“There is something delicious about writing the first words
of a story. You never quite know where they’ll take you.” (Beatrix Potter,
English writer)
Writing comes naturally to me. Since I was a very young boy, I found the written word made it easy to express myself. As I grew, any training I received in school only helped to strengthen my relationship with print media. My entire post-secondary experience was to further my command of the written word. I was educated as a journalist. I studied television and radio broadcasting to expand my reach. I worked in many forms of media but I always returned to my first love, writing. As the internet formed, I could access venues unavailable to me before. I began blogging almost immediately after my Mother’s death in 2010. I had maintained profiles on Facebook and other social media, but I failed to use them efficiently. Little by little, my blog grew from the ashes. What started out as weak, and intentionally simple, soon began to find a sense of form and structure as I played and developed. For more than 7 years, I have diligently posted. I do not write my blog because I am looking for money. You will never see my work monetized. I have created my own biography, in a sense. Anyone can go back through my history, at least what I have documented over the last 7 years. There is little I have not discussed in one manner or another. Writing is, for me, a daily exercise, a cathartic workout anytime my fingers pound the keys. You can almost feel the cleansing as each letter finds its place. As far back as I can remember, print (in one form or another) was my passion, even if I didn’t know it at the time. Like God and comic books, the connection has never failed. I am, after all, a writer.
“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an
artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.” (Émile Zola, French
playwright)
Strathroy
District Collegiate Institute (SDCI) sucked the life out of me for almost 5
years. I suppose high school will do that. Of all the people I knew and all the
activities I took part in, there are few fond memories held by either. I
realize now that I was pretty much like any other teenager. I struggled with my
identity, I struggled with the social game. I had no idea my world functioned
through the eyes of bipolar disorder. This is completely beside the point.
Although I played sports like any good breeder would, and participated in
heterosexual rites of passage, for the most part I really just wanted to be
left alone. My disability often ravaged me, even though it would be more than a
decade before I received proper treatment. I tried my best to function and that
usually meant projects I could do by myself. It’s not that I’m not a team player,
I just find people very noisy and distracting. I function so much better in the
silence. It has always been this way for me. I did all the normal things
someone my age did in high school. I joined the band, standing at the back of
each rehearsal with a string bass in one hand and solitude in the other. I did
the theatre arts scene, performing in several productions before graduation. I
loved English class. The study of writing and style were my favourite lessons. Shakespeare
was my friend. I impressed my English teacher with my enthusiasm. Although this
instructor was a bitch, I excelled in this area, so much so that she introduced
me to the librarian and my journey began. Writing always just seemed to fit me,
even when I was a kid. I won poetry contests and flourished as an amateur
journalist. Working on the school newspaper just made sense to me.
I joined
the staff of the SDCEye approaching mid-term
in my freshman year. The monthly
newsletter/newspaper was amateur and somewhat redundant, but the idea of being
involved in its publication activated something within me. I had been constantly
exploring this medium and this venue seemed like a good place to start evolving
my craft. At first, I was assigned the sports page, responsible for interviews
and such but eventually I was offered something even more exciting for me. My
tenure as publisher and editor started with my sophomore year. I was put in
charge of almost everything involving the formation of the publication. I not
only shaped the essence of the paper but was also responsible for the printing
and distribution. I was assignment editor, reporter and publisher all in one
very committed young man. I was trained in layout, design and consistency,
always under the watchful eye of the editor-in-chief, Mr. Bahnmiller. I
instantly fell in love with the process and like a sponge, I absorbed as much
information and its application as I possibly could. The few years in which I practiced
my art may have been simplistic and rather amateurish, yet I still discovered something
wonderful in the midst of it all. Like stepping out on the yellow brick road, I
had to follow where that road would lead me. I carried my new sense of purpose
in the words that were written and the form they had taken. Like a harbinger,
it pointed to my future and I finally realized who and what I wanted to be.
