I am told the first step to being a writer is to call yourself one. I write. I write marketing pieces for my business, I journal. I write e mails to clients, other attorneys and I think some pretty funny Facebook posts. I occasionally, but not as often now, write legal briefs. I have been published. Well, some where paid “advertorials” and some were semi scholarly pieces. What is “being published” anyway? In this electronic age being published is a mere push of a button. Publish. Poof you are a published writer. The local bar association bulletin is begging for content and occasionally I oblige.

I have taken classes in intuitive writing, blog writing and just general get the writing done classes. I have taken a lot of writing classes. I get a great deal of encouragement from my teachers. “You are a writer” they tell me. I currently have a coach to help me get the writing done. Can you believe I actually paid her for this? I have even started several groups, both live and virtual for other writers. I love gatherings of writers.

Several of my friends are published authors. I mean published authors with real books. Self published mostly but published none the less. I mean with an actual ISBN and Library of Congress numbers. Seriously, they are writers.

For more that ten years I have written blogs about divorce. For about six years I have written the occasional blog for a site called Not Your Grandmother’s Seventy — Living your best life an any age.

So what is the hang up? Why do I not call myself a writer? I write. I write a lot. I have a point of view.

This weekend I called it my Independence Day weekend. I declared independence from a lot of things. Independence from clutter, dirty laundry and negative thinking. I’ve made progress on the clutter and the laundry but I am still working on the negative thinking.

Robert Kennedy was once asked why he liked to climb mountains. He said it wasn’t so much that he liked to climb mountains, he liked hanging around with mountain climbers. I like hanging around writers.

Those writers are calling me on it. They ask me why I am not writing. Well, I am, sort of.

The Independence week end is not over. There is still time even though I punched the clock out and went to bed. Something woke me up. Something made me get out of bed and start writing this. My declaration.

I am a writer.

Stay tuned world

You ain’t never been blue; no, no no

You ain’t never been blue,

Till you’ve had that mood indigo. 

That feelin goes stealin down to my shoes 

You know what it is.  The pits, the gloomies, down in the dumps.  Rolled up in a ball on the bathroom floor.  In bed, covers over you head.  Or maybe you are the outdoor type and you howl at the moon or scream into the wind.

Nothing in your life is right. Nothing will ever be right.  I call it my 3 am darkness of the soul. It doesn’t help to know that everyone goes through it sometimes.  You also will chew someone’s head off if they tell you platitudes like “It’s not that bad.” or “It will get better.”  That was not what you want to hear.  Not now anyway.

I also like to refer to the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible Very Bad Day in which Alexander keeps repeating after one more misadventure, “I think I’ll move to Australia.”  It ends with Alexander acknowledging: “Some days are like that, even in Australia.”  And they are.

There are books galore on how to get past this.  But right now you really don’t want to.  You WANT to wallow.  You deserve to wallow.  We all do deserve some wallow time.  Never mind that EVERYONE on Facebook is having a WONDERFUL time.  Every one is.  Really!

I  am not here to tell you what to do. I am not here to give you platitudes. I am merely here to tell you that it is ok.  It is ok to wallow, scream, sniff and cry.  Sometimes that is all there is.  When you are ready for more, you will find it.

In the meantime, just get down with that feelin that goes stealin down to your shoes.  Some days are like that.  Even in  . . . .

Australia, or, or or.

OK, this is not crying but laughing as a whole drink had just been spilled on me.  Great beginning to a cruise.

On a recent sunny day I ventured out to a place back in time.  Fifty years ago (FIFTY?) I was a new teacher in the small logging town of Snoqualmie and today seemed like a perfect day to visit the famous Snoqualmie falls.  Yes, a perfect trip back in time.  Except I quickly remembered that the entire school year and even though my little school was less than a mile from the falls, I had never actually gone to see the falls when I was teaching.  Too busy.  Too concerned about  learning a new job.  Too sick from all the new bugs you get when working with children.  So yes, I was going to take a trip back in time to a place I didn’t visit when I was there.

Oh I have been to the falls over the years.  The first time was a birthday brunch at the famous Snoqualmie Falls Lodge where I was given a t shirt that something like “40 isn’t old if you’re a tree”.  Funny to think at the time we thought forty was old.  Oh you young things.  I also went to the falls a last year with my grandson.  We even found the school and I could point out the room where the young Mrs. Quirk taught.

Rather than take the freeway, I decided to follow the road that I drove those many years ago.  It looked much the same.  Trees, mountains and lakes don’t change a lot — even in fifty years.  A good reminder.  Most of the houses even looked the same with an interspersing of new development.  The traffic circles where new, however and shot me off in the wrong direction but otherwise the trip was pretty much the same.  Twenty miles to another place in time.

The falls are spectacular.  The old lodge has been replaced by a more luxurious hotel and spa but the scenery remains.  I took what was supposed to be a half mile walk that was really a mile and a half and a steep elevation change.  (39 stories according to my fitbit)

Along the walk, I wondered why I had never been on this trail.  Why had I not enjoyed this spectacular scenery and been refreshed by the mist from the falls.  Then I wondered how many other times I had missed enjoying my surroundings because I was too busy, too concerned, too everything.  What adventures were right there for the partaking.

I returned from my adventure with sore knees, a refreshed spirit, and a renewed sense of awe. Can I live my days now enjoying the sights, sounds and smells that are right there?  I hope so.