It doesn’t matter how many times you comb your hair, brush your teeth, tie your shoes or tap a palm print into the forehead of your pet…there’s always going to be something in your corner of the world that isn’t going to get the loving attention it deserves. Time moves too quickly; like a vicious rollercoaster zapping the fear from the depths of your chest Monday’s instantly become Sunday’s robbing the hump right out of an innocent Wednesday.
I no longer measure time by the uncaring hands on the face of an ageless clock. Who needs ticks then tocks, sunrises and sunsets when insurance enforced ninety day supplies of meds taken before bed line the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard?
I know more about the pharmacist than my Mother. I can almost pinpoint what magazine she was looking at in the store to grasp a fresh new look because sometime during the process of waiting for the prescription to be filled I too had my nose buried in the same print. I can quote People magazine but can’t tell you if the Stock Market is up, down or in existence.
Time is a speed demon in hot pursuit of something new to chew. And it’s not just this generation that’s had trouble keeping this one eyed monster with long creepy fingers covered in green sludge under control. Your parents and those before them battled the clock over and over including famed author Mark Twain.
In 1896 he told his family and friends, worldly magazines and publishers, “I’m going to write an autobiography.” Zonk! Biff! Boom! Bam! Think again! Being a southern boy with a solid curve in every word couldn’t slow this creative king down to a single note. As brilliant as he might have been with a pen was how weak he proved to be when releasing what he declared was his best story yet.
Time didn’t befriend Twain; it actually became his enemy. First he wanted to hire an accomplice to rob his experiences from the darkness of his soul only to learn they were never quick enough to return. Then a colleague declared, “You need to speak into a microphone! I will invent a box that records your thoughts.” So Twain invested tons of money into the hot prospect which went out of business forcing the author to move he and his family out of the country.
The century turned and there still wasn’t a book. He kept telling people, “Its coming! I promise! I have honest stories to share that’ll bend the truth on what others have prepared; untold facts about figures and unheard of adventures after Tom and Huck Finn.” But the book never came.
Why? Why? Why?
From this writers point on a rounded hill…it hit me; this coming from someone who doesn’t read books but finds tremendous pleasure in studying an author’s behavior. In Twains presentation of thoughts, the books he wrote then shared with an always waiting world of imagination travelers a single sentence paints what might be the reason why so many kept waiting and waiting...Samuel L. Clemmons used real life experiences to be his guide, changing the names of the characters to keep them innocent while still being extremely real. Therefore every book written by Twain was in fact his autobiography.
The imagery was genuine because it happened. The strong southern accents extremely present because he physically met the keepers that would inspire the steps for his words to take on pages once blizzard white.
So the autobiography he dreamt of releasing waited 100 years after his passing because each brave moment he sat down to put into play the lyrics of the songs he carried always came with an incredible excuse not to do it. Clemmons wanted to be frank. He wanted no fantasy, no trail of tales which he had become known for. His biographical sketch was to be about a man that was blessed with heart felt feelings combined with opinion.
Writers, authors, musicians, poets, painters and fancy chefs constantly set aside the key ingredients to that single magic moment that loudly bleeds incredible curses during every attempt of shaking it free to find someone new to grow on or within. In 1977 I penciled into place what became a three hundred page high school notebook novel which was later rewritten in 1994, 2001 and finally completed in 2010 when the editor inside of me took a large pair of scissors and cut it in half.
Along the way it became my passion to study the hands of other creative’s, hearing about what outsiders call easy attempts physically became long term bouts of mental sickness because fate won’t allow you to shake, so you shiver instead like an addict needing a fix and all you ever had to do was create.
Twain was miserable. Constantly pushed into corners of several worlds he wanted to live between, each was a sheet that required writing which he fulfilled except in the name of releasing an autobiography. And he wasn’t alone…General Ulysses S Grant leaned hard on Samuel to help him with his chapters because every unknown corner presented a reason to say, “Not today…so go away.”
So what are you keeping from reality? What stank can’t you wash free? No matter how many chapters you live or how old the dog and cat are getting. Your everyday seems like time is stealing it until you stop to realize you haven’t moved an inch on your true calling.
Stop reading books for entertainment and study the habits of the man behind the curtain. Look deeper into your favorite author, painter, chef, lawn mowing expert or king of all garages and work the path they laid for others to follow. Not only will you respect them more as a creative but in return your dreams are one step closer to coming true.
I will always believe in you first…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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