An Office to Make a Living

Sitting in the park here, I have found my new office. My neighbors are picnicking and fishing. Couriers run through delivering the usual sounds of squeaky tricycles, children’s laughter, and profound statements like, “that hill was hard!” and “I hate fishing.” Everyone I see has smiled within the last five minutes, if they are not currently, and this is quite rare, as offices go. We should all work in parks.

Much of my life, I have purred at the thought of being a writer for a living, my only excuse for not being one was that I did not know how. Something has clicked now; not that I have learned to write well, or even how to use a semicolon. Something has clicked in that I have come to the conclusion that in order for one to become a writer, one must write. I am now a writer.

When people ask me what I do, I will tell them the truth: I am a writer. I am living. Therefore, I write for a living. Currently, I do other things for money, but for a living, I write.

It is not that simple though, for one must do things other than writing in order to write well. I must also read. I must sit in this park, or other parks, watching multitalented birds that both fly and swim and rest for a living. I must let a fly rest on my shoulder as I write and on my finger as I read. I must watch families choose picnic spots with no assigned scout, carrying all of there picnic gear to one spot, only to change their mind and carry themselves and the whole lot to another. I must listen to the universal languages of music and laughter, pondering it all.

Unfortunately, because I enjoy writing and it does not cause me pain, some may become upset that I spend my time this way, doing these things. They will say things like, “life is hard. It is tough and no fun, and that is just the way it is.” They will also say "you cannot run away from your problems. If you are a mouse trapped in a barrel of cream, you must swim and fight until you have churned the cream into butter and can climb out." I guess I don’t mind cream.

Another theory I am developing about writing is that I must do some interesting living if I am to write anything of interest. Maybe that is why I write best at the beginning and end of the day; those quiet times when the mind journeys to the future and past, looking forward and back, polishing the gems of dreams and experience.

This entry is sponsored by The Majic Fishing Pole.