The Reason Why

Some folks look at the long, dry spells between my posts and may wonder why. If you look back at my regular website (www.zimmac.com), where I used to post stories before web-logs became blogs, you'll see I went through dry spells there as well. It's because writing is a creative outlet for me. I don't have a best-selling novel hidden away in me, but I do have ideas and stories I like to express and I use them as a way of sharing what's in my head with others. 

I believe that everybody needs a creative outlet and it doesn't have to be in the mainstream of creativity. I used to work in a restaurant kitchen many (many) years ago and cooking food for people is a creative outlet. Writing music and singing songs are also outlets for me. But I think I really love to use words to get it out of my system. 

About two years ago I went back to college to finish what I started back in 1975 (Whoa, dude! You're, like, really old, man!) Since then I have had to use up the words I would have used for creative outlet to fill up papers for history and English and Communications classes. I used a lot of my creative juices when I took college Algebra (I think I sprained a muscle in my brain, but I got an "A").  It seems like there is always a project of some sort due, especially in World Civilization and American Government, to say nothing of putting together speeches for, um, Speech class, y'know. So my creative juices have not run dry, they've just been diverted.

So why this sudden burst of posts? It's Spring Break. Woo-hoo! Oh, wait; no woo-hoo for me. It just means I get to sleep a little later some days but it also means I get to work a little longer some days – those days when I usually have to go to an evening class and leave work early. I did email my parents back in northern Minnesota (where it's been below freezing this week) that I was going to have to go to Daytona Beach and get drunk with all the rest of the college kids. I told them I really didn't want to, but it's what college kids do, so my hands were tied. Yeah, right. Like a 51-year-old, overweight, balding man who's gone back to school to become a minister of music is going to go and par-tay with the kids. Snort, chuckle and guffaw. 

All the reading, writing and 'rithmatic I've been doing has gotten me used to having an outlet for the words and ideas that flow through my brain. Suddenly, that outlet has been temporarily pinched off, and I find myself stuffed with words that need to come out. So I returned to that thing I enjoy and which leaves me feeling as though I have actually done something that may last longer than I: putting those words to paper (or actually just into cyberspace). Someday someone may stumble across my blog or website and read something and feel their cockles warmed or chuckle at something I went through and realize they're not going through life alone and that someone else has felt the same thing they have. They may read I Should Have Raised Goldfish and realize they are not terrible parents, just tired and war-weary. 

So I've just got words that need to come out sometimes. And that's the reason why. 

© 2008 Mike Zimmerli All Rights Reserved