“Come on, Creativity. Up and at ‘em.”
Nothing but a muffled reply reaches me. I pull the covers off to reveal my own little writing style: young, full of passion, and dead asleep.
“Come on Creativity. It’s almost 11 a.m. I let you sleep in, now let’s get going.”
She groans and throws the pillow over her head.
“Mmmphf.”
I sigh and leave the room. I get another cup of coffee, a glass of water and turn on the live stream of NPR. I open up my guide on how to write the best f*ing book proposal in the world (not its actual title, just my name for about four books on the subject I’ve been reading lately) and try to concentrate. I jot down notes that will probably be useless to me according to the next book’s bright ideas. I read a chapter and put the book down. I take a glance toward the room where Creativity is blissfully unaware of how much this sucks without her, and I open up the novel.
I scroll back up through the last chapter and read through it again. I check spelling (when she gets going, Creativity doesn’t even make sure to spell her own name correctly) and try to look at the prose from the eyes of an editor, a reader, anyone but the mother of this darling child who is my pride and joy and the bane of my existence all rolled into one.
It’s pretty damn good.
I decide to try to start the next chapter without her. I crack my knuckles, take a deep breath, and dive into the keyboard like it’s a pool of dreams and all I have to do is plunge in.
I hit concrete.
No problem, I think. I must have just tried to jump into the shallow end. I turn the keyboard sideways, so that the Q, A and Z keys are at the top. I think this is really clever and chuckle to myself. Sometimes it’s just about finding a different way of looking at it. I leap into the role of being a writer, something I have just recently claimed myself to be on my tax return.
“What are you DOING????”
I jump and nearly spill my coffee all over the keyboard. My head hits the concrete at the side of the pool and thumps like a melon.
“I was…you weren’t awake and I wanted to start. I was going to try it myself…”
Creativity gives me a look only possible in a teenager. It encompasses pity, loathing, and a little dash of self-satisfied smirk.
“You tried that before, remember? You know you’re no good at this all by yourself.”
I sigh. I want to yell at her but I know she’s right.
“Okay fine. You sit here and I’ll get you something to eat.”
Creativity sits at the table, her long legs curled awkwardly underneath her. They’re longer than she’s used to, and she hasn’t managed to make them very sturdy yet. She looks at me deliberately and turns the keyboard so that it’s facing the right direction. I turn away and begin to make her some eggs. I get caught up in what I’m doing and daydreaming about what it will be like when we get to show Creativity’s work to people. She’s not ready yet, of course, but it won’t be long now…
I turn to give her the plate of food I just made and she’s not there. I look around. The door is open and the sun is shining in through the doorway. I groan inwardly. Creativity loves the sunshine, but not for work. She wants to go play. She’s probably out planning elaborate gardens or making up stories in her head about meeting a tall dark and handsome man walking on the beach.
I sigh and sit down at the computer. I turn the keyboard sideways and take a bite of her eggs. Maybe she’ll be in the mood to help me tomorrow.
Love and adolescent kisses
Morgan
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
The First Day of My Writing Life
I was recently offered a job as a caretaker for an island property in Panama. It was an unpaid position, mind you, but it would have been a place to live in Panama for free in exchange for showing guests around the island and a nearby town.
This may seem like an easy equation for people who have full-time jobs: no pay+work as caretaker+no vacation time=no. And they would be right. The fact that it’s unpaid is only one of many reasons it’s not a good idea. However, I labored long and hard over whether or not I should go. I thought about it for most of the day, then emailed the property owner and told him I wouldn’t be able to make it down there for three weeks. I am a writer, taking time off from “the real world” as some people call it, and it doesn’t really matter where I am when I write. Or that’s what I told myself. I told myself that it was just my kind of opportunity; it wasn’t the first time I would have worked for next to nothing (or nothing) to go abroad.
The more I thought about it, the more I decided it was almost inevitable, and the more and more depressed I got. I felt like it was the straight path I had been following for years: work, hate it, quit, go abroad, spend all your money, come back, get a job, hate it…
And out of nowhere, as I went through the day-to-day activities of my meager but pleasurable existence, I realized that I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to start my cycle again. I enjoyed getting up and knowing that I could do whatever it was I wanted to, and all I wanted to do was write. If I moved to Panama, it would be admitting that my path would never go anywhere but in a circle. I would inevitably not make it where I wanted to go, because being abroad would take precedence over my writing. I didn’t want that spiral into madness. I wanted to write.
