3 Ways to Love Yourself AND Get Past Writer's Block!
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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
I started writing for Medium a couple of days ago because:
1) I can get paid and I like getting paid and,
2) I have the freedom to write about anything and everything I want, and… still get paid. Which I like. A lot.
I can’t do that on this blog because everything I’ve read about blogging recommends getting specific in my topics.
Besides it’s evolved to cover writing prompts, novel excerpts, and resurfacing my On the Road journal sent to my friends when I was on my DIY booktour/roadtrip.
In other words, this blog is all things Indie Author oriented, and that can be very limiting.
Then it occurred to me that the article I wrote this morning could be useful to writers for writer’s block.
The article was originally titled: 3 Ways to Self-Love After a Breakup – Or for any other reason you feel like dog s***.
Since love and creativity draw from the same well, it made sense to include it here.
Besides writers have relationships and go through breakups, and one of the unfortunate side effects of that is…writer’s block.
So here is that list of some of my favorite self-love, self-care, feel-goodies that have been very effective at getting me out of my funk…and out of writer’s block.
By the way, these tips work for everything – not just breakups and writer’s block.
1. DANCE
I mean dance your butt off for at least 1 hour. This to me is the most powerful of everything I recommend.
Dance, besides being really good for your body, releases those endorphins that make you feel all is right in the world.
The more your cut loose, the more you shake it, the more likely you’ll get to bliss. And you want to get to bliss when you feel like dog s***.
The easiest is to dance in your living room or any other space where you can let go to your favorite playlist of beloved dance songs. And if you don’t have one, make one. Make several.
**My personal recommendations to include in your dance playlist songs that are dominated by percussion/drumming and/or didgeridoo. There is something cathartic about dancing to those instruments that is truly transformative.
If you live in an urban area or artsy town that has an Ecstatic Dance – also called 5 Rhythms or Soul Motion – I strongly recommend you start going on the regular. Ecstatic dance sets, if done right, are created to move energy and generate emotional release.
Another option is if there is a lot of live music – go out and dance in a crowd. I’m not quick to recommend dance nightclubs because the darkness and the vibe often make me feel alienated and alone in a crowd.
On the other hand, I’ve had some great dance offs in nightclubs. I guess it depends on what your jam is. If that works for you, go for it.
But you may have to wait until happier and healthier times to do that.
In these days of the Coronavirus, it’s best to stick to outdoor dance parties or your living room.
2. Hiking or Walking
What this really comes down to is get outside and move your body.
Ideally, you live someplace close to lots of beauty of forests, streams, and waterfalls. If you can, get out in that beautiful nature and allow it to heal your heart and so
If you can’t, find the prettiest neighborhood in your town with lots of trees and flowers and bushes and plants and walk around.
Hikes naturally take longer; but if you’re neighborhood walking, go for at least 45 minutes.
Do not stroll, walk briskly with long strides and swinging arms and breathe deeply through your nose to take in all the scents.
3. Shaking
Now, it’s time to get a little freaky because this practice makes you look crazy to the casual observer.
That said, it’s worth it.
To deliberately shake your body is amazing therapy.
Everything we experience is stored in our bodies - everything from the beautiful to the ugly.
But the ugly adds up. By literally shaking every part of your body, you’re shaking it OUT OF YOU.
It works even better if you speak gibberish afterwards – sounds that make no sense and form no coherent words for a minute or two.
This is the part that makes you look insane. But it works.
This was a crucial practice after my breakup.
I went through a period of feeling numb and disconnected.
I became acutely aware of this when I went to a Tantra Festival where everybody else was in a warm, touchy-feely, happy space and I wasn’t.
Things shifted after one workshop, when the facilitator started the dance practice with a several minutes of shaking followed by gibberish.
That one practice alone made me feel alive again.
Below is a video that shows a basic shaking practice that isn’t too mortifying (although the narrator does a little gibberish towards the end).
Go ahead and cut more loose and find other Youtube videos for some ideas. Be sure to put “shaking practice” in your search.
So now you have a few of my secrets.
Now that you’ve physically processed your “stuff,” put your butt to the chair and start writing!
Time to Get Back to Work
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Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay
The Victorians had some rigid and bizarre rituals for mourning.
Widows had to embody mourning for at least 2 years, wearing nothing but black before being able to mute to gray, then mauve, and white.
But never mind the fashions, their absence at anything remotely social was ruthlessly expected. Anything less than total isolation was not acceptable.
That must have been torture, no matter how much the women loved their husbands.
