The Write Stuff

My wife had a friend contact her recently who always has a special word that defines each year of her life. This year, her word is savor.

Her friend is in our age bracket, so I can embrace her idea of “savoring” life. I like the image of sucking the marrow out of each day like a Cajun doing what they do with a crawfish head.

Jan says she is stumped about her word for this year because we’ve been faced with so much sadness. We’ve attended three funerals and missed another in the month of January alone. Last year I lost my sister and sister-in-law. I’m gathering thoughts for remarks to make at the funeral of a dear friend who may not make it to Ground Hog’s Day.

I think Jan is searching for a happier word to offset the sense of loss that comes faster and faster as friends and contemporaries melt away in the sands of time. She wants a word that can be a talisman against the injustice and fear of mortality.

I think I have my word, not just for this year but for my remaining years: write.

I’m going to use “write” to follow Dylan Thomas and rage against the dying of the light. Now I’m no more a Dylan Thomas than Dan Quayle was a Jack Kennedy, but I’ve decided that’s okay. I don’t have to be perfect as the pursuit of that lofty goal hung me up for years in writing.

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas

If you’re not Hemingway or Faulkner, what’s the point? Of course, I had a line about Hemingway in a song once and had a Nashville publisher tell me to take it out as nobody knew who Hemingway was anyway. In a world where alarmingly few know Hemingway or William Faulkner or Larry McMurtry or Guy Clark or Townes Van Zandt or Kris Kristofferson or John Prine or a thousand other word spinners who have enriched my life… it seems immortality is as fleeting as fame. Maybe that’s the point.

I’ve had about a two-year hiatus from this blog space, where I can say whatever I desire within the guidelines of the family newspapers for which I used to write. I don’t have a novel in me and that’s fine. I’m not a long-distance runner or even a sprinter. I now make my move over ground at more of a mosey. I’m going to try to write shorter and more often and try to keep it up.

I’m also going to start writing songs again because I suspect I still can. I’ve got my guitar calluses back up and dug into my old papers, napkins and notebooks and reunited with a few old ditties and half finished thoughts. I had a Nashville producer tell me once I was going to write a hit someday, only he said the songs I had pitched him weren’t quite there. He had just turned down the two best songs I had written in my 32 years and I had to go back to the drawing board to figure out how to get over the hump.

I let that hump turn into a mountain over the ensuing 37 years. It turns out I guess I was on God’s plan rather than my own. I discovered I didn’t need songwriting success to have a rich and full life. I can forgive my wife for making me so happy in almost 28 years of marriage that the high lonesome sad songs just wouldn’t come anymore. I can now write songs for joy’s sake and not let their commercial appeal matter.

So, I’m going to join my joint Dylans, Bob and Thomas, and not go quietly until it’s time to say good night. And when I do say good night, I hope I do it as charmingly as Gracie Allen.