yourpassions.tk

During a recent discussion, some friends around the age of eighty aired the dismay they feel when they glance in the mirror or at recent photos. “Who is that white-haired person staring back at me with all those wrinkles? That can't be me!” They all concur with the general report that people their age still feel young and vigorous inside. Their sense of self has not kept pace with their bodies. They still feel inwardly as if they are in their twenties or early thirties. “How old do you feel?” they asked me, as the youngest person in the room by far. I have a hard time answering that question. I certainly remember being much younger, but those memories are like looking back at discarded clothing that no longer fits. Many elements remain: I still have a keen sense of curiosity and a desire to understand how things work. I still love explaining things to people. I still love being out in the woods, warm sunny days, and eating Mexican food. I still love to go exploring and to read. Oth...

How long would you be willing to spend to write a history of your family? Victor Victor Villaseñor spent twenty-five years writing Rain of Gold , a five-hundred-fifty page saga of his own family over the course of four generations, beginning in northwest Mexico through their migrations into the United States during the Mexican Revolution that began in 1910. He taped over one hundred hours of interviews with various relatives as he struggled to make sense of bizarre, unbelievable sounding stories like skinning a bull before running it a few miles into an Indian camp. This gripping tale is fascinating on several levels. No fictitious piece could have more twists and turns, near escapes, suffering, or overcoming obstacles of every sort leading to the anticipated climax. Beyond the gripping plot, readers gain insight into the geography of rural Mexico in that area, Rural Mexican customs and of the era, and a graphic description of relations between mejicanos and gringos in the early part o...

To my own amazement, I just noticed that the first anniversary of this blog flew by unnoticed by Yours Truly a week ago today. In 53 weeks, I've produced 117 posts. When you consider that for various reasons, there were six weeks when I didn't post at all, that's an average of about two-and-a-half per week, which is right on target for the two-to-three per week I aimed for. If you've been following the blog for awhile, you may have noticed gaps. There was a gap of nearly a month last summer while I was on vacation. A more recent gap and general slow down has been due to the event generating “ The story that must not be written .” The unfolding story remains intense and stressful for all concerned. In such stressful times, it's difficult to garner creative energies. It's not so much a matter of writer's block as preoccupation and lower energy levels. I can still sit down and write about other things, but it takes more energy, and my endurance is definitely af...

Happy Valentine’s Day! Even after all these years, when I think of Valentine’s Day, two childhood memories come to mind, one happy and one less so. First the happy memory: My father always bought three boxes of candy for Valentine’s Day. The big red heart full of chocolates was for Mother. My sister and I got our own heart-shaped boxes, but they were considerably smaller than Mother’s, and had only a dozen pieces or so. I was a skinny kid, and ate a lot of candy in an effort to remedy that situation, so the contents of mine quickly disappeared. Fortunately Mother was more restrained, and willing to share — but only one piece a day. The less happy memory shifts to school. In grade school we generally took shoe boxes to class and personalized them with seasonal decorations and our names a few days before February 14. As classmates brought in assorted valentines, generally selected from inexpensive collections purchased at Dragon Drug, they were dropped into the various boxes. Only a sele...

Don't forget to save your work. Save early and often. Earlier today I wrote an involved piece about political correctness and lifestory writing that I intended to post. Especially on controversial topics, I like to let a post age for at least a couple of hours, so I clicked over to work on another document. Half an hour later, I clicked in an Explorer window to open my book manuscript. That was a mistake. I forgot to specify that it open in Microsoft Word. I began the new year by switching to OpenOffice (OO), the full-featured, free , open-source office suite, and I set my computer to open all Microsoft Office documents in OO. Most Word documents open flawlessly in OO, but high end formatting is dicey. My Microsoft Word book manuscript includes over twenty style definitions, dozens of tables, columns, a long list of graphics, cross-reference codes, Table of Contents codes, Index codes, headers, footers, and section breaks all over the place. OO gasped and died. Normally, even this...

I serve as a Director on our local library Board, and the Board has recently become embroiled in a serious personnel matter that we had to deal with in a decisive and surprising way. Public and staff reaction is intense: “Inquiring minds want to know!” How I would love to tell the full story, in person and on paper. My heart cries out to explain, to justify, to set minds at ease. This cannot be. Legally and ethically, we cannot divulge a thing about any personnel matter. I can only write around the edges, now or later. I can't write or speak about the nature of the evidence we used to make our decision. I can't disclose the reasoning and interpretation we put on that evidence. What I can do is write about the process, and about my own experience as events unfolded. I did not sleep for several nights. Gale-force storms of conflicting emotions churned my mind as I weighed the implications of various matters, then fought and finally came to grips with the ultimate conclusion. When...