I’ve been writing my pirate memoirs recently. Or should I say, still. It covers the last 30 years performing as a pirate. It’s about 70,000 words long right now and I haven’t yet passed 1995. I still have a ways to go it seems, and worse, I keep adding memories every week.
A friend chided me recently about why it wasn’t done yet recently, and I unthinkingly replied, “Because I’m still living the damned book!”
And that’s what brought me to my most recent thought. Life itself is just like a book, one we continue to write each and every day. I would hazard to guess that any one of our lives, if written out as an autobiography, would contain more wit, wisdom, suspense, mystery, comedy, tragedy and intrigue than any book ever written in the last 500 years. It would be an epic, one for the ages.
We each know our share of colorful characters who have filled the pages with endless story lines. The loves gone wrong, the love that lasts forever, the one that got away; the lifelong friend who never speaks to you again; the dear friend who stays by your side as you take your last breath here on earth. There are the coworkers who make us laugh, those who try to stab us in the back and those who use our back as a stair step up the proverbial corporate ladder.
There are the times we run out of gas on a date, miss a curfew, get way too drunk, end up in a place we never thought we would—even ending up next to someone who we would ordinarily never give the time of day to, let alone the time of their life. There are the fantastic false starts, the amazing finishes, the struggle to overcome adversity, the powerful sense of accomplishment when we finally do.
There are the endless adventures, of course. Ones that would make Eat, Love, Pray seem a bit tame and even shallow. Visiting a new land where you’re the only one who doesn’t speak the native language. Sharing good times with complete strangers in a small beachside tiki bar. Conquering that mountain top, slaying the Double Diamond run at Whistler, shredding a wave on the north shore of Oahu, walking among the wild things on an African savannah. Standing in the middle of nowhere where it’s so quiet that you could hear a pin drop, only to end up later that night in the middle of a raucous, non-stop party on Bourbon Street that continues into the wee hours of the morning.
There’s the new puppy under the Christmas tree. The birth of our children. Our wedding day. The day our children walk, talk, ride or drive for the first time. Our first kiss. The senior prom. Graduating from college. Getting our first job and being so nervous we think we’re going to throw up at any moment. The memories of a first love. The pain of a first loss.
We all write amazing books. And yet, at times, we seem to manage to get stuck on a particular chapter of it. We so want to read through the pages of the past again and again and do a monumental edit on them, but we know deep down that we can’t.
As the writers of our respective lives, we often get writer’s block. It’s not really all that uncommon. It’s certainly happened to me. I’ve referred to these variably as “taking a break from life” or “coasting for a while”, but they are simply breaks in the book where I can decide what the next chapter is going to be. They are merely blank pages that I have chosen not to write in. Unfortunately, I have found that you can’t go back and fill them in later. You can only start a new page.
Some of my own chapters have been packed with unbelievable adventure. Others filled with heartache. There have been plot twists that would make the greatest authors reject them outright, saying they were not plausible, at best. But as I add more pages, I somehow manage to stitch all the various plots back together into a singular theme that has defined me.
Oh sure, I’ve hit my share of dead ends. And there was a time or two when I could have just said “the hell with it” and given up. But I really want to see how the book is going to come out. I think I’m about two-thirds through it right now, hopefully a little less. And while some think that at this stage of their life the end is already written, I heartily disagree.
I think the best plot lines are to come. I tend to think that the next 30 years or so will yield some of the funniest stories in the book. I certainly don’t plan to sell out now and just say that the earlier pages were my best work. What author worth his salt does that?
Instead, I write on. I know you do, too. New pages, new chapters. Perhaps even new volumes. I wish we could all share every riveting page with one another. I’m sure it would make fascinating reading. I know lots of bits and pieces from my friend’s own life stories, but not the whole story. I guess that’s what makes them even more intriguing to me—the parts I don’t know.
While I am anxious to finish my pirate memoirs, I’m not very anxious to finish the longer tome. I have so much more to write. So many more words, pages… and chapters.
So, what chapter are you on?
Out on the Treasure Coast, dangling my participle,
— Robb