Whittling
Some people sit in a rocking chair and whittle on a piece of wood. I whittle away too, at ideas that get under my skin usually with a maddening itch that demands to be scratched. I call it my Writer’s Itch. Fortunately, I keep my nails short so I don’t break the skin, on most occasions. I tap away (carve) at my keyboard and go on fanciful adventures, trying to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to retrace my steps. But pesky birds always seem to follow, leaving me scratching my head in bewilderment with no way of returning from whence I came.
I’ve always been a timid soul, craving adventure but hesitant to take that first step. While the mind may have been willing, the body was not often up to the task. “Hey! My legs are too short to jump that stream”. At other times it was the other way around. Too wrapped up in weighing the odds.
Anyway, circumstances have conspired to limit my adventuring to words and looking for innovative ways to put them together. It’s not a bad gig. Easy on the feet but hard on the head. For most of my life, being small and (at one time) skinny I had to rely on my wits to keep out of trouble. I recall a fight on the way home from school with the neighbourhood bully. There was no chance of coming out on top, so I kept inching my way home, mostly scrambling on my hands and knees. It saved my neck that day.
So now I do all my adventuring from the safety of my own couch.
I whittle away at ideas, only rarely picking up a small scratch or cut while shavings pile up at my feet.
But the adventures make them worthwhile.
As I said before, I often get lost and lose my way.
But I’ve really got nothing better to do.
And Oh, the Adventures.