It really shouldn’t have been that big of a decision. I should have perhaps been able to come to the conclusion sooner, or earlier in my life. However, when it did come to me it was like a thunderclap. I want to write. I knew it, I told people about it, I worked at it, but until I decided not to go to Panama, I didn’t realize how much I had grown to love my writing. Not as a person in love with themselves and their own prose, but as someone who has given birth to a child and cared for her by necessity for so long that they don’t realize how beautiful she is until one day she comes into the room in a prom dress and spins around.
My writing isn’t very mature yet. She is not grown up, ready to drive or move out or go to college. She doesn’t quite fit into that prom dress yet. In fact, my writing is prone to tantrums and illogical conclusions and PMS and adolescent hormone imbalances. She has pimples and braces. But somehow under the awkwardness I see something to love, someone to lavish with praise and patiently wait for her to stop wobbling and begin to walk with confidence and grace. She may be a late bloomer, but I want to be there to watch her bloom. So I’m going to stay here and let her grow, where I know it’s safe and stable and where we’re happy. There will always be time for Panama when she grows up.
Love and pubescent writing kisses
Morgan
This may seem like an easy equation for people who have full-time jobs: no pay+work as caretaker+no vacation time=no. And they would be right. The fact that it’s unpaid is only one of many reasons it’s not a good idea. However, I labored long and hard over whether or not I should go. I thought about it for most of the day, then emailed the property owner and told him I wouldn’t be able to make it down there for three weeks. I am a writer, taking time off from “the real world” as some people call it, and it doesn’t really matter where I am when I write. Or that’s what I told myself. I told myself that it was just my kind of opportunity; it wasn’t the first time I would have worked for next to nothing (or nothing) to go abroad.
The more I thought about it, the more I decided it was almost inevitable, and the more and more depressed I got. I felt like it was the straight path I had been following for years: work, hate it, quit, go abroad, spend all your money, come back, get a job, hate it…
And out of nowhere, as I went through the day-to-day activities of my meager but pleasurable existence, I realized that I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to start my cycle again. I enjoyed getting up and knowing that I could do whatever it was I wanted to, and all I wanted to do was write. If I moved to Panama, it would be admitting that my path would never go anywhere but in a circle. I would inevitably not make it where I wanted to go, because being abroad would take precedence over my writing. I didn’t want that spiral into madness. I wanted to write.
It really shouldn’t have been that big of a decision. I should have perhaps been able to come to the conclusion sooner, or earlier in my life. However, when it did come to me it was like a thunderclap. I want to write. I knew it, I told people about it, I worked at it, but until I decided not to go to Panama, I didn’t realize how much I had grown to love my writing. Not as a person in love with themselves and their own prose, but as someone who has given birth to a child and cared for her by necessity for so long that they don’t realize how beautiful she is until one day she comes into the room in a prom dress and spins around.
My writing isn’t very mature yet. She is not grown up, ready to drive or move out or go to college. She doesn’t quite fit into that prom dress yet. In fact, my writing is prone to tantrums and illogical conclusions and PMS and adolescent hormone imbalances. She has pimples and braces. But somehow under the awkwardness I see something to love, someone to lavish with praise and patiently wait for her to stop wobbling and begin to walk with confidence and grace. She may be a late bloomer, but I want to be there to watch her bloom. So I’m going to stay here and let her grow, where I know it’s safe and stable and where we’re happy. There will always be time for Panama when she grows up.
Love and pubescent writing kisses
Morgan
Sunday, March 22, 2009
The New R(e)lationship
I knew my relationship was over when my boyfriend took me off his Facebook. That was his idea of a clean break. He removed my friends and me at the same time and avoided eye contact when he saw me in person. He broke off all e-ties and hoped that physical contact would follow suit. Of course, no one else noticed because we had never gotten to the point where we said on Facebook that we were dating. That was apparently a bigger step than we were up to. It was almost faux pas when I put a picture of us up on my page.
So, now what? Do I e-flirt with my male friends online? Do I go to all my male friend’s pages and check to see if they’re single and change what I’m looking for to “Whatever I can get,” which I think may be the e-equivalent of “I’m desperate?” How do I meet a new one? What am I looking for on his Facebook page that will tip me off to that sort of behavior in the future? Too many friends? Too many status updates? Too much Facebook activity period? (If that's the case, what, then, does my Facebook activity say about me?)
