I’m happy for November because it’s the one year anniversary since I started writing again. It’s not what I’m writing that makes me happy, but the fact I’m doing it, and it’s changed the way I look at life.

Last year I was really down, and it was my wife Dawn who recommended I start blogging. In December, we spent a couple weeks in Germany, and it was during an early morning walk there I got inspired to write again.

I made my way into the darkness of a small, German village, crossed a bridge over a river, and crept along the rail-lines to a cut-out in a stone wall leading up through a vineyard.

I remembered the route from when we lived there, before: the Romans taught the Germans how to grow grapes for wine, to plant them in these steep hillsides. The steps are irregular and wind to the top of a hillside and vista, overlooking the village.

From the vista, I can look down and see my mom’s house, the individual windows on each floor, about the size of my thumb from the hill. And when I’m there in her house, I can see the hillside and imagine myself up there, looking back.

That first day, the morning sky went from black to purple, and a train cut through the tunnel below: it made a low, metallic sound like a slow-motion saber cutting through the air, cutting through the valley and slopes, coming to a stop, then pulling forward again.

There are times something happens to you that you can’t describe or understand, but you feel it on a level that makes you feel wondrous and alive…alive with possibility, inspiration, and love. Those times for me are rare.

I don’t know what’s going to happen at the end, and I can’t remember the beginning. Everything else is in the middle…life is right here on days you’d otherwise forget.

Categories: inspiration

Tags: art, blogging, DPchallenge, existentialism, Germany, inspiration, Memoir, NaNoWriMo, positivity, postaday, travel, writing