MUSINGS and other writing by Mark Kolke

RIGHT TO ME

Friday Dec. 2, 2011

column written/ published from Calgary

Morning walk:  -2C/27F, light overcast, gentle breeze from sunbathed  mountains – canopied in cloud as they are – wilderness beckons for a weekend drive . . . while Gusta dug for rabbit treasures under the snow.

Thought doesn’t spontaneously combust. 

Trigger, or catalyst. required.

Staring at a spot on a wall, windshield or at that sapphire starburst movie screen on the inside-front of my eyeballs when squeezed tightest of all – something starts it flowing.

Or it flits in, or out, on the breeze or from something seen, or felt looking out that window, or at that mountain slope.

What lets inspiration in – and what spits it out?

Easy

headline

triggers

thought

merrily

down

tangent

path

somewhere

path

bends

thought

takes

hold

grips

brain

sets

fingers

tapping

keys

at

same

moment

Ready?

Start . . .

Interesting – similarity in spelling of inspiration and perspiration – because, in urgency they spell, feel and probably smell much the same.

How I write, how I start to write, seems right to me.

Mark Kolke

307,652

Comments Received:

RELIABILITY

Wrote this Sunday night after a power failure.  I know that we cannot live in this fantasy world without our technology and connectivity, but it sure looks good at times. (As long as I had the water for shower and the toilets): Maybe we should all lose power more often?  Do the things that matter rather than the things we think we should do.  I know our lives revolve around power, electricity, media, and internet.  Connecting with everyone for everything. Lack of information, communication and connection without email, internet and media.  Do we really need to know about the traffic accident on QEII? The winds abating in the next few hours? The snow that is coming tomorrow night? What the stock price is doing on the TSX?Really, should we not be connecting with the people that really matter?  The people we love and those that love us in return?  Is this large world that we are connected to really necessary or just a fantasy of how we think things should be?  I think we all have a nucleus of people that matter.  Mine is very small.  I’m not an extrovert outside of work.   My daughter tells me that I cannot quit work.  She is afraid that I would become a recluse and not leave my sanctuary.  She unfortunately is the same and can see it clearly.   But really, I have a handful of very close friends, my two daughters and their families.  I can hardly fit them into a schedule where they receive enough of my attention.  I need more power failures to make me realize what is important, who is important, and to remind me to let all the rest go….. Just as if the power fails every day, ST, Calgary, AB