Keeping the work personal: Breakthrough Tip for the week of 4/25/2016

I need to start practicing the Breakthrough tips. I have afflicted myself with the Busyness Virus and consequently just found this response to a January tip. Carolyn, here you and your words are. As compensation, I’ll answer your question at the end of your words:

Hi Mary, Here’s my 30-minute writing free-for-all. It was interesting (and fun) to do. But what now? What do I do with this kind of writing other than form a habit of writing (not a bad thing at all)?:

I needed to be in Odessa by 10:00, which meant leaving at 6:30 a.m. This doesn’t sound bad, after all, I used to cheerfully rise at 5:00 a.m. and wander into work about 6:00. But that’s the thing about my new life as a full-time freelance writer. I tend to rise with the sun (which shows through the curtains about 8:00 on these cold, winter mornings) and go to bed about midnight. So setting an alarm, and crawling out of bed at 5:30 to make a 6:30 start time was challenging at best. But I managed.

It was still pitch black when I drove away from the house. The stars in west Texas are so bright. I forget about the joys of rising early. How you feel like you can reach out and touch the stars and the tiny sliver of the moon that still hangs in the pre-dawn sky. I head north, through Limpia Canyon, on the alert for deer and javelina. They’re sneaky creatures that seem to wait by the side of the road before throwing up their heads and dashing out in front of your vehicle. The deer do anyway. The javelina are more driven by herd instinct. If one crosses the road, they’ll all cross the road. And their eyesight is so bad that they’ll often stop in the middle of the rode, their noses pointed upwards, sniffing. Trying to see if what they hear coming is friend or foe. Usually foe if it involves a speeding vehicle.

But I didn’t have time for carcasses this morning. Stay alert. Watch for shadows that move. I got through the canyon as the sky gradually shifted to the pink of morning. My cameras were on my seat beside me, ready to be grabbed, ready to capture a moment of time, turn it into pixels with colorspaces, and become a permanent image. But this dawn was too perfect. It didn’t deserve permanence. It was designed to be admired and left alone. (I love this. Mary)  

I drove on. I reached the Interstate and settled in for the rest of the 2-hour drive to Odessa. It’s a long, straight road, with little to admire. (Actually, that’s a writing and photography challenge. What is there to admire along IH20? What is interesting in those little towns that you can’t see, but that the exit signs assure you actually exist. Somewhere. Out there.). The semi-trucks are already moving. Where are they going? What are they carrying? Where have they been? I think about my Field Guide to Trucks on the Highway. Something that I may write. Some day.

By the time I pass through Pecos, my eyelids are heavy. The road is so straight, surely I could just rest my head on the steering wheel like this…. Just for a few seconds. It would be alright… No! I jerk my head up, and turn on the radio. I sing (or more honestly screech off key) to the latest and greatest. I find an exit and pull off into a Stripes convenience store. I wander inside to fill up a tall cup with ice and caffeine-laden cherry Coke, and sift through the packaged breakfast sweets until I find a cherry fried pie. Maybe a stiff dose of caffeine and sugar will get me down the road. I’ve got Siri as a travel companion. She gets a little concerned whenever I do something unexpected (like take an exit.) She’s sullen now. Refuses even to demand that I “proceed to route.” It’s okay, Siri. I’m about to head back up on the interstate. More driving.

You can tell when you get to Odessa. There’s a smell in the air. Heavy. Oily. The pumpjacks surround the town, nodding rhythmically. Up and down. Sucking the oil from the rocks, sending it through the pipelines to tanks. Eventually, the oil will return so that I may fill up my truck for another drive, another adventure. I don’t like the oil fields. I don’t like what the oil companies have done to the landscape, but I do like to drive. Something that I definitely need to work on. I pass a holding yard for old oil tanks. Ancient, wooden barrels, their planks stained with oil, lean in the direction of the prevailing winds. Still held together by rusted iron cable, the tanks have a story to tell. How old are they? My friend, Mark, is a cabinet maker and he’s intrigued by the old tanks. He made a kitchen from the planks reclaimed from old pickle barrels. The wood had absorbed wonderful, beautiful colors from the pickle juice. “What color would the oil planks be?” he asked me one time. I don’t know. But would my kitchen smell of the oil fields?

I get to Odessa and Siri safely guides me to the building where I’m supposed to interview Tom Rodman about his association with the Odessa meteor crater site. I’m early, as usual. It’s a genetic thing my family has decided. We’re always at least 15 minutes early to any planned get-together. It’s sort of a joke. Well, at least with the family. The associated spouses and friends usually aren’t as good with the joke (or being 15 minutes early) as the rest of us are. I drive around the block a couple of times (Siri is pissed by now. I turn her off so she’ll relax and recoop from her travels with me), scoping out parking, scoping out downtown Odessa. When I asked for an address to Mr. Rodman’s office, he told me, “It’s the tallest building in Odessa” as if that would be enough of an address. I guess I would have found it. It is the tallest building in Odessa by far. The bottom floor is a bank, so parking turned out to be pretty easy. I fiddled some more, checked my email, and finally went in, searching for the 12th floor. The elevator doors swept open revealing a narrow, low-ceilinged corridor and a plaque pointing towards “Thomas Rodman, Attorney.” I stepped from the rather austere, 60s style corridor into the plush, carpeted, wood-paneled office of an attorney. A tall, suited man was leaning over a desk, talking to a casually dressed woman. They smiled at me, a bit flustered at my arrival. I was, after all, still early.  Best wishes for the New year! Cathryn Hoyt

Ah, Cathryn, I’m sure you know my answer. Keep writing. I particularly love how clearly you describe the surroundings. ms

 

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