I have a strange habit of checking out people’s fridges the first time I go into their house. I am convinced that there is a lot you can tell about a person by their refrigerator contents, much like they say you can determine a lot about a woman by the shape of her lipstick or a lot about a man by his car. My point here is that my method is pure madness and not based on anything at all scientific. For example: you open a fridge and there on the top shelf is a cut of expensive steak. This tells me a couple things: 1) fridge owner eats meat (duh) 2) fridge owner had expensive tastes 3) fridge owner can cook. So then I bend down and take a closer look in the contents around the steak: are there makings for a salad? Are there 45 different kinds of barbecue sauce? Are there potatoes? Real butter, margarine, low-fat, non-fat or whole-fat sour cream? Beer, wine, champagne? Is this meal meant for me, or is it apparent that this fridge owner cooks like this on a regular basis?
Slowly but surely, we’re moving away from the physical realm and into the r(e)lationship age. But what will my new e-gadget be to determine the same sort of information? How can I take my fridge test and apply it to a Facebook page? This isn’t as easy a switch as it seems. Facebook organizes the page for you and it’s constantly updating your content as it comes in, so it’s harder to have moldy old cheese on your page, so to speak. Just as with any new piece of technology, the amount of time put into learning how to use it is directly related to how much you get out of it. This could perhaps be the moldy cheese test. Does he have a picture of himself up? Does he change it constantly? Is he changing his status 8-10 times a day? Does he sign into Facebook randomly throughout the day, or just once in awhile? Has he moved more to the digital realm, or is it obvious that he is perhaps still strongly attached to the real world? There are at least a few fridge comparisons that I have come up with to help the hapless Facebook r(e)lationship virgin.
1) He changes his status 8-10 times per day = this man would have ingredients for a number of dishes in his fridge. He would keep enough around that he could cook whatever he fancied at the slightest whim, from nachos to filet mignon.
2) His status is constantly referring to a sports game or some new broken record=beer and leftover dominoes pizza.
3) He writes on other peoples’ walls a lot = cheese, tortillas and hot sauce
4) His status constantly refers to some sort of alcohol = Bloody Mary mix, celery, hot sauce and an array of pickled vegetables
5) He pokes people on Facebook = he’s gay. Move on.
6) He’s constantly sending you requests for new quizzes, like “Which race car are you?” = This man is insecure beyond belief. His fridge holds a lot of food he never cooks but buys in his more well-meaning moments. He mostly eats out…with friends whenever possible.
7) Every time he posts pictures, they’re of his car. = All clear fluids and foods that don’t stain. If you got as far as his fridge, it would be after having taken off your shoes…and maybe your socks if they looked even semi-worn.
8) Every time he posts pictures they’re of him and a bunch of different hot women = he has no refrigerator. He eats all his meals out at nice restaurants with these women, hoping to bed them later...at their house so they don't know he doesn't have a fridge.
9) He’s constantly talking about getting laid = his fridge is actually the most well-stocked, because he still lives with his mom.
10) He posts pictures of his wife/girlfriend = he's as good as gay. Move on.
Love and r(e)lationship kisses
Morgan
So, now what? Do I e-flirt with my male friends online? Do I go to all my male friend’s pages and check to see if they’re single and change what I’m looking for to “Whatever I can get,” which I think may be the e-equivalent of “I’m desperate?” How do I meet a new one? What am I looking for on his Facebook page that will tip me off to that sort of behavior in the future? Too many friends? Too many status updates? Too much Facebook activity period? (If that's the case, what, then, does my Facebook activity say about me?)
I have a strange habit of checking out people’s fridges the first time I go into their house. I am convinced that there is a lot you can tell about a person by their refrigerator contents, much like they say you can determine a lot about a woman by the shape of her lipstick or a lot about a man by his car. My point here is that my method is pure madness and not based on anything at all scientific. For example: you open a fridge and there on the top shelf is a cut of expensive steak. This tells me a couple things: 1) fridge owner eats meat (duh) 2) fridge owner had expensive tastes 3) fridge owner can cook. So then I bend down and take a closer look in the contents around the steak: are there makings for a salad? Are there 45 different kinds of barbecue sauce? Are there potatoes? Real butter, margarine, low-fat, non-fat or whole-fat sour cream? Beer, wine, champagne? Is this meal meant for me, or is it apparent that this fridge owner cooks like this on a regular basis?