Image by Anna Veronika from Pixabay
By the way, I’m not a recent widow and nobody close to me has died. My engagement ended this past summer when I left my fiancée. So perhaps this beginning hints of melodrama.
That said, modern times do not have adequate rituals for grieving, much less the elaborate ones nobody can afford through time or money.
Even if I had invested in a dream that would never come true – and would have been a nightmare if I had stayed, this breakup is the death of an imagined future. Even if I wasn’t happy, I was counting on this future, as you can see from this blog here, posted not even 5 months ago.
Oh! Bitter, bitter irony!
There is a grieving process in breakups that suspends sociability and productivity.
I was in a really bizarre space emotionally right after I left. I could only handle spending time with people I knew well.
Any time I was in a social situation that entailed mingling with others for the first time, I couldn’t connect with anybody. It was as if I existed just outside my body.
Image by Grae Dickason from Pixabay
But besides sociability, my writing momentum came to a screeching halt.
Before I left, I had been working with a very talented illustrator for a children’s fairy tale, “Why Roses Have Thorns.” See previous blogs about Natalya here and here.
She had just finished all the illustrations, and had set me up with an editor friend who was working on the manuscript.
I still need to go back and look over those edits to go for a final polish, because I haven’t done shit since the break up.
Needless to say, that second draft of “The Shepherd and the Courtesan” that I was so proud of? I’ve only touched it once since last July.
Thank Goddess that I had enough blogs scheduled for about a month because that kept me consistent.
Since then, many blogs in the last two months are excerpts from my novel and my work-in-progress, as well as journal entries from my DIY booktour/roadtrip in 2005-2006.
I even dug up a couple of blogs from a year ago and re-posted when I was truly desperate and couldn’t think of anything to write about.
I post 3x/week. So out of 3 months; that makes at least 36 blogs. Out of those 36, only 6 (including this one) are fresh pieces.
Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay
This does not include the writing prompts. I’ve made 6 sets of 6 writing prompts since early September. I guess I went a little nuts on those because they don’t require my concentration, and that is the beauty of them.
I don’t need to stick to an overarching theme as I do a reflective article. I only have to put a pithy description or chunk of dialogue. Then whoever is grabbed by one prompt or the other runs with it, and comes up with their own themes.
Today is the 3-month mark of the day I left my fiancée. We were together almost 4 years. In the grand scheme of relationships, that’s not very long.
In the scheme of toxic relationships, which had we been the last 2 years we were together, I consider myself lucky that this only lasted 4 years. So many people stay much longer when they should have left much sooner.
That said, I’m still smarting over the lost time, even if I learned a lot and grew a lot.
A friend told me her measuring stick for processing the end of a relationship was 1 month for every year together and then it’s time to get back on track. She said it took her about a year to recover from the end of a 12-year relationship.
In about 22 days, I will hit that benchmark.
I can feel myself thawing out of the numbness that had consumed me until I went to a Tantra Festival (I’ll write about that later. I promise) at the end of August. Ideas are flowing and I’m getting restless.
Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay
Natalya even got in touch a couple of days ago with an offer of her marketing services.
Things are warming up.
It’s time to get back to work.
The Moment of Truth
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The Sorcerer punched his thigh, watching the girl leave.
He bellowed through his nose while she took the spiral out of his Caverns two stairs at a time. He had waited for too long to claim this one to allow her to slip away.
He glimpsed the liquid cloud of second sight. The vial was on the top shelf carved in the eastern wall, resting beside a small cauldron.
Perhaps he could see something useful.
He took them both to the table and sat on the sofa, resting his palm where the girl had been. He savored the heat she left behind until the image of her was clear in his mind.
Then he emptied the vial into the cauldron and closed his eyes. His face smarted from the smoke rising to form a cloud above his head.
The Sorcerer cast his mind and heard the girl’s labored breathing before he saw her running through the trees.
She came out of the woods at the river, close to where he had found her the previous morning just as she was about to jump.
This time she wasn’t alone.
On the other side of the river was the giant gray stallion, the one that ran wild in the Abandoned Valley. Although he was a mammoth among horses, his glossy coat blended with the rising light and the girl didn’t see him until he pulled his head from the water.
She glowed when she saw him, the radiance in her face surprising the Sorcerer before he remembered that summer when she rode in the Abandoned Valley.
The handsome young Horse Trainer had always accompanied her on a splendid gray colt. This must be the same animal.
The girl called out.
The giant equine looked at her for a moment before turning away.
As the animal ran for the far reaches of the Abandoned Valley, the Sorcerer saw the crest of the Patron seared into its left flank.
