Our Town

In my first post here in this bright and shiny new blogspot, I wanted to talk about gratefulness.

This last year, I wrote and published my first book. It was a simply amazing process. Writing your true life experiences down, whether for publishing, or for pure self exploration never to be published and seen by others, is an extremely edifying catharsis.

You are able to look back at your life, from the safety of the future, and see things in a new and different light. The light of time that has passed. You can see the child or person you were, and you can have sympathy for that person. You can also realize maybe that you were an idiot sometimes, or that you were gregarious beyond your means. You can also have empathy for the folks who were around you. You can also see monsters in the light of day.

I would HIGHLY recommend that anyone reading this...that YOU, who are reading this, write your memoir. Start by opening a Word Document and begin with writing out a memory.
ANY memory.
It doesn't matter what you remember, just imagine it with as much detail, sound, sight and actions that you can muster.
Really relive that particular moment, whether it's just petting a cat or a car journey.
Remember the sights and feelings and scents.
Relive it fully!

There may be laughter. There may be tears. There may be fear. There may be great love.

But this memory is YOURS and yours alone. Share it or don't share it.

Then write another memory on another day.
File this memory in your Word Document and put it before or after your first story.
This is how you start to amass YOUR STORY, which will take shape before your very eyes.

Something MAGICKAL will happen.

You will see yourself....and others.....through new eyes.
Through eyes that have seen much more than the day that event happened to you.

In a way, it's much like one of the last scenes in the play "Our Town" (which I always hated, btw).
One of the characters, Emily, now dead, goes back to relive her 12th birthday. She finds it too painful to relive and regrets much of her life, which had gone unpondered and unlived while living.

If you really think your life sucks right now....then I would suggest this exercise:

Think of yourself in the grave.

The quiet. The dark. The cold. The silence. 

What would you be doing different if you had the chance to breathe again?

What situation or life experience would you savor if you only could?

Is there anything you would change if you could?

Life is for living my dearie darlings. While Emily in the play didn't like looking back, nor did she like what she found, she DID find that people should be grateful for THIS DAY.

And I found when looking back in my book, that there was much to learn and I am grateful for all I went through, learned and experienced!

There is MUCH joy in every person, place and event. Just think about it as if you weren't allowed to be there, if you were instead, cold in a grave, how sweet and delicious this particular moment would be if you weren't allowed it. Ebeneezer Scrooge felt this way as he cried on his imagined grave. He thought of what a dumb, selfish shit he'd been, and vowed to change.

It is a Powerful Exercise indeed. For Your Life, when pondered, changes from disgust and regret into beauty and HOPE. The possibilities are ENDLESS.

Aye, the grave can wait for me.

But in the meantime....I will LIVE life to the fullest.

Emily, Scrooge and I all approve if you will only do the same.

Remember.....the "Present" is a GIFT.