Finding my Wings

A budding writer could not emerge from his chrysalis too soon -- William Du Bois

Today, I told my mentor that I felt ready to break out of my chrysalis. We were discussing growth as a writer, and shi told me that shi thinks I am ready to start applying to writer's retreats and other writing endeavors. Shi told me the other day that if shi thought I wasn't ready for graduate school, shi wouldn't encourage my applying. That gives me some assurance that I am making the right steps toward my future.

Because isn't that what life is about? Always stepping toward the future? It's funny, because I move toward those goals, and yet, each day is special and unique and I don't worry too much about what I'm forgetting or what hasn't been done yet. I might not wake up tomorrow, so I have to make today count.

Every day I try to tell my father that I love in some way. A text message, a phone call, an email. I send him a letter every Monday.

I try to say hello to people when I see them. It may only be passing, but a smile and a kind word can mean so much to someone.

I'm waxing poetic here, repeating adage after adage. Maybe those sayings have some merit after all.

Today I bought an unlined sketchbook and a nice pen to use as a journal. The first thing I taped in it is a Robert Frost poem my mentor gave me. I'm feeling the call of the Pacific Ocean, and Frost writes about the ocean and it's power.

"Once By The Pacific"

The shattered waves made a misty din.
Great waves looked over others coming in,
And thought of doing something to the shore
That water never did to land before.
The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,
Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.
You could not tell, and it looked as if
The shore was lucky in being backed by a cliff,
The cliff in being backed by continent;
It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age.
Someone had better be prepared for rage.
There would be more than ocean-water broken
Before God's last put out the light was spoken.