The girl shook her head and turned towards her father’s manor.
The house was high enough to view the fields, orchards of unborn peaches, and forests of the family estate, as well as the village to the south.
The manor was backlit by the coming sun, and the household would be coming awake to start the new day.
The girl stretched her limbs to their limit and fled.
She didn’t stop until she came to the garden of lilies encircling the house.
The top bulbs peeked at her from above her head, but the girl had her gaze fixed on the massive door carved from the wood of peach trees.
With her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, the girl could have been a refugee at the gates of sanctuary.
Then she touched her hair.
The coil had come undone when she fell in the river, the golden tresses hung loose and tangled to her waist.
She looked over the stains on her gown and paled, her fingers touching the remnants smeared across her face. When she faced the front door again, the shine dimmed from her eyes.
The girl took several deep breaths before following the path to the portico. Her hand shook reaching for the knob.
All was quiet when she stepped in.
She made her way down the hall running through the center of the house.
One door opened to a salon on the west side, while the one on the east was closed.
At the end of the corridor, twin doors opened to the dining room.
From the west side, two servants swept in from a second door, which the Sorcerer assumed to be the kitchen.
Their arms were laden with a basket of steaming bread, a cutting board with a round of cheese, a tray of sliced oranges, and a silver pitcher of coffee.
They seemed unaware of the girl’s presence, arranging the breakfast at the far end of the table near the lone place setting.
From the parlor, the rising sun shone through the eastern windows, gleaming along the wooden floors to fade away before the stairs.
The sudden creak in the floor made the younger maid start and look up.
At the sight of her Patron’s daughter, she spilled the tray of oranges.
The other servant turned and scowled at the stains on the pristine linen. She opened her mouth to scold the other, but closed it when she saw who stood just beyond the doors.
The Sorcerer suspected this must be the girl’s personal maid when the woman curtseyed.
She looked over her mistress, taking in the ruined gown, unkempt hair and grimy face, and paled more than the younger maid.
The servants looked at each other and back to the girl, all three standing motionless, a temporary tableau of panic until the heavy tread coming down the stairs spurred them to action.
The older maid hurried to place the tray of oranges over the soiled tablecloth, the younger poured a stream of coffee into a china cup, and the girl turned to meet her father.
The Sorcerer also held his breath, knowing that what he wanted depended on the Patron’s reaction.
His boots appeared first as he stepped down from the landing.
The Patron would be working in the fields again that morning. He was dressed in peasant garb, and there was a permanent cake of mud around the soles of his boots.
His torso still held vestiges of the formidable strength he possessed when he had claimed this estate as a young man. His large hands were calloused from years of hard work, the mark of a farmer.
Yet his hands were also those of a nobleman, his fingers scrubbed each day, his nails rounded and clean of dirt.
The Patron stopped when he saw his daughter, eyes wide with surprise.
He opened his mouth as if to speak.
Then his gaze dropped.
As he took in the girl’s appearance, he flushed and his lips clamped in a tight line.
He shook his head, flicked his eyes away, and descended the last stretch of stairs, to step past the girl to the dining parlor. His manner was stately when he claimed his seat at the end of the table.
The girl stared after her father, the high color draining from her cheeks. Her lips trembled and empty swallows rippled down her throat as she fought to regain her poise.
The maids shifted their regard between their Patron and his daughter. He said nothing until he had taken a few sips of coffee.
Then he placed a few orange slices on his plate and reached for the bread, nodding at his daughter with a glance to her maid.
“I think she needs to attend to her toilette.”
“Yes, Patron.”
The rigid features of the older servant relaxed. She left her position at table to approach her mistress and curtseyed to her again.
“Would you like me to draw you a bath, Miss?”
As the last of the liquid cloud dissipated, the polite smile and empty eyes of the aging lady’s maid faded from the Sorcerer’s mind, yet the well-modulated voice lingered.
Miss, he wondered, frowning. Miss.
How strange that her own maid should address her in such a common manner, even if she was the only person in the entire village who spoke to the girl.
His eyes snapped open.
He’d forgotten the Patron had never given his daughter a name.
The Sorcerer of the Caverns leaned back into the pillows of blood red velvet, smiling up at the bright sky at the end of the tunnel.
She would be back.
Suckers for Cutsie Poo and Unexpected Good Dates - On the Road #19
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Hey y'all,
Before I get too carried away, let me just say one thing: next time any of you are in Anchorage, you must check out El Tango on Tudor behind the Holiday gas station.
