The Front

Off on another road trip tomorrow. The Mighty Bug and I will motor south, to dwell for a couple of weeks in a Marriott hotel in North Carolina, instructing folks at a health insurance company on how to program applications for the Web.

But I will miss this:

This is the view from my desk at home here in the office. I think it explains what makes up my life these days. A computer, Black Labs, light, music speakers, a calendar filled to the brim. I stop often, put my feet on the edge of the desk, lean back in the chair and watch those dear lads in that Winslow Homer print ("Breezing Up (A Fair Wind)"). There are white clouds all about, and they are flowing forward in a sailboat called Gloucester. They are barefoot, and peaceful as they make white spray on their journey.

Someone told me once our homes explain who we are. Funny. As I've grown older, the areas of my home most people visit are usually picked up, uncluttered, wiped down, straightened up.

It's a front.

I am very cluttered. Most creatives are. We need lots of silence and solitude to make sense of the chaos in our heads so what we create appears just the way it's supposed to...in computer code or through some story or a photo.

My office is a mess. It's mine, and I like it that way. Computer cords and small scraps of paper containing notes of new ideas seem to multiply every day. A Staples CD-R acts as a coaster for the always-filled coffee cup. 'Cause that's what creativity is. Chaos is a food group to those who think.

Road trips are good. They offer the supreme gift of privacy, the freedom of not knowing a soul, of being unreachable if you want to be. The gift of invisible movement through life so you have the chance to remember the meaning of it all.

Comments

[Tanna]

Chaos is a food group to those who think.
I think I'm going to like your blog.