| The Price of Fame and Fortune  What if... December 17, 2007 I often hang out at a café with the laptop to work on my novel. I sip espresso, nibble dark chocolate, I write. While a single voice will grate and annoy, the cacophony of a crowd energizes me. I rarely talk to anyone, but I do notice faces. When a bookish woman with librarian-styled glasses approached me the other day, I knew she came here often. She scribbled on manuscripts with a red marker, always holding a large coffee drink topped with whipped cream. the light now streaking through the forest...it be so nice to walk down the hill and go into the starbucks and have a warm coffee but the snow has been iced over and to move down the hill would end in disaster...I just lost the lens cap to the camera...it rolled right down the hill...i've been drinking cheapies and taking pictures for hours...it's a price paid for fame and fortune...occasionally taking breaks to have a cigarette and pay more closely to John Doe's music...I have always greatly respected him but lately even more so when he said his latest album was inspired by the woods...imagine that, and here I am in the woods getting blasted and tripping out on the light on the landscape... the moment becomes surreal when the junior high which is down the hill lets out and I watch this girl slwoly make her way up the hill...it must be surreal for her too when she finally looks up when she reaches where I am...she had been so busy chopping through the ice that she hasn't seen me so when she looks up a look surprise registers on her face...after all, here is this man with shades on, listening to an ipod, smoking a cigarette with a camera and cans of crushed beers by him...she keeps it cool and goes on her way... the beer runs out and there's no choice but to go back in the house as it would be impossible to go down the hill and besides the fact that i have no cash...a small price paid to be able sit in the woods all day getting great shots of the landscape... so I walk into the house and turn on the tv...and there is Ben Cheevers, the writer, who hosts a local cable access show based on the writing life, saying how most people don't get published but nonetheless it was still important to write so as to make sense of the chaos... a small price paid for fame and fortune... |
Blogged with Flock
