When I started writing this blog I was listening to a James Taylor CD at my old apartment and heard the song "Traveling Star." It might have even been the first time I had heard the tune, if it wasn't the first time it was the first time that I had actually listened to the words. In a way that song was the inspiration for many of the stories and profiles that I have shared through my blog. So many words in this song explained the way I was feeling and gave me the sparks or epiphanies, if I may, to write about the topics that I chose. "Never mind the wind, never mind the rain, never mind the road leading home again, never asking why, never knowing when, every now and then - There he goes again."
So many days I felt like that. Trying with all my heart not to worry about how these entries might make me look to others and just write. Not always knowing why, or how, or when, just writing about how I felt and the things that make me happy and make me tick. Three people that I have respected to the highest degree in my life were and are storytellers. Not to be confused with the art of telling tall tales, but real story tellers. People who could just as easily catch your attention with a story about going to the grocery store as they could with a story about climbing a mountain. I can't begin to imagine how much time I have spent listening to these three tell stories. Often about their life, people that they knew and the way it all happened. I learned a long time ago that people tell stories and reunite with the past and to bring back good memories. Memorable stories that go on and on through families and groups of friends are usually a memory that that family or group just could not let go of. And when I would sit down at my desk and begin to type the words "Traveling Star," reminded me of where I was going and many times of where I had been.
Words click with me - and once I read in the book "Wonder Boys" a phrase that one character used to describe his girlfriend that stuck with me. He said that she was "a junkie for the written word." I associated with that immediately and never forgot that very literal description. I enjoy few things more than reading or listening to words about life. My Papaw, my Step Grandfather Buddy, and my Great Aunt Aminell have told me stories all my life. Stories that connected me with family members that they felt I needed to know regardless of the fact that I would never meet them in person. They each told these stories differently and I am not so sure that they would have ever labeled themselves in this way. However, when I look back on our many conversations that was exactly what they were doing…telling stories. They were my inspiration as well. As I get older and after moving away from my home and my roots these stories and memories have become more and more important to me and to who I am. Sharing them with others by talking has always been something that came easy to me, but writing them down has been difficult at times. Some stories are sad - but sad can be valuable too. No matter what the pretense or what the topic has been my goal was not to create something that would be monumental or perfect, not at all. My goal was to share with others the wealth of stories, good times, people and love that have been a part of my journey.
As this year quickly nears its end and I look back over many of the blogs that I have written throughout it, I noticed that I told many stories about other people's lives. The incentive to do this was to shine some sort of light of people that I have know over my life that were awesome. Borrowing that idea from my Grandfather, Decola Franklin, who did the exact same thing in a series of stories published in the mid to late 1970s in the Dawson Springs Progress. His articles were titled: "Characters I Have Known." Having an affinity for some of the same things and ideas that he did, in another time and place, intrigued and pleased me due to the fact that I never had the chance to meet him. I would be typing away and think to myself: "I wonder what he might think of this?" And so was the case with every blog I wrote that became a profile. My thoughts would linger to the person I was writing about and what their feelings might be about my thoughts of them.
Interestingly enough many of my Facebook friends from home would read these blogs and comment on how they knew this person or that. Giving me yet another impulse that this was not all for me. I found that in writing a blog about my Nannie or Decola, both family members of mine who passed away years ago, brought them up in a sort of conversation. Like the age old saying I have read on so many dreary funeral wreaths: "Gone but not forgotten," comes to mind. The response from my friends, acquaintances, and some complete strangers has been very uplifting and well received. Knowing that often I hadn't dotted every "i" or crossed every "t," and that wasn't the point. The point was and is, that over the course of my life the people and places that I have known, impacted me in ways that are hard to explain. Regardless of that difficulty I have tried to explain it anyway. Taking thoughts that swirl around in my head and giving them to others has been something that has been extremely beneficial to me. Going back down roads that are too many miles away from me with some people that I will never again see on this Earth, just because I felt it was too great of an experience not to share. So I have.
I have been so blessed. I woke up to a world filled with love and opportunities for me and I know that so many people haven't had it so easy. As this year closes and we begin a new decade I know that I have left on the web a piece of my heart. If you were ever curious as to what makes me smile, laugh or what I love, read this blog. Sitting on the sofa with my Dad growing up while he strummed his Fender teaching me songs from his heart and introducing me to the music that would always be with me - I realize that we shared a love of words as well.
"Soft as smoke but as tough as nails…my Daddy."
That is the way James Taylor described his Dad, and again I connected with that phrase immediately. Dad used to play a song by Gordon Lightfoot called "The Edmunds Fitzgerald," and while exploring Lightfoot's albums I found the title for this blog: "If you could read my mind…what a tale my thoughts would tell." My Mom would be cross stitching on the other end of the sofa while my sister and I would sing along to Dad's favorites, favorites that become ours as well. Never minding the wind and never minding the rain I go back there to that treasured memory so much. I go back to our house on Rosedale Lane where in their youth they created a safe and loving place for my sister and I. I know now that way back then it was there that I developed the confidence that would help me to leap off of creative plateaus, like this one - not allowing my fears to stop me or hold me back. My Mom and Dad - there's not enough time for me to go there. They inspire me too.
All the thoughts that I have expressed, all the people that I have discussed, all the time and all the focus that I have put into this reveals a part of me that for some reason is hard to reveal. I don't know where this blog will continue to go. But I do know that I am not finished telling stories or writing them down for that matter. And I am certainly not finished making memories or meeting new and inspiring people. I wrote over a hundred blogs and those stories took me too good places in my mind and in my heart. I think that is so important. Being able to identify with where you have been helps to figure out where you're going. I came from such a wonderful place and I am proud to say that, but more than proud, I am very grateful.
I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and I hope that the New Year brings you good health and happy days. Follow that "Traveling Star" next year, it's out there.