Slowly but surely, we’re moving away from the physical realm and into the r(e)lationship age. But what will my new e-gadget be to determine the same sort of information? How can I take my fridge test and apply it to a Facebook page? This isn’t as easy a switch as it seems. Facebook organizes the page for you and it’s constantly updating your content as it comes in, so it’s harder to have moldy old cheese on your page, so to speak. Just as with any new piece of technology, the amount of time put into learning how to use it is directly related to how much you get out of it. This could perhaps be the moldy cheese test. Does he have a picture of himself up? Does he change it constantly? Is he changing his status 8-10 times a day? Does he sign into Facebook randomly throughout the day, or just once in awhile? Has he moved more to the digital realm, or is it obvious that he is perhaps still strongly attached to the real world? There are at least a few fridge comparisons that I have come up with to help the hapless Facebook r(e)lationship virgin.
1) He changes his status 8-10 times per day = this man would have ingredients for a number of dishes in his fridge. He would keep enough around that he could cook whatever he fancied at the slightest whim, from nachos to filet mignon.
2) His status is constantly referring to a sports game or some new broken record=beer and leftover dominoes pizza.
3) He writes on other peoples’ walls a lot = cheese, tortillas and hot sauce
4) His status constantly refers to some sort of alcohol = Bloody Mary mix, celery, hot sauce and an array of pickled vegetables
5) He pokes people on Facebook = he’s gay. Move on.
6) He’s constantly sending you requests for new quizzes, like “Which race car are you?” = This man is insecure beyond belief. His fridge holds a lot of food he never cooks but buys in his more well-meaning moments. He mostly eats out…with friends whenever possible.
7) Every time he posts pictures, they’re of his car. = All clear fluids and foods that don’t stain. If you got as far as his fridge, it would be after having taken off your shoes…and maybe your socks if they looked even semi-worn.
8) Every time he posts pictures they’re of him and a bunch of different hot women = he has no refrigerator. He eats all his meals out at nice restaurants with these women, hoping to bed them later...at their house so they don't know he doesn't have a fridge.
9) He’s constantly talking about getting laid = his fridge is actually the most well-stocked, because he still lives with his mom.
10) He posts pictures of his wife/girlfriend = he's as good as gay. Move on.
Love and r(e)lationship kisses
Morgan
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
A Recipe for Disaster
I have a problem. I always want to make myself look good. That may sound a trifle ridiculous, because everyone wants to look good, but I tend to avoid asking for help because I think it will make me look bad.
The last year is a perfect example. I had created a perfect recipe for disaster, but I refused to acknowledge the fact and ask for someone to help me by beating me over the head and knock some sense into me.
To make a perfect disaster, follow this tried and true recipe:
1) Live in a place where there is more rain/clouds/moss than you like
2) Get a desk job in such a place, so that when the conditions are the kind that you prefer, all you can do is look outside at them, then go back to work
3) Get a cough. Not a “oh, I’ll be over it soon” kind of cough, a “I would need two weeks off in a sunny place with no stress to get over it” kind of cough
4) Don’t take the time off that you need to get better, convincing yourself that the world wouldn’t carry on just fine without you to convince advertisers to spend more money
5) Start dating a man that gives you the cough, then wants so much of your time that you don’t have time to recover from the cough
6) Stay with this man long after you know it needs to end…and go back to him after it’s already ended.
7) Work with this guy just to make it harder
8) Try to convince yourself over and over again that this is what real life is like, and that you had better just get used to it.
9) Start eating a lot of Thai food and carbs, comfort foods, because you feel shitty about the fact that you can’t exercise because you’re too sick to do so. Every time you do feel good enough to exercise, you overdo it and end up right where you started.
10) Mix all ingredients and let them build. Voila! Forty pounds, a lot of tears and a year later, you’re nothing like the person you used to love to be.
When I think back over the last year, all I can say is, “What was I thinking?” Well, I wasn’t thinking. I was rationalizing. I rationalized away my own happiness. I rationalized away my confidence and my health; I rationalized away me.
