Back among the living…for the moment anyway

I cannot even begin to express just how very glad I am that July is finally over…and not only did I make it through relatively unscathed but I even managed to pick up a few stories along the way. Collecting stories is my main hobby. When interesting things happen in my life, I file those details away either by writing some notes in one of my Moleskine notebooks or maybe even just locking a few pertinent sentences or impressions away in my mind – where I imagine I have a cluttered area dedicated to preserving exquisite descriptions, amusing anecdotes, witty banter, and all the other fragile elements that work together to create a good story. I can feel safe depositing these valuables here, knowing that they will remain well protected and may even have the opportunity to grow and flourish a bit more before I’m ready to put them to good use. I have so much material stored away already: tales of my awkward childhood, disastrous family get-togethers, first loves, romances gone wrong, hijinks in the college dorm, early motherhood and marriage, divorce and life as a single parent, later reconciliation and attempts to live the suburban American dream while dealing with debilitating illness, financial crises, intimacy issues, mounting stress, etc. I can’t even decide where to begin so the only way I can attack the project is to begin pulling out the disparate pieces I’ve been compiling, flesh them out a bit and see if they can stand on their own. It is the only way I can imagine…and so it begins…