A group of talented people magically lift and pull me forward.
Different path’s led us to this place,
Different stories hold our attention,
Different words leave our hands.
The title carved in stone and polished through time “Writer” cannot be self-appointed, it is too heavy.
I belong with a tribe of writers – perhaps someday it will be earned.
I don’t even remember the first Time that I did it.
It was no big deal, not like forming some kind of habit.
Over Time I did it a little more often, I quietly killed some.
Sometimes it was fun, mostly just doing it out of occasional boredom.
Suddenly one day I was driven to obsession.
Murdering in mass and serial slaughtering consumed me.
Death now burned my eyes as they opened in the early hours.
Random methods to choke, smother and drown Time became routine.
Driving the need to kill Time and feed my aging Dragon.
The lines have cut deeper into my face,
I have a few more fights left in me,
Maybe one more Crash.
Yet I still don’t have some answers, the answers, those that make me talk to myself.
When I wear my Grandfathers’ clothes: it is a hug from the past.
I proudly wear the coveralls of one and the winter jacket of the other.
These Giants of my youth quietly surround me.
“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” — Anais Nin
“If you want a cool Tombstone, pick it out yourself.”
I started writing about Life with my dog Sarrah a few months after she was gone.
It just happened, I never set out to write anything nor get this involved with it, but here I am. As if life cracked me open and the words just started coming out. I began writing daily for an hour or two, sometimes all day and even a few marathon weekends with little time for food or sleep, I did this for about a year.
I set my pen down the day that I learned people in the present run out of time for those who live in the past.
I went from keeping my binder with me at all times to leaving it on the coffee table.
Instead of writing daily, I maybe read it a little every other week and tweaked anything that I stumbled on. This went on for almost a year.
One day I decided to pick it back up and work through it. I made some “Draft Copies” and gave them to a few friends and family, noting that it was far from finished. I wanted to give it, to give Sarrah, some kind of life and protect the story from being lost.
Having never read Memoir I began attending writing conferences, seminars and classes a year ago. Learning to take my story apart, reworking it for Show not Tell is easier said than done, seems especially for me.
I understand that in the paper-thin chance this story of a Special Dog and an Old Boy ever becomes more than evolving pages in a weathered binder on my coffee table (and a bit on a blog) it will be run through normalizing software to Scrub out my Bad Habits, over-polish punctuation and trim off the rough edges… somehow making it no longer feel like it’s mine.
Perhaps what I’m writing is simply a record to be read aloud to an older version of me, staring out a window, trying to remember a life.
My phone has traces of acquaintances, pets, friends and family who are no longer living.
No longer living here with us.
Their birthday’s pop-up as if to remind and say “Don’t forget me.”
Photos in the memory mix float around and surface at times, blending in with new experiences.
It is hard enough to say “Goodbye” in this life,
making [Delete] impossible.
So, My Collection Grows…
Dogs have a way of finding the people who need them,
Filling an emptiness we don’t even know we have.
–Thom Jones
She hugged me goodbye unlike a stranger would.
The nice little lady gave me a long hug, as if she felt or understood it should be, that I was someone more than a stranger.
Slowly looking up, quietly my grandma asked, “And who are you?”
Can Bryan Write? 