It was back to the drawing board on my book chapter today. It is not a
simple thing to write a book with twenty people, so now comes the part
in which my chapter must gel with the others. So, against the backdrop
of an unscheduled hiatus from work, I generated some new story, some
clever (I hope!) conversation, and a few (fingers crossed!) meaningful
thoughts. It was, I believe, a productive day.
Yet, surrounded by the
walls of my apartment, and this and other tasks at hand that needed to
be accomplished but wouldn't create fireworks or income, I was thrust
back to the feelings of other days--days when I was job-searching and
believing I might become a full-time writer and sequestering myself in
my apartment, lest I spend money or stray from my path of trying to get
things done. I was struck by how quickly those feelings jumped back into
my consciousness. They appeared as I typed, and as I gulped a cup of
tea to keep my mind going. They appeared as I struggled to complete
things and as I realized that my working time was done and the task of
making dinner was upon me.
Just as stories we read take us back to other stories or to experiences
we've had, the circumstances of my day today were just a little too close
to those from my not-so-distant history. While we all may aim to move
forward daily, we can't help but be influenced by our history, whether
it's life history, or work history, or a little bit of both. The key, I
guess, is to revise it enough to work with the other chapters of our
lives, so that our history informs us, but doesn't stop the action, so
that it helps with (we hope!) clever conversation and (fingers crossed!)
meaningful thoughts. And so that it becomes just a part of the story
that we manage to revise each and every day.
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