Sometimes I think I need to step aside,
relax, and let the words come as they may,
not coax them from the caves wherein they hide.
Another writer understands the pride
I feel when words come fast, light up my day.
I think, though, that I need to step aside,
and to allow them their wide berth, their slide
from visibility to sheaths of gray.
I won’t coax them from caves wherein they hide,
although I cannot easily abide
the fickleness of words and how they play
with my desire to write. I’d step aside
more gracefully if I knew they would ride
onto my screen and let me have my say.
They sometimes live in caves and need to hide
from all my yammering. I now confide
words’ power held over me, and so I stay
in my world waiting for my muse to stride
near: You no longer have to step aside.
My name is Alex. I was born and raised in Chesterfield, Derbyshire. I now live in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. I work as a freelance British Sign Language Interpreter.
My writing is influenced by my weird and wonderful life. Although my poetry is very bleak at times, I really am quite a happy, jovial person – honest!
My dream… to be able to reduce my working hours, so I could devote more time to reading and writing. One day I would love to have some of my poetry published. At the moment I am writing poetry, my life story, and also I have two short stories on the go!
Last year I had the privilege of meeting the venerable Sangharakshita, the founder of the Triratna Buddhist Order. We talked at length about literature and poetry. I will never forget that day. I think the conversation we had, reignited the spark within me to write again. I have been blown away by such a positive and encouraging response from so many people.
Thank you to everyone who has taken time to read my work and to leave such encouraging and positive feedback. We are all stars in the same ink blue night sky.
Vicar (Photo credit: Nick Kidd) A Man Who Isn’t Afraid to Dream!!!
So, I was strolling through the internet this evening, really rather bored, but trying to keep my hyper-vigilant brain from worrying to death over the fact that my husband has been on his motorcycle for 5 hours on a trip, and hasn’t called me even once to let me know he’s alive, and I came across this little nugget of delight:
And it got me thinking about dreams. I may be mistaken, but I think it is safe to say that everyone in the world has had at least one dream while growing up. Of course, depending on where you come from, the dreams would vary drastically. I imagine if you are starving in a hut in a third world country, getting enough food to live to puberty would be a common dream. However, in America, the dreams are probably a little bigger and less life-sustaining. For me, when I was little, I dreamed of being an architect. My favorite uncle, The Master Debater and All Around Most Awesome Uncle Ever, my Uncle John, gave me some of the tools an architect would use, and I spent endless hours designing fantastic mansions. Then, after a relatively small amount of time, I realized that I just kept designing the same mansion over and over again, and the luster wore off the dream. Well, that and the amount of math involved…So, I moved on to other dreams (tap dancer, stand-up comedian, Comparative Religion Professor), but the only other one that ever stuck was to be a writer.
In my family, there are several excellent, published writers, and even more just as excellent, unpublished writers. What is really cool about this dream, though, is that we all write different genres, and none of us write with the same kind of “voice”. For instance, my brother writes about his church ministry and how he and some other financially strapped guys were able to build a church from scratch. Yes, he and I have the same sense of humor, but our interests couldn’t be further apart and our approaches to life are spectacularly different. My mother wrote many, many romance novels. They are actually really clever, well written, and juicy… but have you ever read a graphic love scene written by your mom? :( I can barely read a romance novel, much less one written by my mom, and to write one…I am not that gifted. Romantic I am not! I have an aunt who writes young adult books, including some kind of strange book that lets you make decisions throughout the whole thing, which then changes the ending. Witty and interesting, but beyond my abilities…..And another aunt that wrote science fiction back in the 60′s and 70′s. I was told that one of her books was made into a story for some drama series back then, but I’ve forgotten all the details. Strange that our interests never once seemed to cross over with the number of writers in this family, but so far, that is the way it has all turned out.
I blew off my dream to write most of my adult life. I’d written a couple of fiction books as a teenager, but I cringe to even speak of them. They were horrible. I just figured that my writing career would go the way of my architect career…no where. I just didn’t have the imagination one would need to create a believable story.
So, I lived my life, married, had a family (not in that order), and worked my little accounting jobs and all but forgot my childhood dream.
Then, I set up my blog, and I started writing about stuff I was interested in, or things I felt I wanted to share about myself, and boom! The dream came back to life like Snow White being kissed by Prince Charming! And you know what? It occurs to me that I am now in a better position to be a writer because I’ve lived a whole life. I’ve endured this circus show called life, and now I actually have something to say. I have something I can write about from the heart, and with real honesty and conviction. The dying embers of the flame of hope have been fanned into a roaring bonfire, and for the first time since I was a little girl, I have a real dream to work towards!
And vicars who quit their jobs to become Elvis Presley impersonators serve as a MASSIVE inspiration to me…Thank you, Vicar! You are my hero.
You are the wind beneath my wings… :)
I just think we never get too old to dream, and we should go for it!!! What is your dream??
A writer, housed within her quiet life,
reminds me of a snail, so hidden, slow.
She works her craft in shadow, down below
the business of the world, the noise, the strife.
Deep oceans roll and offer up their prize.
She watches diamonds glisten on the waves
unlocking mysteries of coral caves
and yes, announcing words before her eyes.
We all have secrets: things which we regret having said or done, things of which we are ashamed. It becomes a wall behind which we hide. On rare occasions, we drop some part of our armor; but, usually secrets remain secret. One fact, of which my family was aware, was that I never intended to marry. Thus, during my mid-twenties and early thirties, single men held no interest for me. Instead I preferred infatuation with men who found me more attractive than their marriage vows.
Then I met a salesman. He was bright, inventive, and never a bore. The longer I knew him, the better I liked him, which was unusual in my former relationships. We lived together for sixteen years and he was already ill when we finally married. I was forty-eight and he was sixty-one. I loved him dearly; yet, when he often said I was his whole world it made me unhappy. I didn’t want to be anyone’s whole world. I didn’t want the responsibility. A year and a half later, I lost him.
During his long illness, we spent weeks . . . months in hospitals with occasional reprieves of freedom to go home. During one such reprieve he wanted to visit his younger brother: a school principal and owner of a pawn shop. When we arrived at the shop he checked out the jewelry counter which held several wedding bands. When we married we had used a ring I already owned. He called me over, pointed out the wedding bands, and said, “One of these days, I’m going to buy you one of those.” I smiled and moved on to another area of the shop where I said, “That’s fine, but I’d rather have one of these typewriters.”
How could I have said anything so thoughtless about something which obviously meant much to him? I immediately regretted my words; yet they were the truth. Jewelry, including wedding rings, meant little to me . . . but I was a writer.
