Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Time Travel

I've been a time traveler this past month and landed for two weeks back home in Kokomo, Indiana in 1963. Kokomo High School's Class of '63, 50-year reunion rocked!!! Visiting with friends from the old neighborhood and taking a tour through both McKinley Elementary and the former KHS building downtown brought memories shooting into my brain like lasers.

Sixth grade classroom doors conjured up the names of  teachers who long-ago tapped pencils behind each one. Amazing how the sight of wide staircases and long hallways bracketed with classroom doorways call vivid pictures and people to mind so quickly. All five of us former classmates recall the big Christmas tree decked out in the front hallway and the crush of kids packed around it singing carols before heading home for the holiday vacation. Yes, the Christian God still went to school in the 50's.

Back home for a week now, I have been scurrying around opening mail, paying bills, doing laundry and basically avoiding writing one word on the novel. Charade, I vaguely remember is the title I finally landed on for Novel #3. I'm almost half finished. I know I keep repeating that milestone. It gives me hope that somehow I'm going to finish and SOON.

Time travel warps my sense of well-being I'm finding out.  There has always seemed to be a long, long road stretching out in front of me to drive ahead on. Now, I'm seeing roadblocks and cliffs ahead. Maybe I won't get where I'm going in time. There's less road left than I've already traveled. Quick, someone pull me back from the edge.

And then someone did. . . I've heard from people whose old friendships have rekindled and ignited. They're rooting for me. They're asking when the new novel will be finished. They're waiting to read what I'm writing. Inspiration and fresh hope zings in on the electronic wings of Facebook and email.

Tidbit for Today: Live in the present, draw inspiration from the past, and believe in yourself as much as everyone else does.

Write On!
Cheryl