Mixed Materials...Create a blend of textures

 This week I will put the book to rest.  While I am excited beyond belief, I am also very apprehensive for the future.  It is one thing to know how a manuscript becomes a book.  It is a complete difference to know how a writer becomes and author.

 I believe that anyone can write a book.  It takes discipline, a bit of madness, the ability to listen to people that don’t exist, and a few bottles of wine.  Of all of those things discipline is the hardest.

See over the past few months I have been procrastinating, as the characters in my head have been pacing, sometimes beating against my brain for release.  I have buried them in the laundry, balancing the checkbook and dishes because I don’t want to let them go into the world.  I have asked myself all the questions that parents ask.  Are they ready?  Have I done enough?  Did I teach them what they needed?  Most importantly I turn the questions to myself.  Am I ready?

I can love the book with everything that I have.  I can hide the pieces of myself that I desperately want to expose to the world inside it, mixing the material of reality with the texture of fiction.  I can say the things I wish I was able to say aloud.  I can be stronger than I ever imagined I could, but eventually I have to take all those parts and hope that someone will see in them what I see.

We mix the materials of our world every day, from the clothes that we wear to the company that we keep.  Sometimes we pair silk with denim.  Sometimes varying heights of heels with varying lengths of skirts.   Others we mix and match our lives blending a palate of happiness, disappointment, fear, and triumph.  If you are a woman you can have all of those things in the same day, and you still get up and do it all again.

It is the mixture that defines who we are.  That can change us.  At times it is the mixture that makes us get up in the morning as we stand in front of the mirror moving portions of our personality forward and backward like the picking of an outfit.

Ultimately underneath the layers that build up across our psyche over the years we seek acceptance.  We seek to understand the word unconditional.  We seek the ability to stand raw and beautiful, and know with every fiber in our bodies that we believe in the things we say the things we write.

I have learned more about myself then I ever thought I was capable of knowing.  I have been taught more than I ever thought I was capable of being taught.  I have been blessed more than I could ever imagine, and I have been grateful more than I have ever known.