Knock knock at the door and everyone looks up from the dinner table. Forks hover in midair while the kids share furtive glances and Dad pushes his chair back from the table. Mom sets her drink down and the fear in her eyes is but … Continue reading Knock Knock, you know who it is…
If you’ve been here before, you’ll notice it’s a bit different. Before I had decided to focus on my fiction writing and on certain fiction genres, but as that fizzled out, this time I am aiming to be a bit broader and more free wheeling.
I must confess, I haven’t been writing much over the last few years, as everyday life and struggles tend to step in and distract us from the things we love, but I have been reading and I have been thinking. I’d also like to think I’ve been growing and maturing as a person. Though in many ways I wish to hold onto the ten year old me as much as the eighty year old I hope to become.
My hopes for this space moving forward are to inspire, to comfort, to challenge, and to hopefully add a little light and kindness to the world.
I can’t promise I’ll do much better than the last few times, but I hope to keep this up and I hope it’s something that you’ll enjoy reading and something that will cause you to pause and enjoy life a little bit more.
For those of you that know or have known me, I really don’t know how you choose to think of me or remember me. If it is less than positive, I’m sorry I let you down. My honest wish going forward is to make people glad to know me and hopefully a little uplifted or at least smiling. Another promise I know I can’t keep, but I’ve got to try anyway, right?
In these current times, I’m afraid we’ve lost our ability to be kind, to look out for each other, and to not hate or judge. Maybe instead we’ve only simply forgotten and if we work together we can rediscover how to love again and how to live together in the beautiful moment we are given.
I want to be part of that, as smaltzy and cheesy as it may sound. I hope you do too. So going forward on this journey, let’s use our minds and our hearts, to find true strength, beauty, and love in the dark corners of the world.
So take a moment, breathe, be in the moment, and smile at all we have so far. Take it easy, be a dude, and most of all be kind to yourself and to each other. I promise a more focused and direct post next time…maybe.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how stories are portals into other worlds.
I’ve heard it said many times that books are little worlds that we can pick up and carry with us, visiting them whenever we choose and packing them up again when we are through. I think that is very true, maybe one of the truest things I know.
I’ve been reading for as long as I can remember, as we’ve looked at before primarily in the Horror genre, but really anything I could get my hands on. As a kid, the library was a place of opportunity and adventure. I know how that sounds, typical nerdy kid loves the library and yes, there is truth to that, but it is so much more.
I love adventure; I love exploring and experiencing new things and new places. Always have. When I was young I spent as much time outside and in the woods, as I did reading books and watching movies. (Side note: I equate movies to books in many ways and think they give you a chance to live in another world for a time as well, though they do so with one that is preformed and without the ability to fill in so many of the blanks, as it were.) So, I may have been nerdy, but I loved the outdoors just as much. The only problem with the world of reality was the limitations that occur with it. I could explore the woods behind my house to my heart’s content, but I couldn’t find that bridge to Terabithia or climb Mt. Everest. I was limited by my circumstances and my abilities.
Not so in books, in books I could experience different lives, visit far flung places, and help create worlds that looked nothing like my own. It was and is an amazing experience.
I am amazed at the variety of books out there and the plethora of genres to choose from. I can travel across the galaxy or to China or even further into the backwoods of North Carolina; all by picking up a book and cracking the spine.
I think some of us lose that wonder over time. That awe and excitement gets crowded out by “real world” concerns. We worry about whom we will date or marry, what kind of car we drive, how we can get that next raise, or how we can feed our family next week when the bank account is low and work is slow. I can’t discount or belittle these issues, surely they are important, but most of us let them overwhelm us and consume our every waking moment, not to mention intruding into our dreams as well. With all of this stress and pressure whirling all around us, who has time to read some stupid old book, some fictional account that is basically just a bunch of lies anyway?
You do and you should.
Books help us to escape from those fears and anxieties that threaten to crush us, if only for a brief moment, we can be transported to Derry, Maine or Hogwarts School of Magic or any number of fantastic places. But that’s not all. It’s not just an escape; it’s also a chance to explore life and the lives of others. Sure, they may be fiction, but a good work of fiction is just as real as anything you will see on the daily news, in many cases more so. Stepping out of our reality into another, let’s us examine things from another perspective and get out of our own lives for a moment.
Reading shapes you and changes you. It makes you better and at the very least, it gives you a break from all those things that make life so damn hard.
Without books, I don’t know what I would do or what I would have become. I can tell you, I don’t think it would be a change for the better. Reading let’s me embrace my love of adventure and exploration and shows me so much more than I might see from my own limited perspective. Now with writing too, I get to join in on the fun and create my own worlds and reflect the truths I see in our own reality, but in a much more enjoyable way.
All this is my own long winded, rambling way to tell you to read a book. Whatever you are doing, which I guess means reading my dumb blog at the moment, stop (in a few more sentences of course) and pick up a book. Preferably a real, solid paper book, but if not, make it an ebook. Still good, just not as rich for the senses. That is my challenge for you, ignore those voices telling you that you are too busy, or you don’t like to read, or you haven’t read a book since middle school, and just do it.
Open a new world, embrace adventure, and explore the endless landscapes of imagination. Have that adventure, scare yourself, or even experience a breathless romance, but whatever world you choose, crack open that book and get to it.
Tarl Hutchens 