Perspective

Filed in: blog

I’m sitting here in my quiet office at work, thinking about heroes and losses, writing, jobs, sex, obsessions, and my intense desire to slap a few people who’ve been making life hard for folks around them for some time. Ed Bradley’s death makes me think of Hunter Thompson and other folks I admire (that’s the heroes part), which makes me think of what I want to accomplish in writing as well as life (that’s the next four), and the last is borne from my sense of justice and need for people to be honest and play fair.

Yeah, I know, there’s a pipedream quality about almost all of that. Still, where would we be without a few dreams on our plates.

I’m working late at the office, till about 9 (with a dinner break) in order to handle some of the detail work…reviewing catalog pages, proofs…the WORDS part of my job. The NUMBERS part has consumed my day…contracts, P&L statements, justifications, angry agents…so I’m using the night to take a deep breath and focus on those tiny critters that so consume my heart. WORDS.

After the job stuff, I have a short story to finish and a scene to straighten out. The WORDS keep me going, keep those dreams hopping.

On the wall in my office is a poster of Cornelia Fort, someone whom I admire a great deal. Another hero, someone who followed her dream. She was an intellectual, writer, debutante, who fell in love with flying and was one of the first female military aviators. She was in the air over Pearl Harbor, giving a flying lesson, when the Japanese attacked. She landed in the middle of the bombing. She did what she loved and never gave up. There’s an airport here named for her.

Sometimes the details of the day, the ones that make you throw books and have hissy fits, cloud the perspective of what’s important: the dreams, the perseverance. Looking back on Mr. Bradley’s life, on HST’s, on the people I admire most, that’s what strikes me as the common ground which made them anything but.

What’s your dream?

No Comments