I'm Back!

I thought I would be absent from writing this blog for just two months, but actually it took me six months to come back. Why? Winter blues, combined with job DIS-satisfaction, threatened to send me plummeting into depression. To combat this, I went into automatic survival mode which turns off the creative channels. Of course, denying creativity only compounds the threats to destroy me with depression, but the internal tape-recorder was already on auto-play by then, so negativity was sinking me and anything I might put on paper was not for the public eye.

Then, true to the spirit of the artist in my soul, I had to hibernate and wait for myself to buoy back up to the surface where I could think and feel again. Only then did I dare to open my notebook.

It’s summer now and I am once again unemployed. Am I bailing out to the fantasy of the starving artist, or is it true that financial worries are nothing compared to the soul-suffocating stress of the working world? I don’t know for sure, but it I’m telling you, I feel alive, even with no money to spend, and I was dying, even with a paycheck to buy plenty of food.

I have great callouses on my feet, but my heart remains tender and fragile. That’s a great combination for rising with the sun and hiking to the river’s edge to write poetry, play with words and listen to God, and reconnect with my purpose and value in earth life. it’s a terrible combination, however, for managing the subtle nuances of academia that deny authenticity and chisel away at personal value.

Nonetheless, that’s behind me now. The days are long and warm and I am once again awake. Bare feet on hard earth, birds and water ripples serenade me as my soul opens up and my pen scribbles quickly across the pages.

Ahhhh! The riverside writer is back!