Robert (gurdonark) wrote,
Robert
gurdonark

A drought for words--a call to meet unmet needs



I find that the onset of July brings Summer's full force bearing into the consciousness--unless, of course, one lives in the southern hemisphere, in which it makes one write like Janet Frame.

Here in north Texas, we had a glorious, nearly rainless Spring. You know how April showers bring May flowers? Yes. Well, absence of April showers brings 100 degree days in my part of the world. We are boiling in the high 90s, hoping for rain to come eventually and liberate us from the heat.We all hope for cats who find a "Breakfast at Tiffany" rain rather than any hot tin roofs.

Tonight I am celebrating. Tomorrow will mark five years since we moved back to Texas from California. I drove the desert with two loving dogs, while my wife spent time with an ill relative in Kansas. We saw
waves of heat lightning in the Arizona night sky. We hiked beside uncut geodes--thunder rocks filled with magical waves of crystals-- on hot days that made my dogs trot under the shaded picnic kiosks. We officially started our law firm on July 1, although in fact we had started it as a formal entity months before and began working on cases in late June.

But let's not focus on me. Let's focus on how to make words rain like a Texas thunderstorm in April.They say that General Patton caused a prayer to be written for good weather to clear off air cover to help win the Battle of the Bulge. I have no such martial intentions.

I read dozens upon dozens of journals of bright, capable and thoroughly lovable people. They aren't drought-ish at all. Some of them are even in quite rainy climes. A few feel the chill night wind.

But I think that many of us have a need to express. A need to share. A need to write. A need to connect.
Me? I have a need to learn, a need to connect, and a need for fun. I thus run a second annual process to meet these unmet needs.

Where do we begin to meet these needs? Let's start at the beginning, which the song tells us is a very good place to start.

If you'll say "let it rain" in the comments to this very journal, then I will ask you to pour forth in your journal on a topic of my choosing.

I warn you. I take rain seriously. I may ask you to write something which will show me who you are.
I may ask you to write something silly or trite. I am less inclined to ask you to write something like those things in the memes about how many cigarettes you've smoked or how many smokers you've cigaretted.
I want you to pour forth like a fountain.

In short, I will put before you the dark and wonderful cloud of a post topic. You take that cloud to your journal, and precipitation results. I may hit a nerve. Worse, I may miss all the nerves. But you'll make the rain fall, and the mist rise.

Are you ready to help break a Texas drought of Midland-in-August proportions?

Do you dare to go into the elements without an umbrella?

Then kindly type "let it rain" in the comments.
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