Walk the walk.

One year ago today, my favrat big brother drove my husband & me from a delightful family vacation in Galveston to IAH, sending us on our way to a 3 month adventure in Belize. *sniff* Where does the time go?

I thought I’d write during that tropical sojourn. I didn’t. I thought about writing. I considered characters: the lovable weirdos that I already know, the local & expatriate oddballs that we readily encountered during our travels. During her visit, Wendy suggested that I write about Sabbatical, but I wasn’t able to envision the context for that story. So instead of being industrious, I read 20 books last summer & hung out by the pool like it was my job. I had a GREAT tan.

Last week, I started walking halfway to work in the morning, from our apartment to downtown. Hustling, it takes about 40 minutes & I leave at a ridiculously early hour. I walked in on Monday last week, then said to Hell with it for the rest of the week because it was cold & raining & I wanted the extra 30 minutes of sleep. When I got on the scale to quantify what my pants have been hinting at, it occurred to me that my ass isn't going to quit expanding on its own. Time to suck it up & walk every morning - no exceptions, no excuses. Monday's walk, partially lit by the Super Moon, went beautifully this week. Tuesday was fine. By Wednesday, I was super annoyed. It was stupid drizzly, I was wearing a wrap skirt that kept getting blown open by the wind, & my legs hurt from the previous 2 days. It seemed as though I managed to hit every freaking Don't Walk sign & there was an absurd amount of 5AM traffic preventing me from just jaywalking. Suffice it to say that I was grumpy by the time I made it to my bus stop downtown.

At lunchtime, I followed a link to an article touting Jerry Seinfeld's Secret to Productivity. The crux of his advice to a young comic was just to keep at it every single day. The "it" in this example was comedy writing, but "it" can represent whatever a person is trying to accomplish. Seinfeld's method went so far as hanging up a Year-at-a-Glance calendar & making a big red X through every day that he'd written. "After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain. Don't break the chain." Timely advice. Today I focused on the birds singing & street signs & how much easier it is to stomp down the Hill when one wears comfortable footwear.

I'm pretty sure that I'll have to actually write something in order to BE a writer. Walking to work in the morning is inspired largely by vanity, but like my desire to write, it's a quality of life issue. Translating the swirl of ideas in my head into print is a goal that I've put off for too long. This, dear reader, is my commitment to writing EVERY day.