Going to California

Initially, winning first place in the Los Angeles Beach Book Festival for “Are You An Idiot?”, I felt angst.

“I don’t want to go all the way out there.”

And then, I had a moment where I thought, “You don’t have to always move on to what’s next. Enjoy it for a minute.”

Writing has always been effortless. Even as a kid, I knew that it was something that I could do better than my classmates, but then, it became a hunger.

Springsteen is in the Billy Joel documentary and he said, “Wanting to write is like wanting to eat. It’s just being hungry, and you have to get rid of the urge.”

I’ve always felt that.

I’ve been writing something for decades because I have to.

I tried to take a break once about ten years ago and I yelled to my wife:

“What do you people do all day?”

So it’s ever present and to get an award for it is kind of a shrug.

“I knew it was good,” I said, “Or I wouldn’t have put it out.”

Which is cocky, but is certainly part of that mental makeup.

“I tried to figure out why I lived my life at the very end of my tether,” Billy Joel said. “I knew I was hard to live with.”

I felt that one too, and I also felt Kathy’s eyes on me.

“Hmmm, hard to live with that,” she said.

“Yes!” I conceded, “But it’s necessary to go to what is next. It’s what makes me write what I need to write.”

We let that sit there for a minute.

“But you can enjoy it too,” Kathy said.

Made me think of my brother Jeff saying:

“Enjoy your life instead of trying to understand it.”

‘Fraid to say that I didn’t listen.

So, I’m going to California.

To enjoy it for a minute.

And you know, as I considered the long plane ride home, I had one sneaky thought:

“I can write some of the next one.”

I probably will.

A guy’s gotta’ eat…

…but I’ll save the work for the return trip.