If you've gone to Hooters, you have definitely gone too far!
El Tango has a fantastic menu of Latin cuisine - Columbia, Argentina, and Puerto Rico - a very friendly staff, and a small dance floor.
It's only been there for a year. The location sucks; but if you like your ambience refreshing, then this is the place for you.
How did I get there?
Last night at the Cook Inlet Bookstore, I was crushed to find that I was one of a cluster fuck of writers.
Needless to say, the four of us were overcrowded at one small table. So we got another one and two of us sat there.
I figured I’d stake out the front door in the hopes I’d get more attention. But everybody still herded around the schoolteacher at the other table.
She had a mountain of books and a generous target audience. Her book, “Recess at 20 Below” was full of pictures of her students having FUN in her class and adorable narrative about school life in Delta Junction.
It was both cutsie poo and Alaskan at the same time.
Meanwhile, I misread a potential fan, Sheila. And I found out she was anything but when I told her the first chapter of Ella Bandita. I included the dirty old sorcerer, the cold-blooded daddy, and the eaten heart.
Sheila scrunched up her face and let me know that she was a fan of the Walt Disney version of whitewashed fairy tales. She also said that she used to have a friend who would have been into my writing because she wrote a lot like me.
"But she's dead now," Sheila said.
So heartwarming of her to tell me that.
Do I sound bitter? Really, I'm not. Even though the night was a dud.
At this point in my road trip, I have had enough successes to not sweat the flops.
Besides, last night was a quality, if not a quantity, experience.
I ended up with a date. A good one, too with a nice guy.
Go figure. That practically never happens to me.
I usually gravitate to the those-I-cannot-or-should-not-even-consider-wanting-to-have types.
This guy has a steady job, no addictions ( at least, not obvious ones ), courtly manners, a good body, and blue eyes that are awful purty to look into.
That's how I ended up at El Tango. Because Nice Guy With Pretty Blue Eyes took me there.
Besides the food and the Argentinian staff, they had a keyboard player whose keyboard created a symphony with every note, and the staff would get up there and sing.
Since they didn't have the TV screen that enabled bad singers to massacre mediocre lyrics, it wasn't really karaoke. But it kind of felt that way even though the staff were the main singers.
Most of the songs were in Spanish, so it was very cool. It also helped that they could...oh, sing.
Hugo, the owner who was from Argentina, played kind of the Latin version of a bluegrass washboard - a weegel ( I don't know how to spell it, and the closest he could come to describing it was a plant, kind of like a zucchini, that's dried and then hollowed out - if you want to know what the hell I'm talking about, go to El Tango and you'll see), while the bartender had maracas.
I love Latin folk. They really have the happy-to-live mentality down pat. Hugo gave us free drinks, calling us amigos and that we are family.
"When you are in Anchorage, this is your home." Hugo said.
Nothing is perfect, however...
Hugo is a sucker for Celine Dion, because his daughter, Lilly, belted out "I Will Always Love You," and he sat there, looking emotional and teary-eyed.
Lily sang beautifully. I simply don’t like Celine Dion’s music.
But other than that, the night was awesome.
I was going to come back on Tuesday. But my good date asked me out again, so…it’s good to explore the possibilities.
I'm coming back to Juneau roughly sometime before I head down to the lower forty-eight by November 1st.
Does anybody have a housesitting gig or an extra room?
I rented my place out and I don't know about crashing on my own couch for almost two weeks.
It'll be good to see the Vagabond - my cat, that is. And of course, all of you. I’m really excited to see all of you.
Peace,
Montgomery
Overdosing on Narcissism When I Ought to be Writing
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So I’ve gone through a major break up recently.
I usually have my blogs scheduled way in advance - 2 weeks, sometimes a month ahead of schedule. But there’s something about being tossed completely out of my usual routine that has messed everything up.
Since my ex-fiancee and I have hung on by mere threads for a year now, we’ve already had several break up talks in that time. It made my exit plan very easy, because most of the logistics had already been worked out.
Like me being the one to leave my own house until she and her daughter found a new place. I’ve been staying in various places about an hour outside of Portland with 4 cats. What an unexpected freedom drunk. If you’d like to read more about it and see some pictures of my beautiful cats, click here.
Anyhow, what does this have to do with writing? Nothing, at least not directly.
This is life. Life events like these throw writing momentum off like a mofo. Yet life events like these also give us something to write about.
I’ve been on this very peculiar road trip for 5 weeks now. Tomorrow I can finally go home. My ex-fiancee and ex-step-daughter moved out on Friday.
