Grateful & Going Forward
Grateful & Going Forward
What I'll continue doing in this space.
Hello friends, I appreciate the people who read this blog consistently. With the flood of content on our phones, it’s a miracle that we read emails, books, or anything else. Please share the blog and let me know if you like something. I also appreciate any paid subscriptions. I know that simply living is expensive these days, but I will keep writing no matter what.
About the content
Lost and Found on the Camino de Santiago:
I will continue to post chapters from my book. However, I will give these posts more context for those who haven’t read any or many earlier posts from the book. That will help more readers understand what is happening. However, starting at the beginning should be the way to read it.
Essays, Vignettes, and Books in the Works
I will post reflection pieces, essays, and vignettes on food, faith, and cultural analysis. Some of those pieces will form part of a memoir I’ve worked on over the past few years. Other projects have asked for more of my time, including a series of books I am writing for children. Maybe I’ll post some of that here. Those stories revolve around a boy and his dog.
Poetry:
Poems were my path to writing. Pablo Neruda, Amado Nervo, José Antonio Machado, and Emily Dickinson, among others, were my guides. I wrote a lot of bad poetry, but some of it was good. And I even got some applause at poetry readings. However, their words didn’t help me when I had to write stories as a reporter, though their eyes did help me find great stories.
After bloodying my first, fifth, and tenth news story, my first news editor called me into his office. “Can the poetics!” he huffed staring at me holding the articles to my face. “This is not a creative writing magazine.” I returned to my office red-faced and quiet to do a rewrite. And yet, a poetic vision helped me find stories of substance and meaning after those first hard knocks.
I wrote about a blind man I met on a bus as he crisscrossed Guadalajara singing with his guitar. I also wrote about a man who earned a living by performing as a clown every evening on the streets of that same city. I sat in his living room, as he applied white makeup to his face and shared, “This is how I have fed my family. This is what built our home.” He had been performing most nights behind the Teatro Degollado for 20 years.
These men lived bravely, creatively, and poetically. Art fed their souls and families, and they also fed many others with beauty and laughter. They helped me write solid stories, and my editor didn’t complain too much about them. In the coming months, I’ll post poems to honor people like them.