Coppery tendrils in the darkness
In the cool darkness, you can feel it.
Icy tendrils, a cold fog, fingers that barely register.
Lie there, still, and you can taste it. The coppery taste in your mouth after you’ve bit your tongue.
Defeat. Despair.
Cap’n never asked, nor did I go into great detail about the difficulties in The Tension. He didn’t give any advice, either. He just talked about his experiences and where they left him.
Doing exactly what he wants to do. Or damn near it.
“Of course, you’re a writer and that’s different,” he said.
I know and like my present. But defeat and despair clouds the future. And I will not give in.
The Cap’n has been bankrupt several times. He has made a lot of money and he’s done amazing things. Like me, he is a survivor. Unlike me, he has tremendous faith.
(I’m trying, hey.)
“You have this thing that is you. You’ll be OK.”
I write. It isn’t a business. It isn’t tangible. Marketable, yes, but how? I don’t need to make a million; I just want to be comfortable. I want to grow as a writer, but still live the life I have begun to carve out for myself.
So the despair and the defeat lurk in the shadows. I cannot help but feel the tendrils, taste its coppery taste.
All these feelings came rushing back, like the cold that filtered through my open bedroom window, after Tuesday night’s outing. I watched the Banff Mountain Film Festival’s “Radical Reels” films. Eight in all, all about extreme sports and the man and women who pursue them.
One, “Hustle & Snow,” followed ski bums around Tahoe. Guys who work crappy jobs all summer, live on $10 a day, just so they can ski.
“I’m such a slacker,” one guy said. “used to be, I’d get up, grab a shower, stretch and go ski. Get done, grab a shower and stretch and walk the dog. The way it snowed every day last year, it was all I could do to walk that dog.”
Such a singular purpose. Such a release to do what you love, and not worry about the bills and the house and the car.
“I want to have this life, between my 20s and 40s where I’m not working for a house and a car,” a South African kayaker said. “So that when I’m in my 40s, I can work for a house and a car and look back on the life that I had and be Ok with sitting around all broken – with a house and a car.”
I see freedom in that.
But I feel responsibility to be true to this talent that I have.
So I meander on. Fending off the darkness with exercise and friends.
I listen to the world and try to understand what it is telling me.
Icy tendrils, a cold fog, fingers that barely register.
Lie there, still, and you can taste it. The coppery taste in your mouth after you’ve bit your tongue.
Defeat. Despair.
Cap’n never asked, nor did I go into great detail about the difficulties in The Tension. He didn’t give any advice, either. He just talked about his experiences and where they left him.
Doing exactly what he wants to do. Or damn near it.
“Of course, you’re a writer and that’s different,” he said.
I know and like my present. But defeat and despair clouds the future. And I will not give in.
The Cap’n has been bankrupt several times. He has made a lot of money and he’s done amazing things. Like me, he is a survivor. Unlike me, he has tremendous faith.
(I’m trying, hey.)
“You have this thing that is you. You’ll be OK.”
I write. It isn’t a business. It isn’t tangible. Marketable, yes, but how? I don’t need to make a million; I just want to be comfortable. I want to grow as a writer, but still live the life I have begun to carve out for myself.
So the despair and the defeat lurk in the shadows. I cannot help but feel the tendrils, taste its coppery taste.
All these feelings came rushing back, like the cold that filtered through my open bedroom window, after Tuesday night’s outing. I watched the Banff Mountain Film Festival’s “Radical Reels” films. Eight in all, all about extreme sports and the man and women who pursue them.
One, “Hustle & Snow,” followed ski bums around Tahoe. Guys who work crappy jobs all summer, live on $10 a day, just so they can ski.
“I’m such a slacker,” one guy said. “used to be, I’d get up, grab a shower, stretch and go ski. Get done, grab a shower and stretch and walk the dog. The way it snowed every day last year, it was all I could do to walk that dog.”
Such a singular purpose. Such a release to do what you love, and not worry about the bills and the house and the car.
“I want to have this life, between my 20s and 40s where I’m not working for a house and a car,” a South African kayaker said. “So that when I’m in my 40s, I can work for a house and a car and look back on the life that I had and be Ok with sitting around all broken – with a house and a car.”
I see freedom in that.
But I feel responsibility to be true to this talent that I have.
So I meander on. Fending off the darkness with exercise and friends.
I listen to the world and try to understand what it is telling me.
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