Not quite a native Ripley Countian - she attended only her last year of high school in Doniphan though she taught in the R-1 system for 32 years - Teresa (Pearson) Lee delights in surprising readers and herself with anecdotal observations of life in general. Maybe you can blame her St.Louis roots for a quirky humor and some slightly-askewed opinions, but never doubt she writes from the heart.

Blowing Smoke

Posted Friday, March 22, 2024, at 1:57 PM

They wouldn't have me. LOL

Writer’s block…unrelated focus…oversleeping…lost calendar…Pick one to partially explain why my column is late and rushed. Course, if you’re reading this on March 20, you won’t know it was late, though you might sense it being hastily written.

Writer’s block torments me only in the pursuit of fiction. I can always scribble something unless I have to totally make it up. Panic city. However, activities at meetings of the Current River Writers group are chiseling away at that block a chunk at a time. Who knows what my brain and pen might come up with when I get more comfortable with the whole idea.

Unrelated focus plagues me more than acknowledged. I grew into adulthood with too many irons in too many fires. Not wanting to spend my retirement chasing wildfires, I’m better at deciding which to extinguish. (Being a recovering hoarder is great practice. Moving stuff around solves nothing; dealing with stuff does, which requires concentration).

Oversleeping? Until recently, I labeled it a luxury that would never be on my shopping list because I didn’t know where to find it. Alas! It’s one that plops down unexpectedly, mysteriously connected to (1) disappearing writer’s block and (2) focusing on a time-stealing task. Falling asleep to a midnight storm made it even sweeter. No apologies.

Losing track of days is a real deal with me. I work for a magazine so deadlines are in the month I’m living but work focuses on the month ahead. After the deadline, when I’m hopping back on the ‘now’ train, the proof comes in and I’m back to the future once more.

Seems fitting that today, March 20, is Extraterrestrial Abductions Day. That isn’t on my bucket list. I mostly avoid lonely roads and open fields except when pursuing more daffodil and redbud sightings. Writing sci-fi isn’t on my radar, either. Anyway, the PN staff wouldn’t buy that excuse coming from me.

Today is also the UN’s International Day of Happiness and ‘Happier Together’ is 2024’s theme. Deciding to be happy might be a major principle. “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” (Marcus Aurelius - 4/26/121 AD to 3/17/180 AD) Little has changed since then. Be sure to share that if you’re ever abducted by extraterrestrials. They need to know we humans are slow learners.