Emily Dickinson Syndrome...but without the poetry

Emily wrote in her diary, "It was baking day . . . While my hands work, my mind sets off for wider parts. If it returns with treasures, I inscribe them on whatever is at hand." In another entry she wrote, "Tonight the needle exhausted my fingers -- while my mind flew away. The flight gave them no pause!"

It's the self thought, the reflective, the contemplative possibility of doing something more than what is seen. I often find my mind strolling through a daydream while my hands or body have a different task to complete. I am mutely aware of what I am doing rather than how I am doing it, and when it's done -- I laugh at my attempt.

Emily wrote about writing letters to her friends that she hadn't spoken to in weeks. "As the conversation progresses, my thoughts -- impatient -- speed on -- too quick for my pen. Then I fear they will scatter to the corners and escape to Eternity!"

The physical act of writing use to thrill me when I would set my pen onto my paper and watch as words would flow, then trickle, then dribble, then pause. But it's true, what Emily wrote about her "impatient" thoughts speeding, sometimes I lost them in the act of trying to write it down. My pen used to be able to keep up with my thoughts, but now -- I have to contend with a cramped wrist and pen imprints on my finger. Typing, ahh, now there's a skill everyone should acquire or aspire to obtain. Now, my fingers are quicker than my thoughts. My problem now is . . . spelling.

Emily wrote that she did not go to church on Sunday, but used "the morning of the Lord for writing while the others [sought] his presence in the pews." She had issues. "We two have been at odds --" she wrote. But, even when she was at odds, she admits "I feel as if 'grace is poured into my mouth' and I write what is too sacred to speak."

It is a complicated relationship. God. Christ. The Holy Spirit. Me. Sometimes, I find myself all over the place bumping into things and knocking them over or knocking myself over. Everyone else (God, Christ, The Holy Spirit) is still in the same place, except for me. Right now . . . I'm standing a little off center of everyone.

A Writing Prompt Exercise

I've been taking a creative writing course online, sort of a refresher; it's been really helpful. I had a writing prompt exercise where I chose a random phrase for the beginning of a sentence and then, I had to complete the sentence. I chose, "My father is . . . ." I think I chose it because I haven't thought about dad in a while. I mean, he flutters in and out of my thoughts often, but I haven't had a real good deep pondering thought about him. So, I chose, "My father is . . ." After an hour, all I came up with was "My father is -- dead." Finally, here's the rest of what I wrote:

My father is -- dead. He has been dead for over four years. Every now and then, when I forget to remember him, I think that is when he is dead to me, too. I hate that. I hate that because I don't want him to be dead. Instead, I want the reason that I haven't thought about him or spoken to him to simply be because I forgot to call. Like maybe, I forgot to call and ask if his knees were still bothering him, and then listen to him say he wished I were there to massage them. Or that I forgot how I came home after a hard day's work and laughed at all the ridiculous messages he left on my answering machine. And then, without a thought, I deleted those messages knowing that tomorrow or the next day there would be more messages from him.

I want the reason that I didn't pick up the phone and say, "Happy birthday, dad" to be because I forgot to call and wish him a happy birthday or that I forgot to send his father's day card on Father's day because I had put off going to the post office for a stamp. I want "inspiration" to be the reason that I sent him a letter out of the blue and included a twenty dollar bill with a note saying, 'Here's your lunch money. Don't spend it all at once.' I don't want the reason that I can't do any of these things to be because he's dead. I don't want that to be the reason, but it is . . . because he is.

Diggin' on it...

I'm totally diggin' on this concept of blogging. Truly . . . I am. It lets me get in a lot of writing time, time that I always say I'll put aside to actually write, but I never do. Which is weird, because I love writing. I have always loved writing. I love writing in the same manner that I love reading.

When I was about seven years old, I read . . . voraciously. I can't remember a time when I didn't enjoy reading. My parents had purchased a collection of children's literature books, as well as volumes of Reader's Digest (you know, the hard cover type that was sold door-to-door) and I read them. All of them. And when I read them all, I read them again.

Then, I read everything else we had in the house. I read the medical books we had (the pictures were gross), the business books we had (taught myself how to type on a typewriter), my mother's music books (taught myself how to play the piano...not very well), my father's auto mechanic books (learned the basics of how to change the oil and fix a flat), and if I went to the library, I was like a kid in a candy store.

I've read a lot of different articles that give advice about how to blog, what to blog, how to be a better blogger, how to write a better blog, how to sell your blog, how to sell your time to blog, and all that stuff. I thought maybe that was the best route . . . you know, the best way to learn how to blog. But now, I'm not so sure. I've always had my own style, and I didn't really get into blogging just to see who was going to read my stuff; it was more for me. More of an outlet, for me.

So, I'm diggin' the blogging. I'm diggin' on the fact that I'm finding my voice through writing my blog. And that I'm writing. Yea, me!!!

There is a book store down the road from where I live; I've passed it every day for the past 2 months. I look for the sign, even though I already know what it says, and as I come up on it, I read it and it makes me smile. Yes, that's odd, weird even, but it does...so, there! Two months is a long time to deny myself the opportunity of perusing the endless possibilities of literature. I was hesitant to go inside because, well don't laugh, but I didn't want to be disappointed. I didn't want to find that it was a crappy store full of crappy books. That would have been so disheartening and....crappy.

Paperbacks Unlimited, which is the name of the store, is a literary treasure trove. They have a large selection of genres to choose from, which I can attest to because I walked the length and width of the store in the course of 3 hours. It didn't take 3 hours to walk through the store, it took me 3 hours of perusal within the store. I shop in bookstores like some people shop for clothes or shoes. We are all addicts of one thing or another. I publicly acknowledge that I love British literature best, but I would never presume to limit myself to any particular genre, because . . . well, I love books.

So, imagine my surprise when I found a book entitled "Danny Boy, The Lengend of the Beloved Irish Ballad." I've always had a fascination with the song "Danny Boy." I'm sure it has a lot to do with the fact that my brother's name is Danny, but ever since I was about 7 or 8 years old, and I heard Doris Day sing "Danny Boy" I was hooked. And now I have a book about the song.

3 interesting facts about the song "Danny Boy."
1.) The words were written by a British lawyer (Frederick Edward Weatherly) who wrote it on a train on his way to work in 1910.
2.) The tune for the song "Danny Boy" is based on an old Irish melody called Londonderry Air that is over 300 years old.
3.) The lyrics for "Danny Boy" had been filed away for 2 years until Weatherly was sent a melody and was asked to write lyrics to compliment the music. He dug the lyrics of "Danny Boy" out of his old files, and with only a few alterations, a new song was born.

The author, Malachy McCort, wrote that the song "has a profound effect on people from all corners of the world, a trait it shares with the truest of any work of art." As much as I love the song, "Danny Boy," I never once thought of it as a work of art. But, McCort is correct in stating that the song has the capability of reaching people everywhere, and after having read the book, I can see the artistic value of the song.

A melody was performed by a blind Irish fiddler and his tune is carried across the sea and mingled with the words of an English lawyer who creates "a song capable of describing, at least in part, the contents of the human heart." Any rendition of the song will cause a lump in my throat and bring tears to my eyes. The words are full of longing and sorrow, faith and hope, loss and reunions. It's all of those adjectives and more.

Aren't books wonderful?