I Feel a Need.. A Need to Blog?

I remember a line from a Billy Crystal film from some years ago:”Throw Momma from the Train.” Billy plays a night school writing instructor who tells his adult students: “A writer writes.” It does not get any simpler than that in this age of overactive imaginative journalism and the sensationalism of terrorism and political correctness. It seems like everyone has their own version of the dime store novel waiting to be published or being promoted on the information super highway. But there are other reasons to put thought to pen, or keyboard as it were. Tonight, I listen with my eyes as I read the text messages of my oldest son describe the loss of a friend and how a bad day at school has led him to share in a way his father is so familiar with. And so the moment begs for a rational response that can only be described as a need, a need to blog.

From my earliest days I can remember being a cloud watcher; you know what I mean, either lying on your back on a summer day or having the tendency while driving to look up and find something more in the sky than cumulonimbus or contrails of passing airliners overhead. There is always a story to be told or an adventure to be had just by seeing something more in an ordinary natural phenomena. Even rain contains numerous metaphor to describe the arrival of spring to the melancholy rhythm of drops from the ceiling into a bucket placed strategically on the floor. To life and love and the breaking of a heart before the brain even comprehends what has actually occurred or has accepted the ego wrenching idea of rejection. Ah yes, the writer in me seeks to find a mystery where otherwise most find merely an everyday nonchalance. And what about this coping thing?

I have written lengthy notes on paper napkins, on the backsides of ticket stubs and even on the palm of my hand when the moment has captured me. When life has dealt a changing blow or a sound or sight has caused a stirring from within; and so the writer begins. When tears flow or music inspires the soul to leap from deep inside and proclaim: “I am alive!” It is as if a gift has been unwrapped or a portal opened to express the pent up emotion of my savage soul to point a way towards humanity where man must go if he has any hope of survival. But then even the elephant goes away in secret to a burial ground known only to its kind. So what makes me different? It is that longing for meaning that must be met instead of instinct alone that propels me closer towards the abyss. Coping with a loss, a realization of mortality or the void left behind that calls me to continue to exist, or else I might be urged to simply put an end to it. And so you see I long to express what is not made of flesh but of soul. It is God given and recreated for his ultimate pleasure that I stare upwards, always looking for more than eye can see or ear can hear. I cope because I can and writing is the thing, the device on which I thrive. Good night.