Welcome to my blog. I’m not sure where I’ll be going here, but I do know it will cover the topics of my kids, depression, writing, marriage, friendship, art, books, animals, plants, Japanese maple trees, hydrangeas, blueberries, horses, cleaning and not cleaning, joy, sadness, laughter, family, and a bunch of others.
I’m an editor, of everything from fiction short stories, novels and screenplays to non-fiction magazine articles, municipal code, and web content. I write, too, but not as easily. Editing is a matter of making everything right, like walking through a gallery and straightening all the frames, tilting the lights just so, and presenting everything at its best angle and it its best light for best viewing and understanding.
Editing is interpreting. Taking a collection of words and tailoring them to say what they need to say, in the voice of the speaker, without confusion. Writing, on the other hand, is generating the original thought for others to interpret.
As we wander the gallery of art, of writing, of taste, gazing at each piece, we take away an interpretation that is solely our own. What the artist intends, what the editor hopes to help the artist convey, is the outer story of art. The inner story, the true take-away, is a construct of the viewer, as an individual’s experiences color every new experience, creating something wholly original from the artist’s creation hanging before us. Walking away from art, we take the vision of the piece, the artist’s intent, the narrator’s interpretation, and our own schema, layered over and under it all, causing the piece of art to become a personal, intimate experience, never to be duplicated by another.
The artist, whether of visual, written, or cooked content, lays before the world a layer to be incorporated into the greater schema and interpreted by a million different eyes, mouths, hands. This is the great fear and the great feat. To lay a piece of oneself aside, to leave it for others to find and devour. Art is terrifying and exhilarating. We love to react and to be reacted to. We love to be surprised and to find connection. We love to hate and to love a thing, a concept, a dish. Contrast drives us to continue looking. Contrasts keep us hooked on experience.
Roller coasters, the anticipation, fear, thrill, relief cycle, run over and over, hooks us in and brings us back to stand in the longest line in the park. Those few orgasmic moments are worth the boredom and discomfort of waiting among others, watching the few go up and around, jealously vicarious, wanting to be there and not here.
Well, that is life, isn’t it? We are either in the moment or waiting to be in the moment. Looking for the end of the line that will bring us to the moment takes us along many paths to many moments. Some paths loop back to a repetitive, predictable validation, like the rollercoaster.
Other paths, like the house of mirrors and glass, bring us through pain, or disorientation, to ecstatic relief and joy. Whichever path we take, looking for the moment draws us along, the movement itself sustaining the search for joy. Don’t stop too long or you will lose the momentum.
Lose the momentum and you lose the path, lose the path and you lose the opportunity to get on the ride.
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