Script Feedback
It drove me crazy to stare at the bare page of my notebook while listening to my kids play at the park in front of our apartment. I stopped writing first drafts on my computer a year ago to make the process a little faster since changing my mind seemed more permanent when I couldn’t simply highlight and press backspace. Sitting under my favorite tree and periodically looking up at my kids, it was all familiar. I was supposed to scribble the words to the soft white pages of my Moleskin journal with the ease I’d always had in this place.
The trees were a soundtrack to my scribing.
It took my son coming over to ask me the simplest question to get back on track. Children do this all the time. A friend told me, “Kids are more profound on accident than most of us are on purpose.” His question to me was simple.
“Dad, what are you doing?”
What was I doing? I hadn’t been writing.
His innocent face looking down at me was all I needed. I hugged him before setting my notebook down and went to play with him and his siblings.
That night, I began typing out my first true draft of the story, but I was missing a few key elements that would have made the struggle my MC faced actually make sense. But I’d get to them, I thought. I finished another draft before heading to bed, but not before submitting it to my writers’ group to see what others thought and hear my words acted out in a way that made them more real.
I loved my antagonist. I still didn’t know who my protagonist was.
Kendra, one of the contributors, gave me some of the best advice for this piece, which I don’t think I could have come to so soon in writing this. The story is almost complete, but I want to cry.
Time Travel of an Ailing Penman
Have any of you ever watched an eclipse roll by you in totality? It happened to fall on my tenth anniversary (something completely unplanned by my wife and me), and I wanted to give my kids an experience I hadn’t even been exposed to. The sudden darkness reminded me of a dust storm I was in while deployed to Iraq. The encircled disk in the sky made me think of fantasy.
Being a writer means I’m rarely truly in the moment of things but deeply in the moment all at the same time. I watched the moon blot out the sun and only took my gaze off momentarily to glance over at my children clinging to their mother as if God had plucked the sun from the sky right before their little eyes.
Being humbled by nature once more allowed me to reflect on my life. The drive across the desert landscape was filled with thoughts of inadequacy. I began this journey as a writer, leaving my career as a photographer behind and only a promise to my partner that I’d try my best to earn a living from my words so that she didn’t have to work so hard for our family to stay afloat in California. It wasn’t until I got sick on the way back that I gained the wisdom I needed to move forward.
A Tent in the Sand
For all of my avid campers out there, you know that setting up a tent in the sand is a fool’s errand. It’s nearly impossible to do, and there’s nothing to anchor your temporary home to. But I like living in hard mode. So we stayed out playing a little longer than we should have on the drive and didn’t arrive at the campground until the sky was illuminated by nothing but clouds passing down faint light from the street lamps and buildings.
I didn’t know the direction of the wind, so we didn’t position our haphazardly built box at the right angle. The gust nearly took us away, waking my partner and me most of the night to find warmth in our poorly rated sleeping bags.
At some point, I drifted off long enough not to realize the sun had risen. The emptiness of the desert allowed the sun to pass through the thin walls, heating our nearly thawed bodies enough to wake us from brumation. Holding myself in my sleep bag, I knew something was wrong.
The World’s Coming to an End
We were warned by a nice drunken man who nearly hit our car in the parking lot of a New Mexico gas station that the eclipse was the parker to the end of the world as we knew it. He wanted to pray with us, which we obliged half, hoping the extra time passing would help him sober up. His message, while absurd, had an enduring warmth to it. Some stranger wanted to pull over and invite us into heaven with him.
I should have taken his omen seriously.
Rolling out of that tent, I felt heavy. Sensing I didn’t have much time left before becoming completely useless, I rushed my family to their feet. After some time in the sand, we packed up our tent and headed for California. I dove until I couldn’t anymore more. Until the ache in my body became so unbearable that my shaking hands cause the car to snack in it’s lane until I was able to pull off the next exit.
While my wife drove and my head spun, a trance took over my brain. I thought about the trip up to that point and all the memories I was making with my young children that couldn’t have been made between my parents and me because of economics and ego. I thought about how grateful I was to be in a stable relationship with a partner I could rely on. I thought about that man’s words.
