There Is A Rhythm To Writing

There is a rhythm to writing, a beat I follow that helps me keep pace with the words flowing through my head.

I can’t tell you if music is my muse or if my muse uses music to move me because I lost my perspective on that so long ago I cannot remember what life was like before it.

There was a time when that would have bothered me more than I can say, when I would have been ashamed to admit weakness.

But that time is past and now I use these pages to chronicle the moments of strength and fear and don’t give a damn what is seen or taken from what is laid down upon them.

There isn’t time to worry about it, life moves far too quickly for the frivolity of my ego or yours.

Florence is singing Shake It Out and my head is nodding along with the music because this resonates with me.

The demons that live inside have sprung free from their cages and I don’t care because I am done listening to their whispers and it is time to confront every last one of those motherfuckers and do battle.

Picture the Wild Rumpus in Where The Wild Things are and maybe you’ll get some insight into what I see.

Maybe you’ll see me clad in nothing more than shorts running through the jungle with those beasts or circling a fire or maybe you’ll just see us wrestling because sometimes that is how boys work things out.

And though I am very much a man there is still a boy that lives inside and that dude needs to wrestle so he can work his shit out.

I Can Still Hear Music

Saw in my stats that someone read I Hear Music several times and smiled.

It is one of my favorite posts, liked writing it and it makes me smile for more than a few reasons. There are layers upon layers of life in it and it is part of a giant tapestry that tells one hell of a story.

I still hear music and the bells inside my head push me to take action.

Maybe those same bells are what pushed me to open the cages and go after the demons or maybe not.

Some people dance in the fire until they choose to step out of the flames.

****

Bowie is singing Life On Mars and I am tapping away at the keyboard smiling again because my jaw is no longer clenched and the anger and frustration I felt a few minutes before is fading away.

Writing is and has been my favorite therapy and the best moments for me always come from times like this where I write with reckless abandon and ignore the whispers in my head about whether this post will make people read more or run away.

The reason I have lasted as long as I have in this rat race is because I have focused on fun and the benefits it provides me knowing that if I am happy it will benefit the readers too.

Happy writers provide happy content and that makes for happy readers.

Ok, that is not entirely true you can be a miserable SOB and still put out some pretty damn good content.

But there is a balance between the two places that we can find.

It is not a static place, it is really more of a seesaw that moves from side to side but it does exist.

****

Bowie moves into Elvis singing If I Can Dream and my lip does that little curl thing The King did and I softly sing along with him.

In just a moment we’ll hit one of my favorite lines ever:

But as long as a man
Has the strength to dream
He can redeem his soul and fly

Write Like A Motherfucker

I might have to find another basketball game to play in because my regular one feels like it is dying.

Technically I have been playing with the same guys for about seven years now but the game isn’t quite the same anymore.

A bunch of the old guys have moved on and I am not especially fond of some of their replacements.

It is not that they are bad guys because for the most part they aren’t.

But they suck.

They haven’t any clue what they are doing out there and the game suffers because of it.

It bothers me because I want to keep getting better and my window for improvement is shrinking.

I can’t stop the clock and I can’t turn back time so I have to make the most of what I have got now and that might mean finding a new game with better players to challenge me.

A short while ago my son and I ran into one of the guys who used to play with us.

He looked at my son and said, “Your dad plays like a motherfucker. He plays so hard sometimes you think someone is testing him.”

As he walked away I looked at my son and told him I only know how to do things at two speeds, fast and slow.

******

And I know how to write like a motherfucker.

Can’t say every post I publish is great or even good but I know the only way to get better is to work hard.

I don’t have the same time constraints here as I do with physical activities.

Hell, it is an advantage to be pushing 50 in this world. I have a ton of life experience others don’t have.

Out on the court I know I can get three solid days of play per week out of my body, but only if I take a day off in between games.

I don’t have to worry about that here.

Here I just write.

Here I just push myself to follow that rhythm and keep its beat.