Making Clay

(Prompt taken from Room to Write by Bonni Goldberg)

PROMPT: To practice making clay, today start with the word game and dive in for three pages. You don't have to write in complete sentences. When you are done, read over what you have written. Highlight any phrases or passages you like and save them for a poem or a scene in a story. You may not like anything you wrote. Don't let that stop you from trying this study and several times over using different words. You will find gems in many of the pages you write this way, but never in every one. Trust me; if you continue to use this technique, you will find it invaluable.

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"I might write four lines or I might write twenty. I subtract and I add until I really hit something. You don't always whittle down, sometimes you whittle up." ~~ Grace Paley
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Life
Life is an evolution toward death. It is all the happiness, all the sadness, all the pain, all the good you will ever feel. Every hope and broken dream makes you who you are. Don't forget to grow up but remember who you were. Never lose the child in your heart. Life can throw a curveball you never saw coming. But it is a beautiful, crazy, forever worth it kinda frustration.

Life is about making mistakes, learning from every experience. All those school girl crushes and broken hearts define who we are as human beings. Each choice defines who we will become.

Life is always too short, even if you live a hundred years. There will always be something to see, something to do, a place you always wanted to go. Live it to the fullest, cherish every memory because it is over far sooner than we imagine.

Part of life is death. The death of others, loved ones, friends, neighbors, people you barely know. Losing someone is difficult, it so suddenly and completely reminds us of our own mortality and how quickly it can all be gone. Should we be sad in death? When we lose someone we love should it be so difficult to let them go?

And then what would be the meaning of life? Is it more than just living to die? More than procreation and working day in and day out? Is there some cosmic soul searching question we have to answer after death? There must be something more meaningful than just life. What is it all for?

Watching my son grow up and mature feels like what life should be about. Watching him learn something new or discovering a new favorite band, loving, caring, providing for and cultivating the life of another person feels worth it to continue through the daily grind, the upper lower class sludge, the monotony of day to day life.

I have often wondered what life is like in other parts of the world. Where would I be if I had been born in another country? Would I be a wannabe writer in Spain? Italy? France? Greece? Russia? What is life like there? I have always wanted to visit Italy and Ireland. I think writing there would be an ethereal experience.

Sometimes I wonder if life is some cosmic dream. Do we wake up to some otherworldly virtual reality game and then go take a test to see if we were paying attention? I don't know how some would fare, but I am a pretty decent test taker, and I feel I had to mature far earlier than most of my age appropriate counterparts.

Guess what I have never done in my life ... taken a road trip, had a girls weekend away, gotten drunk, went to a bar to go dancing, learned another language, gotten a passport, been on a plane, been to a NHL game, wore a wedding ring, been on a honeymoon, taken a family vacation, bought a new wardrobe, gone for a test drive in a brand new car, seen a Broadway show, bought myself something expensive just because I wanted it, danced in the rain, taken a long drive to nowhere just because.

There is so much I want to do in this life. I wish I could say that someday they will all be realized, but I am not that naive. As I've said before, when one dream is realized, another will be imagined.

My number one dream in life would be to officially relocate to Pittsburgh