Newsworthy
When confronted with a blank page after a long
weekend full of travels, I sometimes consume
the white space like a starving man at a
smorgasbord. Other times, I find myself in need of
the literary form of Metamucil. I sit, I sit and
still I sit, but the words just don't come. So it
seems after this past weekend's excursion to Baja's
Guadalupe Canyon. Though I managed to scratch out a
brief summary of the
trip, composing anything beyond mere fluff just
wasn't happening.
Why? Is it just garden-variety writer's block?
Too soon after the weekend's activities to digest
it all? Too much pressure from work and other
outside stresses? I thought about it yesterday, on
the drive home, and concluded that my compositional
constipation was a good thing. If I find myself
having trouble writing about a camping trip,
perhaps it wasn't newsworthy. And if it wasn't
newsworthy, it was probably relaxing. The reasoning
may be imprecise, but after looking at it from that
perspective, I realized just what a relaxing
weekend I did indeed have.
The irony arose when I returned home to hear
about what was possibly the most newsworthy event
of the year: the capture of Saddam Hussein. The
last time I spent a restful weekend in the hot tubs
of Guadalupe Canyon, I came back to find southern
California on fire. It
seems, then, that the newsworthiness of travels to
Baja and events back in the "real world" are
inversely proportional.
I can only imagine what will happen next time I
disconnect and venture off the beaten path south of
the border. One thing's for sure, it's sure to be
newsworthy.
©2003 Michael
Strickland ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
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