Happy 30th Birthday Nate! My beloved traveler.

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, 
Healthy, free, the world before me, 
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. 

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune, 
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, 
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, 
Strong and content I travel the open road.

The earth, that is sufficient, 
I do not want the constellations any nearer, 
I know they are very well where they are, 
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

Still here I carry my old delicious burdens, 
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go, 
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them, 
I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.
You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is here, I believe that much unseen is also here.

~Walt Whitman Song of the Open Road

California Rescue Me. . .Please Excuse My Absence

My latest writing retreat was intense forced seclusion. But don't take my my word for it:

There's nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.

  ~Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.  ~Ray Bradbury

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.  ~E.L. Doctorow

A word is not the same with one writer as with another.  One tears it from his guts.  The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.  ~Charles Peguy

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.  The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

 ~Sylvia Plath

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.  ~Toni Morrison

Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning:  I wanted to know what I was going to say.  ~Sharon O'Brien

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.  ~Mark Twain

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.  ~James Michener

The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction.  By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.  ~Mark Twain

The wastebasket is a writer's best friend.  ~Isaac Bashevis Singer

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.  ~William Wordsworth

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.  ~Vladimir Nabakov

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.  ~Anton Chekhov

Easy reading is damn hard writing.  ~Nathaniel Hawthorn

NOTES FROM THE ROAD

A sign in front of a autobody repair shop:

WE MEET BY ACCIDENT 

At a Rossetta Stone kiosk in the Detroit airport

LEARN IRISH. . .(Not Gaelic or Celtic but Irish--someone help me I'm still confused)

At a jewelry store in town:

NOT LIFE INSURANCE.  .   . WIFE INSURANCE!

On my coffee cup:

"I used to think that going to the jungle made my life an adventure. However, after years of unusual work in exotic places, I realize that it is not how far off I go or how deep into the forest I walk that gives my life meaning. I see that living life fully is what makes life--anyone's life, no matter where they do or do not go--an adventure."

Maria Fadima--Geographer, ethnobotanist and National Geographic Emerging Explorer. 

While I was Facebooking!

Blogger added a new feature.  Follower?  Here I was trying to learn Facebook etiquette (like have I been turned down? Does anyone judge you by your friends like high school?) My little bro Dana is the expert, after all he has like 600 friends.

Now I'm trying to play catch-up in Bloggerworld.  Not sure about Follower yet, thrilled to see one brave soul who would claim me!  No that's not an attempt at false modesty it's an interesting take on my generation. . . Don't believe me ask my cousin, I did. It interested me since so much of how we classify a generation, at the moment, is based on how we use technology. I was curious if getting a lot of comments is a sign of a good blog?   I hope he doesn't mind my sharing a part of his response:

You, Sarah, are what we affectionately call in marketing a "bridger". You are young enough to blog and to use an iPhone, but old enough to remember when the internet first came to fruition in the 90's (and, ahem, also when call waiting used to a big time "upgrade" at home.)  

Kids who are 18 with myspace/facebook get a hundred responses a day from their friends who in kind expect that interaction in return.  My bet is that your friends and family don't interact the same way as teenagers do, so I wouldn't expect that same immediate interactive response back from them.

So does that make us old?  Or does that mean we can stay young forever just by hyper-using all the technology our kid-brother's and sisters do?  You decide.