creative love

Due to an unexpected turn of events this week (a stolen wallet, fraudulent charges to my bank card and all that goes along with getting your life back to normal afterward — a topic about which I may write in more detail at a later time), I’m still not quite over the finish line where the audiobook release of The Best Advice So Far is concerned.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share one more audio chapter — Chapter 14: “Creative Love.”

This chapter has remained one of the most popular and most talked about chapters of the book. What’s more, the chapter combines memories from 4th-of-July celebrations both recent and long past. So in honor of Independence Day, Tuesday here in the U.S., I thought sharing this chapter would be apropros.

Click the link below to continue at the new site and listen to the official audiobook recording of Chapter 14: “Creative Love” (the full chapter text is there as well, if you’d like to follow along) …

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fire in the sky

I’ve had a document open since the 4^th of July with title and picture in place, ready for me to write this post.

Each day since, I’ve sat down in front of a blank page. I’ve stared. I’ve thought. I’ve thought about what I’m thinking. I’ve done the self-talk to convince myself: This is going to be the day.

It’s been over two weeks of this routine.

Usually, a blank page excites me. Since I was a child, a blank page has always represented endless possibilities. Lately, a blank page has felt like … just a blank page.

Today is the first time words have come out.

I’m hopeful.

While it’s true that my head is still a bit scrambled due to the accident in April, I think there’s more to it where this particular post has been concerned.  I had what I can only call “an experience” over the holiday weekend. I don’t often use the word profound, but this was. I felt something. I made connections I hadn’t before. Parts of what lay within the scope of my physical senses came into crystal clear focus while others seemed to fade to nothing. Invisible. Inaudible.

It came in pictures. It came in inklings and suspicions that burgeoned into something close to ideas. It came in emotions.

The problem is that it did not come with words.

It has felt like it needs to be written. I tried getting around it and on to other topics, chalking it up as perhaps something that should remain with me alone. But it has stayed put, unyielding, like an avalanche that simply has to be cleared from the road if there’s to be any hope of moving forward. And yet in the last 24 hours, a realization struck me: I’ve actually been afraid to put it to words …