NIGHTTIME STARS, WRITING, PEOPLE

The chilly air has returned but from what I have read it is not permanent. It is extra dark tonight, heavy overcast and the moon ceased to exist. I don't like not being able to see the stars. I love to stare up at the various constellations and know that they were the same ones that Homer and Shakespeare wrote about, Apelles and Van Gogh drew, that Galileo and Copernicus studied, that Mozart saw from his carriage traveling along the rustic dirt roads from show to show. History's great minds and lives and events all took place beneath the stars that I stare at. The beams of starlight that hit my eyes are old, older than time, I wonder sometimes how old? How much of the very distant past do we really understand? I wonder sometimes if Atlantis was a real place and if so, what did the people think of the constellations? How many did they see that have since burned out and no longer exist for our lifetime? And then I get to thinking about life and how much actually occurs in the span of our short lives and how many emotions we feel, happiness and sadness, fear and frustration, rage and betrayal, hopelessness and pure confidence, euphoria and despair. It is incredible and hard to reason through in only one night, in only one life. Why did say, John Kennedy Toole who worked so hard on his writing, die only to then have it become internationally read? Or why did someone like Van Gogh who spent his meager funds on paint and canvass producing some of the worlds most beautiful art die and then the work becomes immortal, or Mozart who was in desperate financial straits in his life go on to sell over a billion dollars worth of compositions. Not to be morbid tonight but the stars in general get the wheels in my head running on over drive. Sometimes there are so many thoughts it's hard for my pen to keep up. Some days and nights I write so frantically my hand begins to cramp and then just plain paralyzes from over work. When it comes to writing for example I have a compulsion. I have an innate desire, more like an animalistic, primal urge and no matter how much I write I never feel satisfied and thus I have to write more and more. I could sit and write for twelve hours a day, seven days a week and after the twelve hours each day I would try to sneak in some more writing time that night, but of course that isn't feasible because life happens and there are responsibilities that require attention. Not to mention I enjoy the time I get to spend with my family. I hear deer in the woods but I can't see them, the darkness is blacker than oil, thicker than tar and smells of wet leaves and curiosity. Everywhere I sit, every road I drive along and every sidewalk I wander down I see and feel the past, never the future. I wonder if other people are like me? I don't think it is a bad thing, it makes me realize I am a living. I think one of the most challenging things in the world is to put what you see and hear, smell and taste and think down on paper so that it makes some ounce of sense. People don't realize how hard it is to write and how much work it takes. Next to raising children, writing is the hardest thing I have ever done. I mentioned it before and I will say it again, I love to read and learn about people's lives and the most interesting aspects to me, are the mundane everyday parts of people's lives that most people wouldn't ordinarily notice or prefer to read about. I love to read, for example, diaries when they talk about what they ate that morning and the birds they watched during a stroll to the library. I remember reading about Glenn Gould one evening, the piano player, who used to go to a Canadian restaurant at night, I think in Toronto but I can't recall, and he would always order scrambled eggs. I love that. Another time I watched an interview with John Grisham the author who writes the legal thrillers and he stated how he drinks the same kind of coffee out of the same mug every morning. I like to see where people lived, I try and find actual pictures, and where they worked and if they used for example a type writer what kind it was and what it looked like. Someday I want to go and visit all the different places where different people who I find interesting lived and worked for example, William Faulkner in Oxford, Mississippi and Jackson Pollock in Springs, New York, Ernest Hemingway in Key West, Florida and Piggott, Arkansas, Archimede Seguso in Venice, Apelles in Sicyon, Van Gogh in St. Remy, Mozart in Salzburg, Galileo's villa at Arcetri, Cicero's hometown of Arpino, etc. That is just something that interests me. It's interesting the behavior and nature of people from all walks of life but particularly those who have something that drives them like a mad fog. Maybe that is because I have something that continually pushes me without restraint, the constant need to work, work, work, and yet the next day and the day after that there is still work to be done, and though the work is tedious and I often fall severely ill from lack of sleep and too much coffee, I find the work very enjoyable. Maybe my need to constantly study other people comes from a basic need for me to understand myself. I have strengths and weaknesses and I am very aware of both of them though I shant bore you. Despite the chilly night I have enjoyed very much a cigar and a glass of wine. In about fifteen minutes I will brew a pot of coffee and work. It is starting to get late and the lights from cabins in the distant mountains are beginning to extinguish. Let's hope tomorrow has less wind and more sunshine.