Victory is in the Doing!

A profound idea that I've adopted wholeheartedly.

Most people pass like smoke through our lives, brief acquaintences who barely make a ripple. Others sink in deeply and form meaningful and lasting friendships. They add to who we are and help shape us. Then there are a rare few, bright as comets, who touch our souls. 

Bob Wallack, long ago, was one such comet. As the Editor of The Amesbury (MA) News, Bob hired me into my first job as a newspaper reporter and turned me loose with what he called ‘total creative freedom.’ A simple directive that hit me powerfully. It has stuck with me from the moment he said it, a bit more than 40 years ago! I continue to apply it liberally daily to all aspects of my life.

More recently, John Warner, a writer/editor in Chicago who I met about a year ago, has emerged as another comet in my life. He and I were sharing experiences of rejection, exchanging stories of respectively not being accepted into selective creative writing programs and of having writing submissions rejected time and again. He, however, has had substaintial writing success and has a regular literary column in a prominent big city daily newspaper.

Somewhere in our exchange, John got philosophical about writing, why he does it, and how he views rejection. Most importantly he shared that he has long embraced the idea that with writing ‘victory is in the doing!’ Another profound idea that hit me powerfully. The more I’ve considered it, the more wholeheartedly I’ve embraced it in my writing as well as in life broadly.

Which brings me to Along the Way.

This is where I’m applying both ideas — total creative freedom & victory is in the doing. This is where I’ll regularly share with you my writing that bubbles up along the way, or that has bubbled up previously. I’ll occassionally include a few photos, too.

This is my first posting. It includes one of my favorite poems which I wrote early last Fall. I hope you enjoy it.

Here’s to you applying total creative freedom and celebrating the victory in doing whatever it is you do!

Onward.

Rich

Sisyphus at Sea

9.3.22

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It stood dry in the yard
cradled in wood,
an old wooden boat
sailing over high grass
and weeds and rocks,
reeking of mildew,
oil and lacquer.

It hadn’t seen water
in years and wouldn’t
for years to come
for it had to be perfect,
stripped to its rotted ribs,
ridded of pieces of wood
so swollen and shrunken and worn
from years of neglect
that they’d split and splintered,
spit out tiny dowels,
had cracked open
and would never again
be watertight.

At least not until
Andy assessed them,
passed judgement
with his quiet eyes,
and ran his knowing hands
along them and felt
in his bones
the decades of that wood
absorbing the power
of the ocean as the boat plowed
at a slant through open water
just off Plum Island.

He would sit silently,
sometimes for a long time,
a cigarette in his right hand,
his left caressing
a dried-out gunnel
or a tarnished green
portal frame of brass
and envision the boat
back on the water.

But that would be a day
long down the road,
long after he would
have his way with its hull
and its cabin with its small sliding door,
would apply his mastery
to its tight cabinetry,
refurbish the mast
and acquire and modify
new sails and rigging. 

He loved the old boat
and its potential
and saw nothing but beauty
in its soft lines,
the flaking blood red paint
above its water line,
the faint thin stripe of white
separating the red from
the faded-out baby blue bottom
that only showed
when the boat
was out of the water.

Before ever starting
on the boat
he framed a domed cathedral
of long, thin wooden slats
giving wide berth on all sides of the boat
and high above it,
then covered his sanctuary
in thick plastic sheathing
so he could work on the boat
throughout the North Shore winter.

It would not be the last time
he constructed such a protective
shell for his old boat,
for he knew well
the Sisyphean task
of loving an old wooden boat
and keeping it in the water.