Another Day

I’ve been feeling my mortality lately. Not that the end is looming, but I’m on the downhill side of my life expectancy, and my health is always lurking in the dark corners of my attention. Every random back twinge, every cough, every leg cramp… all of those things that never happened in my younger days but are now commonplace. And every time I feel them, I’m reminded that my time is finite, and there’s much I need to finish before I’m gone.

In addition to my advancing age, my country is in a state of chaos. Every day we wake up to news that I never imagined I’d hear, much less believe. The darkness that hangs over us makes it awfully tough to find inspiration and continue creating, but like so many artists, I recognize the importance of putting art into the world’s consciousness. We can’t sweep the clouds of despair away unless we attack them with imagination and creativity. So I open my word processor every day and try to make art. Some days it’s a sentence; other days, it’s five or six pages. But every word is a step in the right direction.

Right now I have five pieces in process (three are nearly ready to move on to my publisher, thank goodness) and another two that I’ve only partially begun. No one is beating down my door to read them, but I want more than anything for them to exist in print before I go. There’s something comforting about the idea that bits of my soul will continue to be in the world when I’m not. It’s my rebellion, my protest, my shout into the abyss. And when I’m gone, my words will echo into a brilliant, hopeful future.