Does that sound sappy or affected or trite? I mean it sincerely. I would have sneered or rolled my eyes not long ago (admit it...you just rolled your eyes, didn't you?). How lucky am I? How good life is right now.
It was inevitable that I would end up in a coffee shop to write. I've been here at Beetlebung in Vineyard Haven for the past 2 1/2 hours. I've gone through a toasted bagel with a mocha on the side and am now working through my Izze Sparkling Blackberry juice. (That's as close to Ginger Beer as I could find, Greg!!)
http://beetlebung.com/Page/WhatIsBeetlebung.aspx
Since I had to go to the Post Office across the street this morning, I decided to try the coffee shop and its free Wi-Fi instead of the library today. I have to say it's much more to my liking. The library was ok, but the coffee shop is literally filled with writers to my right and to my left - mostly women about my age. Hmm, what does that tell me? It should mean something...perhaps we're all going through the same mid-life crises, or as I'd prefer to think of it, mid-life crossroads.
On the topic of Dad's book, I'm coming closer and closer to actually starting the story. You have to remember that writing something this epic doesn't just start at the story. When weaving such a complex tapestry as someone's life, you first have to gather the yarn you want to use for your warp and calculate the amount you're going to need. For your warp (the set of yarns placed lengthwise in the loom, and forming the lengthwise threads in a woven fabric), you will want to pick a color of yarn that will go with all the colors of your weft (the horizontal threads interlaced through the warp in a woven fabric; a.k.a. the woof) and not distract from your project. You also need to determine how much yarn you need, and all the colors that you will need for your weft, then you need to procure a loom, etc. All I mean is that I've spent a good two weeks just getting the facts that I know together in one document. Now I'm to the point of starting to build portraits of ancesters (this morning it was Great Grandpa Laurence Hogan). I started with the only photo I have of him, put everything I know about him on the page with ages he was when he did this or that (17 when he immigrated to the U.S. from Ireland, 38 when he married his wife of 25), and the page necessarily ends with his death and, in this case, a photo of his tombstone. Part of the writing process is putting yourself into other people's skins, and I was surprised to learn that I was quite sad when I put the tombstone photo at the end of the page. But at the same time, I promised Great Grandpa that I would do my best to portray him accurately and bring him back to life so he wouldn't be forgotten...at least not yet.
The music at Beetlebung has changed from The Beatles and Frank Sinatra, to something much younger that I don't recognize or particularly like. It's 3pm and the after-school crowd is bursting in. Time for me to go.
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