I know I’m not the first person to do this. I know this isn’t the last time I will do it, either. But I am afraid, so very afraid, that I will allow my rationalizations to overtake my happiness again. I am trying not to lose confidence in my ability to think first of my own happiness. I am teeter tottering back and forth between “I should just do this alone, then I won’t compromise myself” and “I need to be stronger next time, so I don’t allow myself to be overtaken by someone else’s needs.” Both of these solutions take the wind out of my sails. I have to believe that there are men out there that I don’t have to protect myself from; who will have my best interests at heart, who will insist that I stay home from work and get better, who will do what they can to make me feel better, who will call my boss and tell them that I’m not coming in. I want to believe that there are men out there who will be able to put me first, not because I deserve it more than them, but because I will do the same for them and we will balance each other out.
I see the problem here. I need to be able to do this for myself. I need to be able to say, “No, I’m not going in. No, I need time to myself today.” But without even realizing it, that thought is pushed to the back of my mind before it’s even had a chance to be acknowledged. It’s because I don’t want to let anyone else down. It’s hard to realize that you’re only letting yourself down if you can’t recognize that you’ve given too much. Instead of thinking, “it’s not that bad. I can do this,” I should be thinking, “WHY am I doing this? What will really happen if I don’t go to work today?”
Yet the problem goes much deeper than that. I know very few successful people (women, mostly, but that’s just because I am closer to more women than men) who know when to stop and give themselves a break. They push themselves a little further, knowing they can do it, when they should recognize that they need to stop. The world will not stop turning. The sun will still rise and set. Those incredibly important tasks will still be there when they’ve given themselves a chance to breathe.
It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more we do, the less there is for others around us to do. We monopolize the chores, jobs and lives, and those around us become so used to it that they stop trying to help and let us run ourselves into the ground. And that’s exactly what I did: ran myself straight into the ground.
It’s only after these situations have ended that it’s clear to see what really happened. I look back and only now can I see how low I was; how unlike me I had become. Somehow, through all of it, I clung to the idea that I could give myself what I wanted if I just hung on a little longer. It ended up being true: I now have the money to give myself the time to write a book. But did I need to do it the way that that I did? Did I need to forsake my health, my confidence, my life, to get here? NO. I have never believed there was any reason to be unhappy. I have never believed it, yet I have let myself be unhappy over and over again anyway. This is not someone else’s job to fix. It’s mine. It is my responsibility to pay enough attention to what is happening to me to know when I need to slow down, or stop the path I’m traveling and get on another one. I am in charge, and I will succeed if I stop getting in my own way. That’s the answer….now I just need to stop with the questioning.
The last year is a perfect example. I had created a perfect recipe for disaster, but I refused to acknowledge the fact and ask for someone to help me by beating me over the head and knock some sense into me.
To make a perfect disaster, follow this tried and true recipe:
1) Live in a place where there is more rain/clouds/moss than you like
2) Get a desk job in such a place, so that when the conditions are the kind that you prefer, all you can do is look outside at them, then go back to work
3) Get a cough. Not a “oh, I’ll be over it soon” kind of cough, a “I would need two weeks off in a sunny place with no stress to get over it” kind of cough
4) Don’t take the time off that you need to get better, convincing yourself that the world wouldn’t carry on just fine without you to convince advertisers to spend more money
5) Start dating a man that gives you the cough, then wants so much of your time that you don’t have time to recover from the cough
6) Stay with this man long after you know it needs to end…and go back to him after it’s already ended.
7) Work with this guy just to make it harder
8) Try to convince yourself over and over again that this is what real life is like, and that you had better just get used to it.
9) Start eating a lot of Thai food and carbs, comfort foods, because you feel shitty about the fact that you can’t exercise because you’re too sick to do so. Every time you do feel good enough to exercise, you overdo it and end up right where you started.
10) Mix all ingredients and let them build. Voila! Forty pounds, a lot of tears and a year later, you’re nothing like the person you used to love to be.
When I think back over the last year, all I can say is, “What was I thinking?” Well, I wasn’t thinking. I was rationalizing. I rationalized away my own happiness. I rationalized away my confidence and my health; I rationalized away me.
I know I’m not the first person to do this. I know this isn’t the last time I will do it, either. But I am afraid, so very afraid, that I will allow my rationalizations to overtake my happiness again. I am trying not to lose confidence in my ability to think first of my own happiness. I am teeter tottering back and forth between “I should just do this alone, then I won’t compromise myself” and “I need to be stronger next time, so I don’t allow myself to be overtaken by someone else’s needs.” Both of these solutions take the wind out of my sails. I have to believe that there are men out there that I don’t have to protect myself from; who will have my best interests at heart, who will insist that I stay home from work and get better, who will do what they can to make me feel better, who will call my boss and tell them that I’m not coming in. I want to believe that there are men out there who will be able to put me first, not because I deserve it more than them, but because I will do the same for them and we will balance each other out.
