fills us with a sense of justice and control.

And why not strive for a life in which I am the power broker? Whenever I try to control people or things or circumstances, I do it because I believe that my life will be better if it is predictable, on schedule, and under my control.

But there’s this funny thing about control. It tightens up my life. It’s like a wounded muscle, cramping in on itself to prevent further damage. The more I try to control the people and circumstances around me, the tighter my fist becomes.

This is one of life’s great deceptions. We believe that having more control will lead to greater predictability, which we believe will lead to greater happiness. But the exact opposite is actually the case. In the areas of my life where I have been able to relinquish this desperate desire for control, freedom has crept in. Freedom from judgment. Freedom from worry. Freedom from fear.

And then I realized – this constant striving for control, it was actually controlling me.

What the heck am I talking about? It’s this journey my family and I are on. When I try to control it, I get stomach pains and can’t think straight. When I take it as it comes, allow some flexibility to reside in my mind, the whole thing’s much more enjoyable.

What areas of your life (or someone else’s) are you trying to control, to your detriment? Have you ever been able to relinquish control over something? How did it feel?

I sit at the small booth towards the front of the bus spreading brie on crackers and eating them in between sentences – such delicious punctuation. It is a muggy space, here inside the bus, and there are not enough windows to let in the cool Orlando night. So we rig fans to circulate air, everyone drinks lots of cold water, and Sam falls asleep in his new spot on the floor beside our bed, sweat dampening the hair around his ears.

Our bus sits in a vacant lot beside a church outside of Orlando. We could be the last people on the planet, with our dark window shades and the generator beneath us that drowns out all sound. But then my phone lights up with an incoming message, like Morse code or a pulse from deep space, and I know that we are not the last.

I can see Maile at the end of the long hall, her face glowing white while she writes.

* * * * *

A picture surprised me today, a photo of our chickens’ secret egg stash at our old house. For perhaps three minutes I stared at that pile of riddles, like an archeologist finding proof of some long ago culture hidden amidst the chaos of vines and beetles. That had been our life once. And not “once” as in ten years ago, though that’s what it feels like. This “once” meant simply three weeks and two days ago. Not even a month. Not even a lunar cycle.

It scares me, how fast things can change. We build our little castles in the sand and we dig and we sweat and, with painstaking tedium, we articulate the details. We carve out the moats and areas to carry away the water we know will come.

But the tide always returns, pulled in by a moon we can barely see. And the sand we have accumulated can never withstand it.

* * * * *

Yet somehow we must find the space inside of us to build anyway, to construct these castles in spite of what we know, regardless of their fleeting nature. Because as we build we will begin to realize it’s not about the sand. It’s not about the way the walls melt under the first crashing waves. It’s not about the losing.

It’s about the strength we gain in our fingers. It’s about callouses that begin to layer on our palms. It’s about the creativity and the perseverance and the fortitude infused into each new structure.

It’s not about the castle. It never has been. It’s about us.

* * * * *

The kids hold their books out over the edges of their bunks, showing each other what they are working on or what they are reading. Abra’s hair floats around her flushed face in wispy ringlets. Cade and Lucy keep each of their curtains open to feel the cool air from the fan.

I turn out the lights and follow the single-eyed leading of a flashlight back to bed.

There are days, and then there are days.

We squeezed the bus into a narrow, conventional gas station (as opposed to the truck stops we’ve been frequenting). Maile got out and peered up to make sure we didn’t clip the overhang. I put on the parking break, then filled the tank with $400 worth of diesel. Ouch.

My main concern at that point became our exit route: used cars lined the back of the gas station parking lot but I couldn’t cut the corner too close or the minivan we towed behind would hit the gas pump and blow up the entire city of Orange Park. It’s become interesting to me on this trip, though, how just when we think we have all the potential pitfalls in life identified, something completely random happens. Something we never could have imagined. Something immeasurably random.

Something like the entire ignition falling into the dashboard.

* * * * *

I sat in the driver’s seat holding the bus key in my hand, staring at the new hole in the dash, perfectly round. I would not have felt any more shocked if a rabbit disappeared in there after the ignition (“I’m late, I’m late”).

