Storytelling
Once
And now I’m old. And that’s a good thing. I get to be old when many of my friends did not. They don’t get to say ‘I was old once.’ and I do.
June 21, 2024
And now I’m old. And that’s a good thing. I get to be old when many of my friends did not. They don’t get to say ‘I was old once.’ and I do.
Each year in June I write about my friend David Larsen. He died three years ago. David started as my boss and ended up being the greatest friend I have ever had and one of the most important influences in my life.
It’s little wonder Silly has fallen on hard times and just when we’ve never needed it more. So this is a clarion call, a call to arms. I don’t have a lot of runway left but I pledge to devote much of my remaining time in pursuit of Silly.
I have no particular wisdom about Time or anything else as a matter of fact, now that we’re talking about it. I am keenly aware at this stage in my life that I didn’t use my Time as well as I might. I was careless and self absorbed and arrogant until well into my thirties.
I love words and our unique ability to use them, to share our most intimate thoughts. I do and I’ve known a time or two when I was quite persuasive, if I don’t say so myself, which of course I have to say for myself on account of no one, absolutely no one would say that for me.
The tension in that courtroom is thick and real and frightening. For Trump’s followers Cohen’s testimony is unforgivable. He has broken the vow of loyalty that binds all who corrupt themselves in pursuit of power. And for many vengeance will be justified. From this day forward Cohen is a marked man. There will never be a day when he is not in jeopardy.
What can I possibly write about mothers that hasn’t been written before or say that hasn’t been said a million times over? Nothing unique that’s for sure but somehow we never tire of it.
Fred’s ‘Bulldog’ was actually more like a Bluetick Coonhound but that is missing the point. I laughed out loud. Fred, all 83 years of him, was exactly what playoff hockey means to us. It is spellbinding, the tension mounting with each second as our team competes for victory, that tension released as ‘we’ score, inching ‘us’ one step closer to victory.
Writing for profit is a fool’s game. I don’t, I write for myself. Some of my writing is profound, some is important, but most of it is neither of those two things. I am at my best as an observational humourist, filtering the mundane through the ‘amusing’ lens and writing.
David Sedaris is a great American observational humourist and he has unknowingly guided me as I spelunked my way through many a dark, confusing writing tunnel. He taught me to stop worrying about inspiration. He says that human beings are very funny, hilarious at times. The knack he says is to get better at seeing it. He is right, if I have grown as a writer it is because I am better now at ‘seeing’ us as we are, simple and complex, shallow and profound, tragic and hilarious. We are endlessly fascinating, a never ending source of writing inspiration.
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