--I KEEP DRIVING AROUND IN CIRCLES

…Do you need approval very much? 

Or are you the kind of person who can leap forward,--in whatever endeavor, against whatever storm or stillness--and keep persevering?

Me, I’m somewhere in the middle, leaning awkwardly and vulnerably toward the former.

 I don’t know if I could keep writing if someone—albeit, several people—said I was shitty at it.  I’d like to think I could keep going, but I just don’t know.  I really don’t.  Mostly I doubt it.

That’s why it gets tricky, say when you’re writing, say when you’re writing something long, maybe like a novel, and it’s just you and the stark-white computer pages staring back at you.

Or perhaps it’s even you and some feedback from others you’ve been given that you might suspect are merely kind critiques, their words intent on not hurting or wounding you too much, rendered that way for all the right reasons, while their having done so leaves you doubtful about ever achieving your dreams?

What if it’s not writing we’re talking about here, but something else?  Like does He/She love me?  r how much does He/She love me? 

Or, when He/She says they love me, does it come from a dutiful position, or does it come from the center of their heart that beats and bleeds true? 

What is the subject is about something that’s important to you—love or otherwise-- and you’re unsure if the person speaking to you is being radically honest?

Do you accept it as fact, or do you hold it up high to the light and look for crevices that could actually portend completely different meanings?

…So, see how I am tonight?

This late? 

I’m stupid, most likely,

lost in translation,

open yet inarticulate.

heart on a sleeve bleeding and needing a bandage--

A gangly nine year-old with a dream…

…Hey ho, but here are some other folks’--“folks” or “folks’” being expressions I never verbally used before, in print or otherwise--sentiments on things of much more importance:

-“Be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world.”  Paul Harding

-“Somehow we all feel broken.” Nigel Lithgow

-“We have failed to recognize our one great asset: time. A conscientious use of it could make us into something quite amazing.”  Friedrich Schiller

 -“One climbs a mountain not to conquer it, but to be lifted away from the earth up into the sky.” Russell Banks

 -“Fear is the greatest obstacle to learning. But fear is your best friend. Fear is like fire. If you learn to -control it, you let it work for you. If you don’t learn to control it, it’ll destroy you and everything around you.”  Boxing trainer, Cus D'Amato, to 13 year old Mike Tyson

Question:  “What is life about?”

Hepburn:  “It's about working hard and loving someone. Oh, and having fun. And, if you're lucky, you keep your health and someone will love you back.”

-- Katherine Hepburn to biographer Scott Berg

-“I'm not a writer with a drinking problem, I'm a drinker with a writing problem.” Dorothy Parker

-"When you are happy, you can forgive a great deal." Princess Diana

-"Your memory has a mind of its own.  Let it go to work.  Pay attention." John Dufresne

-"It is a privilege to prepare the place where someone else will sleep." Elizabeth Jolley

"There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self." Aldous Huxley