People have asked my how and why I write. I can’t help it. I see the beauty in this old flat bed truck and it strikes me. When I look at this truck, I see Christmas! I observe, wonder and make mental notes or sometimes heart notes. Words take me places I’ve never been, let me revisit old favorite places, keep my feet firmly planted or let me fly or fall; they inspire me.

I write because I have to–for school or classes or to fill out forms, and I love to touch the reader and make them smile as they slog through a million of the same boring forms. Sometimes I can’t keep up with the thoughts hurtling through my brain.

I remember learning to write on that special paper with the solid lines top and bottom and the dashed lines in the middle. I traced around dotted letters until I could form them without help. Writing is so connected to reading for me: words on the pages of books I loved were magic to me. I write every day, in different places and formats, but I write. Sometimes I love what I write; sometimes I wonder what I was thinking; sometimes I want to toss it out, but I don’t because it is all part of my process, and who knows what might come in handy in some story!

This engine is one-hundred years old

New Holland Engine

and of course it’s been restored, but can you imagine it’s story? I cannot help wondering whose farm it came to new and how excited they were to have this kind of power to help with the work. Did the family gather around and gawk at it’s beauty? I don’t know, but I can imagine and that is what it’s all about.