So it's been a second since I last posted. Busy end to the school year and lots of moving/building/traveling happening all at the same time. My family and I are currently in Croatia and I've been promising myself that once I got over the jetlag, I'd get back into my writing. This is always the hardest time for me, as I've said before, the first sentence on a blank page is always the most difficult thing I've ever done. When I'm writing everyday, it happens every day, it's only more so when I've stepped away for a bit.
So to get going today, I really needed a kick in the pants. Which I got, from my three year old daughter. Yesterday, we were having lunch at the beach (terrible, I know) when she grabbed her glass and held it aloft. In what can only be described as the sweetest voice I've ever heard, she said, "To the open road." Margareta and I have no idea where she got this from or how she came to think of this as a toast, but she did, and it was amazing.
She feels it. The call of the road, of travel, of new experiences. Since she's three, there's nothing blocking her feelings and thoughts, there's no worry, no cloud or fear that others might look down on her, she feels her feelings and expresses them openly. When she wants to make a friend, she just walks over to a group of kids (who are never speaking English) and asks if they want to be friends and then proceeds to play with them. Why can't we all do that?
As she unabashedly danced down darkened foreign streets two nights ago, I realized that she not only gives me hope...but courage. If she could do all that, if she could feel that deeply, without fear or reservation, then the literal least I could do was write a few paragraphs.
Thank you my sweet girl, you broke daddy's writer's block by just being you.
To the open road.
Have a good night friends.