I see the problem here. I need to be able to do this for myself. I need to be able to say, “No, I’m not going in. No, I need time to myself today.” But without even realizing it, that thought is pushed to the back of my mind before it’s even had a chance to be acknowledged. It’s because I don’t want to let anyone else down. It’s hard to realize that you’re only letting yourself down if you can’t recognize that you’ve given too much. Instead of thinking, “it’s not that bad. I can do this,” I should be thinking, “WHY am I doing this? What will really happen if I don’t go to work today?”
Yet the problem goes much deeper than that. I know very few successful people (women, mostly, but that’s just because I am closer to more women than men) who know when to stop and give themselves a break. They push themselves a little further, knowing they can do it, when they should recognize that they need to stop. The world will not stop turning. The sun will still rise and set. Those incredibly important tasks will still be there when they’ve given themselves a chance to breathe.
It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more we do, the less there is for others around us to do. We monopolize the chores, jobs and lives, and those around us become so used to it that they stop trying to help and let us run ourselves into the ground. And that’s exactly what I did: ran myself straight into the ground.
It’s only after these situations have ended that it’s clear to see what really happened. I look back and only now can I see how low I was; how unlike me I had become. Somehow, through all of it, I clung to the idea that I could give myself what I wanted if I just hung on a little longer. It ended up being true: I now have the money to give myself the time to write a book. But did I need to do it the way that that I did? Did I need to forsake my health, my confidence, my life, to get here? NO. I have never believed there was any reason to be unhappy. I have never believed it, yet I have let myself be unhappy over and over again anyway. This is not someone else’s job to fix. It’s mine. It is my responsibility to pay enough attention to what is happening to me to know when I need to slow down, or stop the path I’m traveling and get on another one. I am in charge, and I will succeed if I stop getting in my own way. That’s the answer….now I just need to stop with the questioning.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
The Best Job in the World, aka Morgan's Ideal Job
Anyone who hasn't heard me talking about the Best Job in the World for the last month or so should count themselves lucky. Basically, the job is to live on an island near the Great Barrier Reef for six months and blog about it. That's all. Enjoy yourself...go snorkeling and diving, etc...and write about it. And the pay is $100K for six months. Really. You can check out more about it at www.islandreefjob.com. After much help from my funny and supportive friends, I have created the video you see here and sent it off today as my application.
Here's what's the qualifications are:
- Excellent interpersonal communication skills
- Good written and verbal English skills
- An adventurous attitude
- Willingness to try new things
- A passion for the outdoors
- Good swimming skills and enthusiasm for snorkelling and/or diving
- Ability to engage with others
- At least one year’s relevant experience
Enjoy!
Love and best job kisses
Morgan
Here's what's the qualifications are:
- Excellent interpersonal communication skills
- Good written and verbal English skills
- An adventurous attitude
- Willingness to try new things
- A passion for the outdoors
- Good swimming skills and enthusiasm for snorkelling and/or diving
- Ability to engage with others
- At least one year’s relevant experience
Enjoy!
Love and best job kisses
Morgan
Friday, February 6, 2009
It's Not Even My Cat.
I have arrived. I don’t mean that in the “I’ve made it…I’m rich and famous and people love me.” No, I mean it as in, “I have shown up to my current destination.” Not quite as dramatic, but nevertheless exciting.
Two days ago, I pulled up to a friend’s cabin on Camano Island in the San Juans. I was driving my brother’s car, full to the brim with the essentials required to live on an island for at least four months or so and write a book. On the top of the list and the top of the heap in the passenger seat was Boots, a 17-year-old cat that hates car rides and told me so with every turn of the wheels between Bellevue and our final destination. Also packed around me in the Honda Accord were my bike, my comforter and favorite pillows, an air popcorn popper, a rice cooker, two Costco boxes full of food, a printer, a scanner, a laptop, some books, some recipe books, two garbage bags full of clothes, a cat bed, 30+ pounds of cat food, wet and dry, a litter box and huge bucket of cat litter.
