Claiming Dreams and Ambitions

    Brian Lamb, the co-founder of C-Span has interviewed many authors.  For a lifetime, I have held writers in high esteem.  I treasure words--the crafting of precise ideas.  Only now am I discovering the opportunity to write.  I have waited to be inspired.  Discipline was not part of that inspiration. No longer working, and physically stronger, I am discovering the opportunity to write more fully.
   Frequent to those interviews are several questions.
   When do you write?
   I craft words during a very special hour.  Between 9AM and 10AM, I stroke and massage the words--the phrases--that bring my ideas to life.  The time is new.  The swimming is well-established in my day's rhythm--incomplete if I miss a beat.  Disciplined in writing, I have yet to be.
Balance between discipline and multitasking I
    How do you write?
    Committing words to a concrete form--be it paper, or computer is changing.  Creation of living, breathing phrases, and ideas flow in the water.  I pray--I threaten--that my short-term memory honor my words--my ideas.  As fleeting as a butterfly--a kite in a March breeze--a pen and pad must be at hand, or at least deposit slips, if paper is nowhere to be found.  As I strengthen my arms, and legs, so too, I sharpen my mind.
    How do you write, in what form?
    Given a choice--long-hand or computer--I take both.  Longhand is my bed's luxury.  A legal pad, a Zebra F-301 black pen.  Perched on my bed, my back against a maroon bedrest.  Longhand before the day has started, as the day ends.  Underneath my cozy mauve blanket, and my white down comforter.  Socks on to warm my cold feet.
   How do you write--in what form?
    At the computer.  After my morning swim, before my daily errands.  To capture the words stroked, and the phrases massaged in pristine, clear pool water.
    An element of writing that I did not understand fully was discipline.  Multi-tasking has never been my long suit.  I want to focus on individuals, rather than a group, when I am at a gathering.  Given a deadline or the opportunity to be with--to share time with--people, I would choose people any day.  I recognize that is a luxury I may afford now.  In the past, that priority may have resulted in my not climbing the corporate ladder.  I will never know.  But, I am not going to lose sleep over it.
    I am inspired by people, situations, and events that incense me.  A reckless driver who cuts in on me and Zoomer.  World conflict.  These are but two of many.  My vocabulary of inspiration has room to grow.  Now I seek to build it.
    Routine.  Discipline.  Rhythm.
    A doctor told me to get up each morning at the same time.  Get dressed as though I was going to a full-time job.  Find something I enjoy--something I can do--and pursue it.  For nearly two years, that is what I have done.  Researching.  Writing.  Corresponding.  Now my wings span opens wider.  Into the water I immerse my creative mind.  What words--what thoughts and ideas--next emerge is beyond my knowing.  I shall swim in the stream, and go with the flow.

Do I Wish I was Younger?

     Some people wish they were younger--that they could relive their lives differently.  I do not.  Don't be mistaken, I have not lived unblemished by ill-advised words, and actions.  Yet, to relive my youth differently would be to negate the lessons I've learned--the insights I've been given.
     I would return to people, to places, and to events.  Not to change them.  To celebrate them.  To honor them.  But, not to change them.  To friends, to family, you know who you are.  Words escape me.  We know what we have lived--before us is our future.
     To unlikely people my mind is drawn.  To Katie, you taught me the meaning of grace--of disgrace, her antonym, as well.  You gave me poetry--"Brazen Honesty"http://patty-pattysponderings.blogspot.com/2011/03/brazen-honesty.html--a gift I shall treasure forever.  An unlikely gift, I dare say.  A gift nonetheless.  To Janet, never before had I met, and never again will I know, a piece of work such as you are.  Into my core, "there goes another gimp," you did gore.  Yet, your words broadened my vocabulary--sharpened my ear.
     My alter egos.  Pre-school giraffe.  A ballerina.  Patrushka.  Patty Tricia.  Pat.  Ms. P.T.  Thorsen.  Zoomer.  Aunt Patty.  Roboaunt.
     To places.  Michael Dowling School for Crippled Children.  Bassetts Creek.  2625 Vale Crest Road.  Washington, D.C.  Oslo.  The College of St. Catherine.  Grand Marais.  West Publishing.  Developmental Disabilities Council.
     To events.  Teasing.  Junior high school choir class.  My first class at St. Catherine's.  Baptism.  Graduation.  Master's degree graduation.  Master's degree graduation celebration.
     Do I wish I was younger?  Do I wish my youth I could reclaim?  No.  I treasure the joys.  I honor the sorrows.  Neither joy, nor sorrow could enrich me now, if I was younger.
     Once I was asked, "If you had not been born left handed, do you think you would have been right handed?"  I was tempted to say, "If you had not been born a woman, would you have been born a man?"