A Year Ago to Now: More Positive Stuff

It is difficult to believe that one year ago Diane and I were preparing to return to Montana from our visit to the Netherlands. A full year has come and gone since last we saw our friends/family there. We started missing them even before we left. But it has been an eventful year for us: two grandbabies born six weeks apart, a wonderful slew of other babies born to people we care about, our grandson Xander finishing Kindergarten and entering First Grade, a trip to California during which we saw as many friends and family as we could and met our grandson Chase, and a relatively peaceful life up in the forest above Flathead lake. We even got to see wild horses on Wild Horse Island just two days ago. And Sunday we get the honor of attending a symphony concert at our local and surprisingly professional Glacier Symphony that will include the sonic whirlwind, Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique. Life is good, and I remind myself how important it is to say that life is good, even when it doesn’t seem to be. A year ago also marks the beginning of a remarkable creative journey for me. I always write, I cannot help it: it is part of who I am, a very very large part. Everyone who knows me knows that. My little pocket notebook sits ready in my back pocket wherever I go, much to the annoyance of some and amusement of others. But in the last year I feel my writing has kicked into hyperdrive, and I am seeing results. I published five volumes of my poetry on Kindle, two of which now exist in paperback form. I saw poems published in over half a dozen magazines online, plus several articles and blogs. I re-formatted my novel Amber Waves into a sleeker, more user-friendly, and cheaper version. I formed plans for the revamping of other older material into book form, I write poetry almost every day, and I have come up with a way to let the characters of my first novel interact with new characters in new situations in a follow-up project that is starting to gel and centers around a new name, George Damon Nills. Nills will allow me to do what Kurt Vonnegut said he did in his masterpiece, Slaughterhouse Five: find a way to tell one story by telling another. Life is indeed good. Life is busy, and that is good. Travel plans are mostly on hold. 2015 will be one in which, like 2014, we wish we could. But our door is open and we hope others, who wish they could, will find a way toward our neck of the woods. And of course there is always the Lottery – I do play, I do buy that ridiculous chance at a bit of hope. Aqnd contemplate how best to use the winnings once they fund. It’s nice to dream. But when I sit at the keyboard and clack out sequences of letters into something sensible and sometimes eerily profound, that is when my dreams come true. And that is when life is really, really good.