She Changed My Life And I Didn't Even Talk to Her

How often do you get to meet a person who changed your life? Okay, how often do you sit in the room with a person who changed your life (and you're too tired to stand in line to get her new book signed and have a thirty second chitchat of nonsense because you can't think of what to say in that short time even though this woman has done more for your license to write that has brought you more joy than any other teacher.) Whew! Somebody fix that sentence.

I had written in an earlier post that the book Simple Abundance has changed my life. That book did indeed come first. What cane next was the below pictured book - Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. A must read for anyone who wants to write. Whether you only want to journal, write an important letter, essay, or book, or explore where personal essay or memoir might take you. Or "Mem-whah" as Natalie says.

Last night, my friend the Busy Traveler made sure I arrived at a book reading for Natalie Goldberg's new book, whose title is somewhere in my notebook, which is somewhere here in the house. I was exhausted from a day of work, my eyes shot. Busy Traveler probably thought I was drunk when I met her after work for a drink and a basket of fried pickles and a mushroom/swiss burger. Drunk and dazed because I'm still so not used to working this job. And then, here I was immersed in the life I love so well. The life of writing and writers. I am so thankful I did go, for if not for Natalie Goldberg, I never would have finished a journal. How many of us begin a new one with high intentions and then after a few days of extreme effort, the pages are forgotten and added to the stack of beautiful journals complete with empty pages. And from that journal, I wrote another one, and another one, and a novel, and so many essays and...

I plan to write more about this lecture/reading with her. My impressions and notes that I took. I'll get to that right after I catch up on my sleep. I am, yet again, up too late. I have not adjusted to this go to bed early so you can drag your ass out of bed much easier and go to work. But, what the hell. It's Thursday. If you make it through Thursday, you can make it through Friday.

I do have a need to stay connected to the writing life, which is what this blog really does for me. My daily journal has become pitiful, now consisting of about three sentences a day rather than three pages as I learned from the great Julia Cameron. But, that's another story. Can't write now as I"m currently doing laundry so I don't have to do it this weekend. Groceries are purchased. A couple baseball games to attend. And then there is that MICHIGAN STATE GAME on Saturday night. Go Green! After all that, I hope to write more about Writing Down the Bones and this incredible woman who has inspired so many. I so would love to attend one of her seminars in Taos. Hiking in the mountains with Natalie. Meditating my way through a Zen experience then planting myself by a tree and writing my heart out -- just for practice. Although, as always when one meets someone important, you look at them, and realize they are just people. Gifted in something I am not, which makes it that much more exotic. That much more impressive, even though they could be someone next in line at the grocery store any other day and you wouldn't even know them.

Happy Weekend to all. Oh, wait, it's only Thursday.