Fragments From Floyd

You start a blog, not knowing exactly where it will go or even why you feel compelled to pour your thoughts and hopes out for all to read. But you do it, and you stay faithful. Readers come, and as they do, you begin to respond to these not-quite-strangers who look from the outside at your life. You find something from the legion of ideas and visions that flood in with the first cup of morning coffee--something that gives those visitors a way to know what appears out your window when the sun comes up. Dear lord, they genuinely seem interested! And after a couple of years of this, you look behind you at the cration that has taken shape from this voice, this edifice of words, these images in words and pixels. And you wonder: could there be the kernel of something larger here? From all these fragments of what the seasons have shown me, could there be a book?

And of course there COULD be. That is not really the question. The physical act of binding pages together is trivial, easy and cheap. The question is not could, but should. The weblog has given so many a platform to entertain, to educate, to provoke debate. And not a few, like my friend David, have decided "yes" to the should. It should be a book because it scratches where they (and their readers) itch. It should be a book because their test market of blog readers have responded by wanting more, wanting to own a piece of your wit or wisdom or whimsy. It should be a book, they have decided, because it has somehow birthed itself (with or without the purpose early on to create a book) after months or years of gestation, and the labor pains are too intense to hold it in the dark any longer.

Last spring, I thought and talked about the book idea often. (A proposed cover letter and description of the book is here.) But I had not convinced myself that my reasons for creating a book equalled an unqualified YES that it SHOULD be done. In truth, part of my motive then, I am certain, was merely that I longed to have something tangible to hold in my hands and say "here's what I've been doing with my life since I leapt off the edge of the professional world. This has been why I get up every day. See. My life has not been wasted." While at the same time, what would have appeared between the covers, while having some fair passages and nice phrases here and there, didn't justify the imperatives of ought or should. It was merely something that COULD be done. And then the teaching job came along (for which I am very thankful) and that was the end of those energies toward a book. At least on the surface.

And all along, another hindrance to full investment in the idea that a book should be birthed was this: I never came to grips with the fact (or assumption) that a traditional book couldn't contain images. Seeing seems so tied to saying for me. So much of what I have to say is either stimulated by what I see and photograph or the words (to me at least) are fleshed out by the color, form and meaning of the image paired with the little narratives or fantasies or interpretations from nature close by. And so of late, the multimedia possibilities of something on a CD or DVD--where both the full-res images AND the words could easily go hand in hand--has been of interest. But this form lacks the tactile pleasure of holding a book in ones hands. So, whether I'm any closer to having that concrete raison d'etre sitting on my desk, that thing I can point to as the product of this latest life chapter, I cannot say. But I'm astudying on it, as my old neighbor used to say.

I do know that now, another year along, I have a better idea of what the pieces are. How to weave them together successfully into a larger work I am proud of--I lack that insight yet. This will be one of the things I'll be hoping to have some help with at Hindman later this summer. And I can pretty well say with certainty that summer won't be long enough to finish it, should I start; should the lights pour from heaven and my epiphany show me where to go, and how. Once classes start back in late August, the muse chokes on chalkdust and skulks off to the barn loft to hide. And so it goes.

* A Blook is a book that has arisen out of someone's blog. Don't look it up. It is a Fredism.