Yesterday

I was cleaning my cluttered dusty office yesterday and came across a copy of a book I wrote titled "American Babes in Ireland." It is a big thick chunk of writing. I forgot that I had printed it you know. I sat down on the floor and stared into the first couple of pages, reading it and it made me smile. It wasn't actually to bad. It is first person and a story of me and my sister in Ireland (first trip). I got up from the floor again and went to my laptop and checked to see if I had a copy of it on file. I did, so I tossed that whole printed copy into the recycle bin.

I was surprised though by the thought that wow I have actually started writing many books. This one is one of the firsts though, a first that got really far. Why does this surprise me?

...Because you forget all the failed attempts when you were trying to find your voice.
 
I have copies and snippet of books or scenes I have wrote down  that I have kept...from back to my youth (Separate from my journals). Sometimes I come across them and I'm embarrassed but yesterday in the summer rain I thought, wow.. besides wanting to be an architect all my life.. I sure wrote a lot my entire life... maybe I really did always want to be a writer, i just didn't know it.

This morning I'm filled with regret about it throwing it away and dig it back out of the paper bag and the summer rain is still here from yesterday with rolling thunder in the back ground and all I want to do with this day is curl up in warm clothes, a cup of tea at my side and be someplace else in my head creating and writing. I have left all the windows open at Nick's request. That is one of the perks of summer rain, you can listen to the entire rain symphony. The rain increases in increments from small pings on a tin roof to a roaring, pouring waterworks. I love it, the rain is filling me with joy and excitement. I kind of want to be in Ireland. Tears of God is set in Ireland and calling me to work on it.

I walk into my office and it is clean and organized and soothing. I'm in a place where I can do all things. Does that make sense? I'm comfortable, happy and secure and able to balance love, work, writing and painting. I'm doing it all when I need too at just the right moments and I'm oozing with creativity. Whipped out two new paintings last week and two more the week before and have taken a new series of pictures for future paintings. I write when I'm not working or painting. I still manage to make a good meal and work in the garden. I have a sexy man in my life that I adore that loves all these traits. He may tease me, but I know when I walk into a room filled with people he will have told them I was writing, cooking or painting and he likes that about me.

Sometimes, it feels like my writing is my oldest, dearest friend.  It’s a constant companion, more true than many lovers, never judgmental, always waiting.  Me and the page, always in relationship.   If I nourish that relationship by giving it time and free moments and don’t always drive it really hard trying to make something happen out there in the world, it is a deeply satisfying pursuit. ~ Barbara O'Neal