i don't mean, when i head to the market for some tomatoes, i instead end up at the post office—i mean, i strike out with a question, or turn a new page, or have a conversation, or get on a plane, and though i may have started out with a sort-of intention, i got curious. i happen on something i never would have thought of.
fiction is one of the best ways to find surprise endings. reading or writing. it's the—well, how could there have been an elephant that crashed through the roof of the opera house? that's impossible!—when reading, or the—i wonder what choice this prince will make if he is afraid. i wonder what happens if he hordes fear and loves ambition most of all...—when writing another chapter or narrative turn.
when reading and writing, you've got to throw yourself in there (with the chickens and foster kids and insecurities and calluses) without the answer straight in front of you, written in very neat lines.
tonight, i am looking forward to sleeping after a long, hard, good first week in klaipeda, lithuania. after a long trip and just a few days of university orientation, suddenly i'm supposed to be a teacher, with four classes and syllabi, as well as confidence and expertise and poise and a large dose of creativity. also, sanity. (how do you all do it? i can't imagine yet.) but i also have a few lithuanian words; i've had a good meal from a local restaurant, a view of the harbor and its ferries; i have wind-pinched cheeks and a day of rest tomorrow—time, the market, the sea.
i have no idea yet how this year will look. but i've started writing. and, as with any story, there is bound to be hard and good and bad all together, and, at the very beginning, mostly questions. here's to jumping right in.
who knows where i might end up?
