Wait. That’s been said. And, my, Pablo Neruda could say it, couldn’t he? (Shew!)

… but there is no atmosphere in this winter, and so I can’t write the saddest lines. I have trouble writing any lines at all. Rain has fallen for over a week. The ground is spongy, and the creek banks are littered with long grasses and driftwood brought downstream by gully-washers. Temperatures have been record high, but the sun hasn’t shone in … a very long time. The whimsy of the season is absent. The gloomy weather doesn’t even induce melancholy; it’s just dull.

At this time of year — when days are short, but nights still don’t seem long enough to rejuvenate the exhausted soul — a writer like me needs slow snow fall out the window, and the twinkle of white Christmas tree lights in the reflection of the window near the big writing desk. She needs steaming coffee and music – real music played by clever songwriters on real instruments.

A fireplace might be nice, too, but it’s not essential.

This winter, the precipitation is coming down in buckets, not in flakes, and the fireplace is waiting for me to switch the air-conditioning off again. Thus, the desired writing ambiance is lacking.

Sure, one could concoct a musey-mood elsewhere, I suppose. Sometimes it is easier to achieve an inspirational atmosphere by writing in a public place such as a coffee shop, bustling hotel lobby, or transit station. These places help the writer disappear, or to step outside of who he or she is. For me, I must step outside of who I am to others. The right atmosphere help me achieve that, to a point.

Perhaps that is why there is a restlessness inside of me – a gypsy undercurrent that sometimes tempts me to be absent from my workplace, out of the kitchen, away from the home, released to the highway. The writer in me wants to roam and see and listen and feel and think and roll. I don’t get to do that often, but it seems that when there are wheels under me, my writer heart is happiest.

… but roaming requires time, money, and opportunity. For me, it would be a selfish investment. I am a full-time professional with a family, and like many writers with day jobs, I find myself saying, “I can write when I take time off work/when the chores are finished/when the kids go to college/when I retire …” This is not realistic. Life will always be busy, and writers write, so we must prioritize. I must prioritize.

In an earlier issue of Relatively Random we discussed the things that writers need: invitation, community, and outlet. We reviewed resources that provide invitations for writers, but without community, the equation is incomplete. Writers write, but they don’t do it alone; it is not the solitary business some people imagine it is. Writers need other writers to hold them celebrate with them, inspire them, and hold them accountable.

For 2016, I plan to reimagine my writing community. Within a new community of writers, I will find the balance between life and the writing life. I invite you to join me.

(If you are interested in becoming a part of the Relatively Random writing community, please drop us a note at our Contact Us Page.)

          Thanksgiving was my favorite time.  My parents and I would make the annual drive over the river and through the woods to my matriarchal grandparents’ house where we would gather with my mother’s six siblings and their children.  For me, the visit was not about the huge meal, spread wide and generously on my grandmother’s dining room table.  It wasn’t much about meeting the new babies, and it was only a little bit about the gifts we would exchange after dinner, when we quickly transitioned the holiday over to Christmas with some tree-trimming before my grandparents’ journey south to their winter home in Florida.  For me, it was all about the humor.  You see, my mother had five brothers and when they began reminiscing with my father, who married into the brood at a young age, the storytelling, the irreverence, and the … “education” I enjoyed as a young listener affected me intensely.  Their tales, their style, their gift for exaggeration and understatement … this and so much more influenced me to love language in a way that I will never be able to remove from myself.  

          I think my uncle taught me first, but only by example.  He didn’t mean to do it.  There was something in the way he related to others – something in the greeting.  Something charismatic and engaging.  Something quick.  I wanted to keep up with him, but when I was a child it was hard.  (Even as an adult, when my sharp wit was well-trained and capable, I still couldn’t defeat him in our verbal sparring matches.  Not even at our last one, which occurred in the days before his death.)  When one approached my uncle for a “hello,” one must be prepared to run a course of witticisms.  Small talk with him was more like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book.  When I was younger, I would walk right into his pranks by responding incorrectly to his “set-ups.”  This is what he wanted – to see my face blush, to watch my eyes roll, to muss my hair and “Heh heh heh.  Got you.” Soon I learned to be more clever as I engaged in the challenge of his chit chat.  Still, he was moves ahead of me.  Wiser.  Wittier. 

It took years to learn the strategies to anticipate his jabs, to deflect his verbal punches, and to land a proper rebuttal on his chin, and though I never perfected my craft, I improved and became, he admitted at the very end, a worthy opponent.