As a student I used to dread writing assignments I hated the thought of having to do the research. I procrastinated until the days before the assignment was due and it was all that occupied my thoughts. I would cram a months worth of work into three or four days and turn in note cards, rough draft and final copy on the last day possible. I have no idea why I did this and as I got older I shied from any career that would involve these mental deadlines of methodical work that entailed certain steps in the process that had to be completed in order for the project to be done properly. However,  I ended up in careers that required just that. In college I started out as a business major and then switched to history with the thought of law school in the back of my head.

   A history degree requires a vast amount of research and writing rather cumbersome research papers that draw conclusions based on source material written by others. One has to have the discipline to ferret out these sources, organize them, read them, analyze them, draw conclusions that can be validated by these source materials and write these conclusions down in a coherent manner so that others can draw the same conclusions as you. Unlike the writing assignments of my youth I was drawn to these assignments with a sense of purpose. It was as if I had to do them in order to quench some inner thirst for knowledge that had to be exposed to the light of day so others could be enlightened and solve the same mysteries that were plaguing me. I soon found though that most others, those outside of my chosen field, had only a passing interest in my newly found avocation. Now, for me, writing is a requirement that I am obligated to fulfill so that I may continue on with the prosaic of my daily life.

   I have some friends that I can see are drawn to something in a similar fashion in which I am drawn to writing. One is a floral designer. She has what to me is an astounding ability to take plants and flowers and arrange different textures and colors in such a way that when you see them makes perfect sense. A way that seems as if nature had exactly that in mind when designing these plants. These arrangements actually seem to make sense of and have relevance to the situations and events they are designed to compliment. From funerals and weddings to births and any of other of life's events we choose to celebrate, when she is done there is no doubt that these groupings were just waiting to be put together and only she could do it. Their form clearly represents the events they are designed for.

   I have another friend that takes pictures. He works as something other than a photographer and is good at his job, but it is clear from his pictures that photographer is what he is. His pictures capture moments in time that need no captions or explanation. They are framed in such a way that one can feel what he felt as he took the picture. He can look at a vast landscape and find the one small story of interest and frame it in such a way that everything else, no matter its size, is dwarfed by what he has captured in his frame of reference. He has the ability to do this on a grand scale or on the micro level. His sense of color and space and even time are captured forever in a way that tends to burn the scene in one's mind. He translates perfectly the language of nature and puts it in context.

   These are the things that writing does for me. I was never employed as a writer. I have always done something else to put food on the table, but like the two described above I am drawn to it in such a way that I have to do it to make sense of events that have, or are taking place. With words I am compelled to arrange an event, idea or scene into a form that makes it visible to others in the same way that I saw or felt it. I no longer run from these "assignments". It is something I have to do just as I have to eat or breathe. To avoid discomfort I am driven to sit down now and reveal my thoughts and feelings and make them available to others to make sense of in the same way that my one friend arranges plants to assuage grief, or instill a sense of beauty to someone participating in or observing an event. I show others what I see as my photographer friend does on both a grand and micro level framed in a way that when observed the same thing nature reveals to me is revealed to them. Find your muse. Search out that which drives you, compels you to act and create. It can be anything. Creation can be manifested in many forms and all of them are art. In doing these things we help define our world, shape our perspective and the perspective of others. We can show the world what we see around us and how it affects us. I have to. I must, and I have no choice as I start over, over 50.