I am here to fulfill a dream I have always had. My dream is not to become famous, or to become the best writer of the century or win a Nobel or Pulitzer prize. My dream is to be able to dedicate myself to writing – as much time as I want to and all the creative energy I have. In each and every job I have held for as long as I can remember, I have been frustrated that I did not have more time to write. Writing can be easy in certain settings, and it can be difficult in a lot of others. It is not something I have ever been able to do after a long day of work, whether it was teaching children to ski or upselling advertisers on new ad units. One day, I will say, “I got to spend a year exactly how I wanted to, and I am where I am now because of it.” Of course, I may be peeling potatoes in a kitchen somewhere, but wherever that place is, I made it there after my year of writing, and I will never regret the time that I took to pursue my dream.
I don’t expect it to be easy, but I do expect a fair amount of adventure. I will be blogging about it at least once a week, more to keep myself on track than to write to an audience. But audience, whoever you are, you are welcome to my thoughts. ☺
Now, without further ado, my first Top 10 from Camano:
Top 10 Reasons You Know You’re Crazy:
10) You quit your job in the worst job market since 1974.
09) You think it’s a great idea to move your entire life in your brother’s beat up Honda Accord.
08) You decide it’s worth it to you to take the cat that hates car rides on a car ride. You are thus subjected to the yowls of a cat that hates car rides telling you exactly that…for the entire car ride.
07) It’s not even your cat.
06) You move to an island that probably has as many people your age as you have fingers on one hand.
05) You move to an island knowing full well that there is no good Thai food within any acceptable distance.
04) You think it’s worth it to save money on heat by lighting fires in a fireplace that is possessed by the devil and always billows smoke out into the house, regardless of how many times/ways you mess with the vents.
03) You’re writing a book about travel when no one can afford to travel.
02) You agree to train for and run a half marathon with your friends. Yes, that means you actually have to run.
01) You’ve done all this and you’re the happiest you’ve been in a long, long time.
Love and Camano Kisses
Morgan
Two days ago, I pulled up to a friend’s cabin on Camano Island in the San Juans. I was driving my brother’s car, full to the brim with the essentials required to live on an island for at least four months or so and write a book. On the top of the list and the top of the heap in the passenger seat was Boots, a 17-year-old cat that hates car rides and told me so with every turn of the wheels between Bellevue and our final destination. Also packed around me in the Honda Accord were my bike, my comforter and favorite pillows, an air popcorn popper, a rice cooker, two Costco boxes full of food, a printer, a scanner, a laptop, some books, some recipe books, two garbage bags full of clothes, a cat bed, 30+ pounds of cat food, wet and dry, a litter box and huge bucket of cat litter.
I am here to fulfill a dream I have always had. My dream is not to become famous, or to become the best writer of the century or win a Nobel or Pulitzer prize. My dream is to be able to dedicate myself to writing – as much time as I want to and all the creative energy I have. In each and every job I have held for as long as I can remember, I have been frustrated that I did not have more time to write. Writing can be easy in certain settings, and it can be difficult in a lot of others. It is not something I have ever been able to do after a long day of work, whether it was teaching children to ski or upselling advertisers on new ad units. One day, I will say, “I got to spend a year exactly how I wanted to, and I am where I am now because of it.” Of course, I may be peeling potatoes in a kitchen somewhere, but wherever that place is, I made it there after my year of writing, and I will never regret the time that I took to pursue my dream.
I don’t expect it to be easy, but I do expect a fair amount of adventure. I will be blogging about it at least once a week, more to keep myself on track than to write to an audience. But audience, whoever you are, you are welcome to my thoughts. ☺
Now, without further ado, my first Top 10 from Camano:
Top 10 Reasons You Know You’re Crazy:
10) You quit your job in the worst job market since 1974.
09) You think it’s a great idea to move your entire life in your brother’s beat up Honda Accord.
08) You decide it’s worth it to you to take the cat that hates car rides on a car ride. You are thus subjected to the yowls of a cat that hates car rides telling you exactly that…for the entire car ride.
07) It’s not even your cat.
06) You move to an island that probably has as many people your age as you have fingers on one hand.
05) You move to an island knowing full well that there is no good Thai food within any acceptable distance.
04) You think it’s worth it to save money on heat by lighting fires in a fireplace that is possessed by the devil and always billows smoke out into the house, regardless of how many times/ways you mess with the vents.
03) You’re writing a book about travel when no one can afford to travel.
02) You agree to train for and run a half marathon with your friends. Yes, that means you actually have to run.
01) You’ve done all this and you’re the happiest you’ve been in a long, long time.
Love and Camano Kisses
Morgan
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