Written Marathon

Today we went to a myriad of places around Valdosta to find influences for our writing. It's amazing how much creativity can flow when visiting a place that was once the home of bums, now the home of Rastafarian hippies, and soon to be the home of victims to "that crazy grounds keeper."

Hildegards

Something just feels so right about writing at a coffee shop. I think the greats that have gone before tend to influence us. Like ghosts, their words echo down the years; haunting a place with the special connection they had in their time and place. A presence of experience greets me as I sit down to write. My hand flows as the pen regurgitates line after line onto porcelain paper. Their thoughts suffuse me. I feel as if I'm drowning in a sea of long-ago voices. They call to me . . . demanding that I write something memorable.

Maybe some day, many years from now, my voice will add to the crowded den's din of voices. Maybe some up and coming writer will himself sit in the exact spot as he quaffs 10 packet, milk-infused coffee and attempts to quiet the clamor that attacks him now as I was once attacked. Maybe my voice will speak to him from the dark murmurings that wished me to see what it is to truly write . . . to belong to that select organization of writers that have gone before.

Maybe that's the mark I leave. Human beings wish to be remembered, they wish to leave a mark on the world they leave behind. Maybe I'll never write the great American Novel. Maybe I'll never save one of my failing kids. Maybe only my family will visit my grave and listen to the voice of "what if" as it echoes through the still-born wind. Maybe my mark will just be the influencing voice that suffuses this place.

I hope so. I hope some future writer looks back and wonders about these past writers I now belong to. Maybe they'll look back and see me. Not the six-foot, brown-eyed Caucasian wearing sandals and a Belikin t-shirt, but the aspiring writer seeking to clarify his thoughts by listening to the greats of the past, and those that helped them get there. I doubt it, but maybe my memory doesn't.

Greyhound Bus Station

When walking inside many sights, sounds, and smells assault my nostrils. I can smell the Channel #5 worn by the old lady that sits with what I assume is her husband. I can hear their hushed conversation, little snips and snaps, and I ask myself where they're going. One of the great things about a bus station, and people watching, is the "I wonders."

Maybe they're on their fortieth or fiftieth anniversary. Maybe they're traveling to sights unknown:

The visit to their daughter who is giving birth to the first, or ninth, grandbaby. Maybe they go to visit their illiterate, juvenile son in Sing Sing who's doing twenty-five to life for knocking over some convenience store where the gun accidentally discharged. Maybe their life dream has always been to see the country-side. Gas being what it is, they've left their Winnebago at home and decided to instead sail to California aboard the ocean-liner of the road. Seeing destinations always envisioned but never realized. I wonder if they have specific destinations in mind and have meticulously plotted out the stops along the way: Baton Rouge to see what the Garth Brooks song is all about?, San Antonio to see the Alamo (is the Alamo in San Antonio?) to visualize the dream once held and defended by Daniel Boone and co? maybe the Grand Canyon? They wish to see something so old and majestic and think "we've had a good life - we've left our mark on the world too."

Maybe instead they wait to pick someone up. Her sister is coming to visit for the first time in twenty-three years. They'll hug and cry, reminisce the old times, and be ready for the visit to be over in just four days. Maybe cousin Dougie is bringing the ashes of Aunt Mathilda who always wanted to have her ashes scattered over the cornfields between Valdosta and Quitman because she grew up in this area and wants to rest here for all eternity to see the sun rise and watch the corn dance to greet it. I wonder . . . isn't it illegal to carry cadavers, and their ashes, across state lines?

Sunset Cemetery

This whole day's writing seems to be about being remembered and thought about. Do you think some of these souls buried nearby are still remembered? Do they still have family around that visit their graves, plant flowers, and pick the weeds that dot the landscape and seek to bury the frescoes of remembrance between waves of new growth? How existential, to bury the past with the future . . . growth knows no barriers.

Just look at the cell phone tower buried right in the middle of this silent recess. I remember the arguments both for and against that filled the newspaper from end-to-end just a few years ago: "It's disrespectful to put something so technological in the middle of a memory ground!" or "Why not!? It's not like the dead will know or care!" Such arguments cry loudly to this child of yesteryear and molder of tomorrow. I shape as I see and leave my footprints just like anyone else . . . look at the cigarette butts that lie fallow alongside the Kirkland marker. Do you think the old and buried Kirklands care? Do you think they look at them and shake their heads in disgust?

What about the parking structure going up next door? I think the dead like such tombstones around. I mean, a college sprang-up to encompass this "home of the long rest." I think they see it as their marker for the world - "we're right here, don't forget about us!" Look at the life that goes on around this place: building growth, new students seeking to broaden their minds, children screaming at the park down the street. These markers don't trivialize memories of those dead and gone. Those memories are vitalized! Life happens where death has gone before; it's a product of the great circle. They build, we celebrate. They leave, we remember. They die, we grow.