The Jars of Shooting Stars

The Jars of Shooting Stars

Reckless Rambles

A Bad Memoir of Little Memories

 

“I don’t chase people; I chase stars.”

 

Maybe, I’m asking for too much. Maybe, I’m reaching too high beyond my lot in life. Maybe, I’m dreaming for the stars hoping to catch one in a jar like the lighten bus in Spring. Maybe, I should accept this is my fate, pack up the pen, toss the books into the fire, and pick up the hammer. It was a silly dream from the start. It is not a real job, and it is almost impossible to make it. (Whatever the Hell making “it” means these days.)

                Maybe, just, maybe, this is all a joke, and everyone is laughing at me because I’m so much of a dreamer I can see the punchline. It is not haha-funny, but it is a killer dame from the misty black and white. She got a smile from the angels as she carried a blade behind her back from Hell. She about to stick me with it.

                As I lay on the sidewalk staring up at the night sky bleeding out, I get to look about at my life, seeing what a joke it was to have this dream …

                Sure, I did some things right.

                I did some things wrong.

                I would do it all again if the Lord give me a chance. All of it the same way knowing it might end with me the gutters, but I would do it again.

                Maybe, I’m on the right path because as long as I walk with the Lord, all paths are the right one. I have come to understand one truth about life. No matter what people say. No matter what they tell you to do and how to do it. It is your life to live, so live it. Everyone else can always tell you how you did wrong and what you should do to make it better but remember they don’t have to live those words, and they aren’t living your life; you are.

                It is your life; live it.

                It is something that has taken me a long time to learn.

                I have many plans in the works to get more of my writing to you. I’m trying new things to build the capital to get my work to the market. I’m trying to do it in different ways, which might work or might fail, but at least, it is me trying to do more with my writing than reading to myself.

                This new fire in me comes from the fact I have found my voice in my work. I look at some of the new stories I am working on, and I can see myself in it, not the people I’m trying to master copy. I heard my voice in my words. I can also hear the characters in it, which has changed the whole game for me.

                The other day, I was telling a friend about how a lot of my new work is Rock’n’roll with a Southern Gothic flair to it all. Music is a big part of my writing process, along with my writing as well. If you see me put a song in the pages I’m working on, then that means it is a song I’m listening to and fix so well in the scene. So, a lot of my new work has that heavy voice with a lot of yelling and screaming and Blues in it.

                While at the same time, I’m trying to show the South in a new light. I get so weary of reading stories placed in the South with all the same themes in it. Trust me, everyone knows the past of the South, but there is more here than the Klan burning crosses and racism. We all know the history here.

                And I’m not trying to discount the history of my home, not at all. I’m merely trying to show you there are other stories to be told about the South, but of course, I can’t help throwing in a little Poe with his Ravens in my work.

                My voice is raw, rough, a little off, and a bit surreal, but it's mine.

                I want to share. It is the point of every writer, I guess.

                My friend asked me what I want to do with my writing. I told her three things. Frist, glorify God with it because without Him, I wouldn’t be picking up a pen or stalking around a coffee shop for a quiet place to hang out. Second, to show people, mostly kids, who suffer from learning disabilities that having a little faith in the Almighty and a lot of hard work, they can do the things they were told they couldn’t by the world. And third, but not less, share with you my stories in the hopes you can hide in the pages from a bad day or see you are not alone in this wicked life.

                I guess they are simple goals, but no goal is easily reached, I have learned. (If you know me or have been reading my work, you know I have been trying to reach those goals for a long time.)

                And yet, there is something that has changed in me.

                It happened months ago if I’m telling you the truth. I had been blessed with some extra cash, and I had all the plans for it. I wanted to buy all these things with it, but I went to a financial advisor to put my money into stocks. It was the first time in my life I had done something like this, and it was the first time in his life as a 32-year-old was sitting in front of him. Most of the time, he deals with people who are up in age trying to make their life wealth go a bit longer.

                We were both were a little shocked I was there.

                But after I left, I was thinking about how I had the whole stock game wrong. I always believe you had to have a lot of money to get into it. Nope, wrong. You can do with a couple of 100 bucks, and over time, a long time, that couple of bucks will grow and grow into more money. Every little you add to the 100 over the years, the more you get back, but it is one step at a time. One slow brick being built at a time.

                So, maybe, the vision God has blessed me with my writing (I at least hope He has) may take years to come true. It might never actually happen, but I have a North star to aim for, and we can only hope they are shooting stars, so I catch them. I’m trying to say outside the flowery words that I see a way forward, and maybe it is a joke, but it is my joke to play out. I’ll keep trying. I’ll keep fighting …

 

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

-          Theodore Roosevelt

 

With a tip of the hat,

Chase