March 13, 2019

It always amazes me how very quickly life can go back to pre-vacation “normal” as soon as the bags are unpacked and stored upstairs once more.

One thing I try to do now—now that time seems to be moving so much more quickly than it did even ten years ago—is to cherish each day, regardless of the circumstances. I try not to wish any time away by staying, as much as I can, in the moment in which I find myself. That doesn’t mean I don’t anticipate the days to come, but I don’t make the future my focus. Taking things one day at a time seems to help me hang onto that day just a tad longer.

And even doing that, the memories made during those eleven days when I was outside my own country, have already dimmed slightly. It’s a conundrum, in my opinion: plan a trip and prepare for it for several months or more prior to departure (in this case, WWW in San Antonio was on my appointment book for 2 years); leave on a jet plane, or by car; enjoy each day of the time away; actually sit back and relish the moments. Then come home and get sucked back into the routine that you forgot, while you were away, was something you love.

When I am having less kind thoughts, I chalk this need for a balancing act up to humans being mostly a fickle lot. The grass is always greener, and blah blah blah. I think this quality is human nature, but one that is neither good nor bad; it just is. Maybe our “fickleness”—our letting go of some of those memories so quickly—harkens back to the beginning of human society. If the cave woman let her head stay on yesterday’s party, she wouldn’t see the saber-tooth tiger about to pounce on her today.

I spend a lot of time watching people. I find them endlessly fascinating, of course, and it’s also research for me, all part of the way I spend my days. You can’t create relatable characters if you don’t understand humans and their foibles. You can’t express emotion in words if you don’t learn how to read facial expressions and body language.

The words I pen are my life’s work. I am convinced they’re the reason I was put on this earth—at the very least, they’re the reason I didn’t die when my angioplasty procedure in 2002 turned into an emergency triple bypass. Knowing this, I seek always to get better at penning those words and communicating the story—or the message—that I believe someone needs to hear.

I used to say that everywhere I went, everything I saw, everyone I met and everything I did—in short, all of my experiences—went into my “well”, and it is from this well that I draw to tell my stories. So if I didn’t go and see and meet and do, my well would run dry. I still believe that. My most recent challenge in this life has been to expand the definitions of going, seeing, meeting and doing. If the purpose is to inscribe knowledge upon the hippo-campus, then any knowledge one obtains through any medium qualifies. I still want to actually leave my home (occasionally) to physically go, see, meet, and do. But as that becomes more challenging, I have to improvise. So far, that plan is working. I just have to keep getting up each day, remain curious about the world I live in, and keep learning.

Oh, and I have to keep writing, too.

Life throws challenges our way on a regular basis. That is life’s job—and it does its job pretty damn well, let me tell you. Our job is to dig through the copious piles of crap life tosses at us, looking for that pony.

The memories that I know will remain with me of the trip so recently taken are the times I spent with good friends, sitting quietly and listening and sharing ideas. Life for me, at its core, is about connections.

It’s people that matter, more than anything else, because people—helping other people, touching other people—are the entire reason we’re all here on this earth.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury