Vacation Writing

To write, go on vacation. You can either stay home or travel, but I've found it most important to take some time out. Set a time and place for relaxing, thinking and letting the thoughts come to the surface. Often I throw away the first thoughts and words that serve to prime the pump of memory. But I keep coming back to the writing spot and make a time to meet myself there.

Deer friend from Cub River Canyon, Idaho

It's like the deer I keep meeting this week in the cabin in Idaho where I'm staying. Every day when I go out for a walk, she's there. Sometimes she runs away through the trees as soon as she hears my footsteps on the gravel. Sometimes she stays there for a short look. One day she looked for a long long time while I stayed as still as I could. She lowered her head a little and looked at me for awhile longer. She was mostly hidden by the leaves and the shade, but I could still see her. Then she lowered her head even more and looked again from a different perspective. Finally she moved off a little ways into the underbrush, then turned and gave me another long stare. I didn't have my camera with me that day.

When my camera is out, she seems to back off more quickly. So do the butterflies I attempt to capture in a photo. But like my memories, even though they are not exactly replicated in a photograph, the deer and the butterflies and the grasshoppers and the wild turkeys are stored in my mind and may peek shyly out of my writing when the time is right.

Driving along the road I spotted this piece of machinery
that spoke to me of my Johnson roots in Preston, Idaho

It's summertime and the living is easy. Schedule a vacation from the everyday and let the memories come out of the scrub oak to meet you.