It was the Summer of…
When I’m sick, my mind transports me deep into itself. Usually the past, but this time I was living out a future with my oldest son on a trip to Tahoe that I’d apparently agreed to do every year with him alone. I remember it being strange to see him as young man. I had my notebook with me. He had a camera. Our goal was to split up at the cabin, allowing me to get some uninterrupted writing done while he went out to photograph bears or something.
My wife called me as I was putting on some tea. We exchanged mushy statements of longing until my son eventually walked in, grimacing at our display, even over the phone.
Now that I’m well, I want to explore more of my mind regarding my personal life. I journal, sure, but rarely do I dive deep into myself and explore possible future paths my life can take. It’s only when my mind has too much to handle that it’ll go there.
Maybe this is the light from that man’s prayer. Over the years I’d been so preoccupied with moments right in front of me that I hadn’t given thought to looking toward a future that I could create for myself. This is something I’m going to change going forward.
Home is Looking Up
Captured on my Sunday morning run.
I miss my family most in the winter. The snow had a beauty to it. Even though we lacked sunlight, the powdered ground bounced enough light into my eyes to have me squinting through my lashes as I road my bike hurriedly to my cousin’s house.
It was a black Huffy with a single gear. The writing was white with a red outline, and white handlebars if memory serves me. My tires weren’t studded but had enough tread and width on them to plow my way through the cream like street.
I live in California now, but I still get that feeling when I look out at the silent waves hovering above me. In my house, I’m alone in my admiration for the winter. But it’s dry canopy always reminds me of those cold rides to see my best friends in that life and this one.
Small Town
I took a trip to Auburn to escape San Francisco for the weekend. For a place that prides itself on $20 burritos, they don’t have much to do for fun. I have kids. Three of them. There are parks and museums, sure, but if you’ve ever taken even just one child to a museum, you’d wonder how I have so much hair on my head.
Auburn was beautiful. We saw the town first from the long road they called a highway. A beautiful iron (or was it steel? I’m a city slicker now, man, I don’t know) bridge standing over the street as we exited the ramp into town.
We rolled down our windows to take in the fresh air. Lush evergreen trees towered over beautiful stone-laid buildings. As we drove deeper into town, we noticed the leaves began to change, waking us up to the seasonal shifts we missed while living in a city that remains the same.
Our first stop in any town is their Central Park. This place didn’t have one, but it didn’t need it. The map of the area was littered with green blotches and tree symbols. So we picked one as a stopover before heading to the town center.
The smell of wood-burning fireplaces, grilled food, and pine engulfed me as we followed our kids up the broad sidewalk toward the bike shop, our second favorite place to visit in any new town.
The shop’s always the best place to go to get the lay of the land. MTBers know where all the good trails are, as well as how far they are from town. We learn about the seasons, what paths are kid-safe, how much the burritos cost, and the important things.
We needed a bathroom break, which I hadn’t planned for on this last-minute trip. I didn’t know if the stores required us to pay for items before allowing us to enter. If we had to turn into a shady ally using a key with a questionable dangly bit hanging from its ring. If they had bathrooms at all.
Luckily, we didn’t have to decide. As quickly as one of our kids brought up bathroom needs, another was walking into a store. An art gallery.
It was a corner unit boasting large windows spanning two of the four walls. The room was deep, sectioned off by a curtain in the middle. Western-inspired paintings hung on available wall space. Portraits lay propped up at the base of the walls, separated by tables covered with art supplies and unfinished work.
A man sat off to the side in a lone empty chair. His gray-streaked beard nearly touched the collar of his tee shirt. He introduced himself as The Time Traveler, to my kid's amusement. I could tell he didn’t take himself seriously, so I asked how he got that name. It was apparent, though. He looked like someone dropped from the past. He wore a brown cowboy hat with boots to match. His jeans were loose-fitting, and his jacket was a worn leather that looked like something out of a spaghetti western.
“It’s just something people call me.” He said.
He led my wife and kids to the bathroom and waited out front with me.
We talked for another 30 minutes, my kids long losing interest and leading my wife outside. I don’t recall much. Really, only his first line to me. Even now, the memory feels so distant…