I’ve spent the weekend saging the shit out of my house, and I’m still only halfway done. It’s the most draining smudging ritual I’ve ever endured.
Right now, it’s almost 11 pm the night before this blog is due to drop at 7:15 AM time I’ve scheduled for the past few months.
Trying to take care of my SEO and google rankings, you know, for the long term goal of building up an audience for my blog.
I have been writing, just not on my novel and not on my blog in advance. I’ve been journaling. A lot. Especially after reading “Why Does it Always Have to Be About You?” and following that up with a shit ton of Youtube Videos on narcissism.
And those videos had my scratching my head. A lot of them made me question if I was a narcissist. If it wasn’t for empathy, I probably would have been. I can also handle criticism and have no pride issue with apologizing when I’m wrong.
I learned about covert narcissism. I learned a lot about covert narcissism when one of the life coaches I came across called it something slightly different - shy narcissism. The narcissist who is sullen, depressed, sad, suffers self-doubt, and lacks confidence. That video described my ex to the letter.
Anyway, what does this have to do with writing? Nothing. But it’s all I’ve been thinking about and exploring. Therefore, it gave me something to write about - and in time for my deadline too.
For anybody else who may be suffering similar troubles, here’s the video. Richard Grannon is wordy and goes off on a lot of tangents. But he’s funny and offers a lot of information and wisdom. Another resource I recommend is Dr Ramani. Just google her name and narcissism and she’s all over the place.
Peace
The Unexpected Freedom Drunk
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Can you feel the healing vibes of this wonderful place? Catalonia in the right window. She spent a lot of time there.
So not too long ago, I wrote a blog post about Adventure or Stability in the Writer’s Life. For those who’d like to read about that, there will be a link to that post at the end of this one.
Suffice to say, that’s all changed now and that’s given me something to write about.
I broke off my engagement and that puts me back in the freedom-junkie phase of life. But this time I’m on the road in a very peculiar adventure. I’m vagabonding on the outskirts of Portland until my ex and her daughter move out of my house. And I have 4 cats with me.
Aengus and Rimsky Korsakitty
As break-ups go, this may have seemed sudden to my ex. But we’ve been hanging on by a thread for almost a year, and we’ve had many break-up talks in that time. We even negotiated everything from money to who keeps how many cats to me leaving my own house until my ex and her daughter move out, etc. All the logistics discussed beforehand, when it was time to pull the band-aid off cancer it was time. So how “sudden” can this really be?
Maybe I’m in pain and I’m too numb to know it. Perhaps I’ll feel it when I’m back home in my house that will be empty of their presence and their things. Maybe then I’ll be overcome with a tidal wave of grief and loss. But I suspect we stayed together far past our natural expiration date.
I felt heavy in my heart on waking up every morning for the first week or so, but nothing that I couldn’t shake off within an hour. Other than that, the most notable sensation of each day is relief.
I’m more than 3 weeks past that day when I tore off the band-aid holding our relationship together, and the crushing pain of loss has yet to overcome me. If anything, I feel freedom drunk.
Zephyr and Aengus
I thought that ridiculous sensation of the post-break-up-freedom-drunk ended with my 20’s. This is different. I don’t feel the euphoric giddiness I savored after extricating myself from a toxic relationship when I was young. But I do feel alive. Many people have told me that I seem lighter since I left. Why wouldn’t I? I finally ended a relationship that lasted too long for all the wrong reasons – on my end as well as my ex-partner’s end.
Of course, the first place I stayed helped a lot. It was an absolute jewel, filled with color and light and spaciousness, and oozing with healing vibes I desperately needed. When I got there at Estancia Serenova, I was still in shock. My hostess, Lisa, was so warm and supportive and encouraging that I did the right thing. She also accepted all my cats. That was no easy feat, finding places that were ok with them.
Zephyr
I felt held in that beautiful space, and I stayed there for two weeks.
Where I am now is pleasant enough. I’m on a ranch north of Portland. I’ve enjoyed seeing the freaked out fascination of the cats over the sight and sound of horses, far more massive than dogs.
But it’s the opposite of the light and spaciousness of where I was before. It’s dark and constricted. I have far less space and the cats are starting to drive me a little nuts with their restlessness. But I can appreciate the yin and yang balance of this change – going from the light and expansive to the dark and constrictive. Healing of hope and renewal and then the reality that growing pains hurt for a reason. That’s where I’m at now. And part of me wants to run back to the space and color and light of Estancia Serenova.
