Graduation Time
It’s getting hot in Italy. Too hot for writing a mano in the noonday sun, too hot to play tourist in Rome, hot enough for the beach and swimming: that hot. Hot enough to dream of islands and of palm trees that bend and sway along beaches of gold sand. But I’m not here to write about the heat, I only do so because I like it. I love the caress of sun on my bare skin, I like the white reflection of heat out on the piazza, I even like sweating.
Summer has begun.
Last week I was twice reminded about what this time of year means to some, a group into which most of us over eighteen were once included: Graduation from High School. On the same day that I received an announcement of my cousin’s graduation a young reader emailed me asking for advice.
Advice! Thank you Sammy for the great compliment! For to give advice one must first succeed. I must be doing OK then despite my main accomplishment is still in the making. Me: a writer-in-training (in training forever,) hardly a writer at all.
Or am I?
What I do know, what I feel like I have accomplished so far is a way of life that suits me extremely. I have discovered how to live in a way that I believe to be as near to myself as one can get. I also know that there are many forces working against this; just the same, there are many forces working for. This is not to say that I am without problems or “issues” but that they no longer obstruct me.
What I have found that has helped me to arrive and to sustain this harmony is writing. Writing is my life-blood. Writing is not as magical of a thing as I first thought when I started, it’s a lot of work; but it’s joyful work. I am stubbornly self-taught and a firm individualist, even if I did live in a housing co-op for a couple years! Those things might be crippling, I’m not sure yet.
Advice! Get to the advice! Sorry young reader, I tend to ramble and rave. If there is anything I can say it is this: Listen to yourself as much and as closely as possible (consequently listen less to others.) Only you know the way. On writing: read voraciously, write as much as possible and above all, experience life passionately. Henry Miller said it best:
‘Dive deep and never come up!’ should be the motto for all who hunger to create in words. For only in the tranquil depths is it granted us to see and hear, to move and be.
Thank you again! To you and my cousin Kendal Kalish: May the world prove itself in all you dream it to be.
Hip! Hip! Hooray!
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·