An empty hole. Where the ignition used to be. My first response (not usually the smartest one) immediately shouted, “Quick, reach in there and grab it!” So I stuck my index finger into the hole. And my finger got stuck.

Maile stood outside the bus, waiting to help me navigate the minefield of used cars and gas pumps. She looked at me impatiently. What was taking me so long? Why hadn’t I started the bus? Laughter crept up on me like the wind, or an inconsequential birthday, and I waved her inside. She opened the bus door.

“What?”

“The ignition just fell into the dashboard, and now my finger is stuck,” I said, laughter erupting out of me. She looked at me like I may have lost touch with reality.

“What?!”

Just then I gave a mighty pull and yanked my finger out. A thick layer of skin around my knuckle fell down into the dash, joining the ignition. Now what?

* * * * *

I aimed the flashlight down the hole. The ignition and its accompanying wires rested three or four inches below where it should have been. I got on my back below the steering wheel and peered up. I could just about see it. Maile gave me a chopstick and I tried to push the ignition up – she sat poised with tweezers, a Mr. Miyagi, waiting to snag it. Not working.

Eventually I found a few small screws and took them out. That particular piece of dash popped off. The ignition fit right back into its rightful place.

* * * * *

Laughter.

Improvisation.

Cooperation.

All things to keep in mind when the unexpected take place.

Bats. Long walks. Sunburn. Alligators. Graffiti. Rejection. Writers. Coffee shops and wine bars. Meeting internet friends in person for the first time. Even a poet laureate.

I’m not sure how much more goodness I can handle in one week.

* * * * *

Monday morning. A young lady drove up next to our minivan, rolled down her window, and peered through the passenger side.

“Shawn?”

I got out of the van, walked around, and gave her a big hug, because even though we’ve never met in person, I feel like I know her. This was Tamara Lunardo of “Tamara Out Loud” fame, and I was happy to meet her. She’s just as full of life and kindness as her writing makes her out to be.

What a day she had in store for us.

We walked for miles through a beautiful park, the kids searching for alligators and cranes while Maile, Tamara, and I talked about life and parenthood and writing. From there we had lunch at The Swamp, a Gainesville institution. And if you read Tamara’s blog, you know the day wouldn’t be complete unless we did something illegal, so we went to this huge wall in Gainesville that everyone paints. The kids added their own layer of graffiti.

That night we waited until dusk and then watched thousands and thousands of bats fly from a bat house to the lake, right over our heads, each of them trying to avoid the lone hawk picking them off one at a time.

Tamara took me to a coffee shop that night and introduced me to three of her writer friends. We talked about our goals and what keeps us from reaching them. We talked about the importance of reading well. We didn’t realize what time it was until the barista turned off the lights, a not-so-subtle hint that we had stayed past the 11pm closing.

* * * * *

On Tuesday, Willie took to the road, headed south to Orlando, Florida. We spent the afternoon getting situated, and then at 6pm I drove into Orlando to meet my writer friend Stacy Barton in person for the first time.

Again, what a night! We met at a wine bar, and as soon as I saw Stacy I felt like I was seeing an old friend. We talked for about thirty minutes before the others arrived, here and there, one at a time. Even my good friend Janet Oberholtzer, in town for a race and some book talks, was able to be there. We drank wine and ate cheese and bread and everyone was so refreshingly honest about their recent disappointments, their hopes, and their pending potential successes.

Not only that, but I got to meet Billy Collins, 2-term US Poet Laureate and a recent TED talker. He told me stories of when he joined Garrison Keillor on “Prairie Home Companion,” and what it’s like to write in Florida versus writing in New York, where he grew up. One of the most encouraging things he said to me last night came after he asked me how old I was.

“35,” I said. He sort of looked at me as if I had just been born last week.

“Well,” he said slowly. “I didn’t really make it anywhere as a poet until I was in my mid-40s.”

“That’s every encouraging,” I said.

“It should be,” he replied with a huge smile.