And maybe I will. The cats liked it too. They had far more space to run and jump, and they loved going up and down that ladder to the loft.
Rimsky Korsakitty
This is not the most fun I’ve ever had on a road trip. But this post break-up freedom drunk is an odyssey of sorts, this bizarre limbo that is really starting to get to me. As a whole, I feel really blessed. I’m lucky that I’m able to distance myself instead of getting mired in the twisty, gnarly web of push and pull that characterizes the last gasps of a dying relationship.
Okay, time to stop now. I’m getting maudlin and gloomy. But this is the first thing I’ve written in weeks. Maybe I’ll return to my novel soon.
Link to previous post, click here.
By the way, aren’t my cats pretty?
Catalonia and Aengus
Brown Bear Saloon in Indian, Alaska - Population 85 - On the Road # 16
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I even had a really nice date while i stayed behind the Brown Bear Saloon in Indian, Alaska.
Hey y’all,
I have so many vivid memories of the people I met at the Brown Bear Saloon in Indian, Alaska (population 85) along the Turnagain Arm.
As tourism slowed way down in the autumn, I stayed in one of the cabins behind the Saloon for about two weeks. I hoped to take a break from selling and being “ON” for the sake of getting some writing done.
The Brown Bear Saloon was my go-to for morning coffee and dinner, as well as those conversations that kept me somewhat tethered to the human race, and kept the loneliness at bay.
I remember meeting a very kind-hearted woman who had been a bartender since she was 23. She had a pretty face, with sparkling green eyes, and graying hair done in braided pigtails. She didn’t work at the Brown Bear Saloon. She had worked in a neighborhood watering hole for 17 years somewhere in Anchorage.
Restaurant/bar work can really suck people in. Most people work in hospitality as they go to college or figure out what they want to do. I had been one of those, and managed to pull myself out of the hospitality vortex in the nick of time.
This lady admitted she had stayed there too long, was burned out, yet didn’t know what to do beyond starting a hot dog stand. I hope she found her way out of there because she was very gentle with a very peaceful energy.
It’s a dirty business. There’s no shame in it.
I even had a really nice date while I stayed behind the Brown Bear Saloon in Indian, Alaska. Remember, the population was only 85 people, so this date was pretty remarkable.
I don’t remember my date’s name, which I feel bad about because he was a really lovely man. He had dark hair and eyes, and a cheery round face. He took me to dinner and a movie in Anchorage. The movie, “40 Year Old Virgin,” was a guaranteed icebreaker and we both laughed so hard, it hurt.
Afterwards he talked to me about his new career as a teaching assistant in a kindergarten class, and how relieved he was to no longer be a used car salesman. He said that the profession was every smarmy as reputation had it, and gave me a few pointers of tricks they pulled to make a sale more likely.
“For example, say you go for a test drive and come back to the lot. The salesman would encourage you to leave your purse in the car while you look around, go to the bathroom, etc.”
“How will that make me more likely to buy the car?”
“Because when you leave such a personal item as a purse in a car, you’re already claiming ownership. They salesman is putting it in your mind that the car is already yours.”
I was speechless, and he nodded.
“It’s a dirty business. There’s no shame in it.”
Of everybody who stopped by the Brown Bear Saloon, the motorcycle day-trippers were the most fun to watch. The bikers were not gangsters. They were Anchorage professionals who loved taking day and weekend trips to zoom their bikes along Turnagain Arm and/or into the Kenai Peninsula.
The last pit stop on their way home was at the Brown Bear Saloon. They were a sight to behold decked out in their leathers and bandanas, laughing and talking, and on top of the world.
The last pit stop on their way home was at the Brown Bear Saloon.
I sold a book to one of them. I don’t remember his name, but we had a lovely conversation about his fiercely independent daughter. She was only 17, and had been out on her own since she was 15. He said she lived in Sitka, had a great head on her shoulders and already so capable of taking care of herself. He sounded so proud of her.
I had been in Alaska long enough to not be shocked by this. Talk about kicking ass and taking names? Alaskan teenagers are a different breed. They believe they can do anything, and they often prove themselves right. I met a woman whose 17 year old son already had acquired his pilot’s license. While I lived in Juneau, two 17 year olds who weren’t of legal age to vote, ran for the council positions on the School Board. Neither of them won, but that’s not the point.
But the kicker was that 2 years later, after I’d been back home in Juneau for a while, I met the weekend biker’s daughter. Her name is Ashley, and she taught skiing and snowboarding, as well as doing Ski Patrol.
Those are the moments that make all the suffering worthwhile.
