How do we know what we are destine for? How do we know what Greatness we can achieve? I don’t… how can we? says the voice inside my head. But don’t tell that to my heart. My heart tells me I have something inside me that is bursting to get out. It always has. Perhaps “greatness” is not the right word. Greatness is a big word. Greatness to me sounds monumental, too big. I think Significant is more likely the word I am looking for. Significant has enough consideration but feels more singular, more personally noteworthy with enough room to color outside the lines.When I was a kid. I would dream of ideas, or stories, or little vignettes. I would tell some to my best friend, some I wrote down, but mostly they lived in my head. They still do actually…
I imagine a village of short stories, blogs, and poems. Tome Alley has cats and rats feasting on overstuffed trash cans of discarded concepts. Lanes with lawns to sprawl out on or picnic or write my painted pony. And if you know me, you know that my village has gardens full of unruly misspellings and dangling prepositions poking their heads through picket fences.
That neighborhood is sometimes forgotten. Adulthood can do that. We race through childhood, where kids rule and imagination is Queen of Prose and Poetry. Followed by adolescences, where I was absolutely convinced everything drama around me was the end of the world and/or the next best seller. And then adulthood, where most of us move to the suburbs of our brains… the neighborhood where we rewrite ourselves right into middle age mediocrity with perfectly paved walkways of reason without rhyme. Copy cats nibble on excessive punctuation, and of course the verge is neatly trimmed of its fragmented sentences.
But I feel lucky. I wonder back occasionally. If just for a few moments before dawn, I take a stroll through the old streets. And to my delight if no one else’s, I drown myself in an excess of alliteration and hyperbole. This blog is just such a wondering.
And who knows? A significant scribbling could be just around the corner.
Beautiful, Barb. Concept and execution. I hope you write more like this so I can enjoy it and live it with you.
ReplyDeleteI relate lots to what you are saying. I feel an urgency to pick up a pen and write. As I did when I was in college. When I was of the world and searching, willing to take on big projects and right big wrongs. Now, I feel like I’m hiding; a basement bureaucrat. What I research and write might make it through the maze of policies and upstairs politics to be of service—significant. Or it may not.
I like that word you chose—significant. Be assured Barb, that you have done and continue to do things of significance. For those who know you and for countless others who don't. You most certainly are significant, vitally, to me. And I am sure vital to the whole, the monumental Greatness you spoke of that we can only hope to emulate... Your wondering at dawn is an act of reverence; your writing-- committing your imaginings to physical form is significant in itself.
Please, I’d like keep a conversation going with you about this. In the meantime, keep the early morning muse alive!
PS Have you read BEL CANTO by Ann Patchett? I think you'd like it!
BS That's me, Becky Sue...
I love this Barb, beautifully written. Concepts very clear, dancing like no one is watching.
ReplyDeletexoxo
keep it coming and be sure to keep tending to your mental garden of concepts.
ReplyDeleteBarbie, I don't think greatness is too big a word--or concept--for you to fill. All too often, most of us take on the attitude of "who am I to be great?" when in reality, the better question is "who are you/we not to be great?!" You have something inside you that will benefit only you unless you find a way(s) to keep letting it out...and make the world a better place by sharing and expanding that greatness. (and yes, I'm listening to this encouragement, too ;-)
ReplyDeletelove your greatness...let it shine, let it shine!
XOXO
Rachel