Ribbons in the Air

Around here we have toll roads. These toll roads are usually very long and very straight, but there are certain exits and parts where it changes from one toll road to another that become long, curving, swoopy roads that sit high above the ground. When there isn't any traffic (which is frequent), I tend to take these curves at speeds around 65 to 70mph. It was never anything that bothered me before. Usually it can be a beautiful thing, especially at night when you can see the lights of the town spread out below. Sometimes, though, I notice just how thin the concrete walls look when I'm going around those curves. They don't really look like walls; more like thin concrete barriers that are put up before the walls are put in place. When you're speeding around these turns, at night, about six stories above the ground, they can look woefully inadequate to stop a car from plunging over the edge. I'm sure they are, though.

I was walking around a shopping mall, for lack of a better word, when I came across a used book store. I dropped in and gravitated towards the fantasy and science-fiction section. There's a fairly hefty stock of books in that section and a lot of it was pretty old. Old enough that they were old when I was a kid. I suddenly felt very sad and wondered why I don't read as much as I used to.

Sure, technically I have less time to read. I work, I take care of animals, and now I have a girl friend to spend time with. Surely, though, I can find a little bit of time between this and that to actually read something. I really spend too much time watching TV shows or movies, though. I don't listen to music very much either. In fact, the only time I listen to music is when I'm driving in the car. I find this very depressing because when I was growing up listening to music while reading was something I did frequently.

At one point I started buying some of the older sci-fi books I'd wanted to read but never had. I bought them digitally so that I could read them on my phone or tablet, wherever I was and whenever I got a chance. Whenever I was standing in line or waiting for a movie to start I read through, say, For Love of Mother Not by Alan Dead Foster. It was written in 1983 and is considered a part of Foster's more famous works (the Flinx and Pip adventures). I believe it was a favorite series of my older sister's. Anyway, I'm reading through it and I liked it, but it didn't seem very well written. To me, it seemed very simple.  It was easy to read, though, and very entertaining. But while I was reading through the book it occurred to me that I could write something like that.

And that makes me sad, too. Not that I think I could write something like that, but that I don't. And won't. It's just never going to happen because I don't have whatever spark it is that's needed to actually do something. That's very depressing, too, and I'm sure there's a lot of people who are tired of hearing about it by now.

There are a few people who get genuinely upset when I say that I'm going to give up even trying to write. Even giving up on the tired old blog that I write on every once in a while. I don't know why they get so upset, but I'm grateful for it.

It's a lovely Saturday afternoon, though, and there shouldn't be time for maudlin musings about a past that can never be changed or a future that won't be changed. I reckon there'll be time enough for that when I'm bed ridden or something.