I’ve always been in love with words, with their ability to take me places in my imagination that without their guidance I would never go. I love how I can get so deep into the world of a book that, even after I put it down, my own world seems strange to me. I love how phrases from songs or stories or poems step off of the page and keep me company in times when I allow my mind to wander around, looking at things. I love how stories unfold their meaning through words, both read and spoken. There is no limit to the heights and depths that language can take us. Words have power – they have toppled governments and separated lovers. They give us a way to make sense of our world as it is, and to try to make it better for ourselves and for those who will follow. It is my greatest desire to be a wordsmith, a master craftsman, a painter and sculptor of words. I want to create beauty and meaning in words from my heart in the hope that someone, somewhere may find solace, or inspiration, or joy from what I’ve contributed to the universe of language.
I’ve always been a good communicator. Language has been a tool for me over the years; I’ve shown that I can use it to achieve the ends desired by former employers and current partners. There’s nothing wrong with using language in this way; it’s part of the reason we have it. We speak and write to let others know who we are and what we need. Until a child can tell its parents what it needs, the parents must guess at the source of a child’s cries in a process of elimination that may or may not be successful. This is a very inefficient way of telling someone else what you want, and from the get-go people found better methods of conveying information. The need to communicate is an imperative in the animal kingdom, but it is us humans who have taken it from the basic need to transfer information into using it to explore who we are and why we are here.
So, my desire to create beauty from language is my own personal evolution. I’ve always appreciated the artistry of language and marveled at its flexibility and nuance, but I’ve never really tried to use it to create beauty myself until recently. Now I stand at the threshold of a new life, a new way of thinking about who I am and what I do and why I’m here. I feel like I did on the first day of school – excited and scared, and intimidated by everything I don’t know. Because what I don’t know about writing and being a writer is a vast dark sea, where every drop of water has meaning. It is exhilarating. I am a new person, with new goals and a new way of looking at the world. I never imagined this would happen at this stage in my life. It is an awesome gift, and every day now I wake up and look forward to dipping my paddle in the water and seeing where it takes me.
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Thanks for reading my blog! If you want to know more about me and my journey, check out my book “Everyday is Saturday” on Kindle. The book is part diary, part memoir, about the first year after I was laid off from my dream job. I think it has something to say to anyone who is struggling with change.
photo credit: ZedZap via photopin cc
Every Day is Saturday 
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