Blossoms, Buds and Excitement Bursting

I am just about bursting with excitement like the blossoms and buds I see when I look out my office window . Someday this week Waiting For Still Water is supposed to arrive. I can not wait to hold a copy in my hands. It is something similar to giving birth, the pain and discomfort overshadowed by the existence of a new creation. This morning I brought up the download of the interior and randomly chose a spot to start reading. It grips me and I hope it grips my readers. It occurred to me on Saturday as I stood at my market table that the books displayed hold pieces of my soul . In the writing I dig deep in the crevices of emotion and even though I create a fictional story it always comes from a place within. So when I re read the words that made the cut and finally found their way onto the page I realize the journey has been long and difficult but so rewarding. Again I can not come close to expressing how grateful I am that I have been given the opportunity to do this. I am a writer in every part of my being. A story teller and an observer of life . Every day I take the story around me and try to figure it out, to put things in perspective, to worry out the whys and wherefores and to truly see what matters. I do not always get it right and don't claim to have any magic powers but the magic is in the living. Last night my brother in law did a thing with a tape measure illustrating how much of life we have already seen and how short the tape measure or what remains of our life is. I dug through a box of photographs and treasures my parents sent home with me on Saturday and read back to 1987 when my mother wrote her daily activities in a day planner. So much of what she did during those days included me and my three kids at that time. Chapin was two , Meg was five and Zac was nine and my mother was the same age I am right now. That hit me with a powerful wallop. It made me weepy on so many levels. But most importantly it made me thankful for the past, the future and the right now. We can not go back on the tape measure of life and we can not see ahead. We can only look at where we are right now and do the best with what we're given. I want those days back. I want to pick my two year old up in my arms. I want to brush my five year old's hair. I want to hug my nine year old boy who left me way too soon. I want my 59 year old mother talking to me, baking and caring for my little family. I want it all and I still have it all right in the place that matters; in my heart and soul and in my writing. Whatever lies along the next part of the tape measure can not take that away.