For all my days, I’ve wanted to be a writer. To live the writer’s life, and be known as John D Reinhart, the writer.
You’re a writer. You know how it is. You need time to perfect your craft and space to let your ideas unfold. Oh, how cool would it be to live the writer’s life, huh?
So, what exactly IS the writer’s life? How do writer’s live?
Like Hemingway? Fighting in civil wars, bringing down wild fishies, smoking cigars, and drinkin’ hooch in dives?
I don’t smoke, and have to avoid hard liquor because of acid reflux, and I get seasick. And I’m a little old to go fight in a war.
Maybe Dickens up there in his garret? Freezing cold and doped up on laudnum? Gee, that sounds glamorous.
On the Fourth of July, we drove up to the seaside town of Cambria and walked the dogs along Moonstone Beach. My wife-who-still-hasn’t-read-my-book and daughter went tidepooling while the dogs and I ate the cookies I’d brought in my murse… I mean European Man Bag.
As I watched a portly woman in a too-skimpy bikini waddle past, the most amazing feeling overwhelmed me. It wasn’t the lady in the bikini, or the sun on the sea, you know, like heat stroke or something.
Nope. It was much more metaphysical. It felt as if the Universe was telling me that I was supposed to be there at that very moment. That everything was okay. And it felt like the very long road I’ve traveled pointed me right to that time and place. It felt like the Universe was telling me that this life I am living is the right life. The right life.
And then I got it.
Hey, knuckle-nose, you’re LIVING the writer’s life! Duh! Hello? Anybody in there?
YOU are a writer, right? How you live? That’s how writers live.
Did you see the movie Soul? In it someone tells the story about the little fish who swims up to the old fish and says “I’m looking for the ocean,” and the old fish says “you’re in it. This is the ocean,” and the little fish says “nuh uh, this is just water.”
For all my life I thought that some magical curatin would one day open up, and that on that most wonderful day I would finally get to live a writer’s life.
Did you ever see the movie The Odd Couple, with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau? One of my all-time favorites. In it, those guys are BOTH writers! And they’re just regular guys, like you and me.
Just like you and me. Which means that this, my friend, this is the writer’s life.
Thank you for reading my stuff and taking this journey with me. It really means so much to me.
And, take heart! You’re living the life of a writer!
John D Reinhart 