The art of reluctant reinvention

Welcome back. Here’s a thing you may not know. Between birth and high school, I lived in five different states and attended seven different schools. That’s significant only because 1) I became wired for change, for leaving instead of staying. 2) I came to think of frequent changes of location as an opportunity to try out a new version of myself. I was an athlete (kind of) who played baseball, soccer, BMX, and later skateboarding (badly) and cross-country. I was a band geek, playing percussion in the junior high orchestra, an outcast nerd playing tabletop RPGs, an art kid, and newspaper/yearbook future journalist. It was a blessing to be dropped in a new crowd of kids and gravitate to those who I was most interested in, no matter how many social lanes I had to cross to get there. Of course, it had downsides. I would begin to find a set of friends and leave them. On repeat. I also regularly got into fights as found my level in the existing pecking order, that wasn’t welcoming to the new variable.

 

The throughline was reading, writing, and drawing. I was always straddling those activities in some combination. It was a portable structure I could carry with me, to give me some baseline of the familiar amidst a constant churning rotation of place names and peers. 

 

Speaking of place names, for ages I saw no value in remembering specific names. Why? Because all the names would change in a year or two. Why waste the energy. 

 

Truth is, it has also made consistency hard. For decades I had an internal clock that sounded every three years: Time to flip the table over and start again. I’ve had to unlearn that in order to have a marriage, and a family, and friends for years and years. It’s not been that hard, because what I value most is genuine connection, helping people, caring for others, things like teaching, making, and empathy. Empathy to a fault. 

 

Which brings me to now. I’ve spent more than 10 years, primarily focused on writing novels; with the flexibility to fit some art collaborations, teaching, and more academic writing tucked around the edges. 

 

I’ve finished my fourth novel. My lit agent is now shopping it to publishers. But, I feel like it’s time to make a change. I’ve gotten out of the habit. Change is hard. It’s age. It’s gravity. It’s that starting again is work and I’m running out of juice. 

 

I’m starting small. Writing some short pieces. Nudging my friends to collaborate. Considering a return to ceramics. Other writing. You’d think all the experience and soft skills would add up to something valuable to the world. But apparently not. 

 

Here's a little ditty. Let me know what you think. 

 

Togetherness

 

The longer we live together

the less we laugh

 

This isn’t a good sign

Our feelings are pooling

in the wrong direction

 

Should get out 

while I can still breathe

But I won’t

 

 

Thanks for your time. I’ll keep you posted about the new novel. Thanks for listening.