As I
progressed in my studies, opportunity tried to lead me away. I expanded my
base, formally studying journalism for print, in radio and on television. I
even branched out in later years and worked exclusively in radio for a time. I
had the voice and the looks for it. No matter what the field was, my writing
ability always seemed to point me in that direction. I excelled at writing copy
and advertising seemed a natural fit, but only to others it would seem. I always
kept writing even when my view shifted. Over the decades, I published in
religious magazines, in local newspapers and a few major publications. It’s
strange, when my first partner died in 1995, I stopped writing altogether but
when my Mother died in 2010, it inspired me to start again. For the length of
those 15 years, I rarely created anything outside of my head. I think holding
it all in affected my ability to express myself in terms beyond grief and
futility. My ability to write did not pass away but it certainly went into
hibernation. I always managed to find a way to not create, to not be inspired.
All the pain was all that remained. Rather than using my command of the English
language, I fell silent. For years, it really seemed like there was nothing
left for a teller of tales. I still floated in the otherland but I just
couldn’t find a way to write about it.
I posted my
first blog, “Lemon Cupcakes with Icing Sugar Sprinkles” (http://simplekel.blogspot.ca/2010/05/may-28th-2010.html),
on May 28th, 2010.
I touched on music and memories and the way things used to
be. I didn’t know it at the time but the grief I felt over my Mother’s death
reactivated something within me. As I reached out to my world for sanity, I
dove head first into what would turn out to be my pure pleasure. Rather than
simply posting once in awhile, I had to post 4 or 5 or 6 times each week. I
managed to do this for exactly one year. Borrowed
Knowledge did not find an agonizing death, rather it ended with the
transformation into a blog much more reasonable to handle. Posting every day interfered
too much with work and my home life but I didn’t burn out. I excelled and
picked up speed. The first year of my
blogging really changed the way I viewed media delivery. I suppose that while
many would not consider me old school journalism, I most certainly was brought
up in that line of thinking. Blogging became a vehicle, a mechanism with its
own reward. After 5 more years of blogging, Surviving
God, ran out of steam for me. The confines of the thesis restricted my
ability to fully express myself. On January 1st, 2017, I began a new
blog, unrestricted by anything but my imagination. This far in and it remains a
delight to write on a weekly basis. Writing can often be an escape, so Otherland seemed like the perfect tag to
write under. Day after day, I never grow tired of putting my thoughts onto
paper (so to speak). It is still all that it ever has been, cathartic,
structured and relevant. I rely on the purge to make it through my day, every
day.
“Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles
writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There’s many a
best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.” (Flannery
O'Connor, American essayist)
Sometimes the path we are to follow in life is hidden, we are unable to find the direction we are supposed to take. Sometimes the path is clear and focused, leaving little room to wonder or question if you are going the right way. For most of us, setting out on the correct course is a mundane experience, usually determined by circumstance rather than some unique event or school of thought. In no way am I trying to convey that God comes down and makes the decision for us, pushing us through supernatural means to follow His path versus our own. I guess I still believe that the way we travel is irrelevant, it is the lessons we are to learn as we move forward that should resonate the most. Everyone’s path looks different but all the things we are supposed to absorb are usually the same. It’s not the highway that keeps you going, it’s the scenery.
I never
questioned what I was supposed to be. I just didn’t know it when I came across
it. It was there all along, I suppose. For both my educational and professional
life, I have followed a few paths at the same time. I specialized in media
rather than focusing on my writing. I think in high school I understood my
calling. As I was inundated with higher learning, I drifted away from my
natural proclivity. I spent years, decades, paying attention to what would make
me more money and I forgot about what really makes me happy. There is nothing
more satisfying (including sex) than when I open myself to the flow. All the
words just come to me these days. I don’t have to think about anything but
starting, the rest exudes, sometimes as a dribble and sometimes like a heavy
stream. It always takes me away. In a sense, putting “pen to paper” is always a
trip to my otherland. Sometimes the visit is quick and sometimes it lasts, but
either way it most certainly is a destination I never should have left to begin
with. No matter the topic and no matter the style, it all makes sense to me
now. I should have stayed the course, and followed the path well knowing, every
river, every highway teaches something new.
“Your profession is not what brings home your weekly pay check,
your profession is what you’re put here on earth to do, with such passion and
such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling.” (Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter)
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