There are just a few more hours left in this three-day weekend. Tomorrow, it’s back to work and dropped into the madness of a major software release.
Earlier today, I wrote about how writing is work. Not the hardest work I’ll ever do, but it definitely takes an effort. It’s not something I have to do, but I have a strong compulsion to write…so much so that it can be easy to shut myself out from the world — to close the office door and write all day every weekend.
But what good is writing when you don’t live life?
My Best Weekend Memory
My best weekend memory isn’t a writing memory. Memories of weekend writing take a backseat to a visit with my mom and recording podcasts with Shawn. An early morning walk on Saturday with my wife when I planned to be writing was also great. The cashier at 7-11 who remembered our names when my wife and I went in for coffee (she’d only met us once, over a month ago). But my best weekend memory?
This weekend I ate breakfast on the lake while watching the second sunrise. (The way the clouds formed, the sun came up, and then shortly disappeared behind clouds only to poke out again.) We were on the lake in our canoe before the sun came up. We paddled for miles and saw so many beautiful things. We appreciated the way humans are put together and the resolve someone before us had to take to the water — how physiology and ingenuity come together in special moments. It was the best moment of the weekend, out in a small boat with my wife…
…and it wouldn’t have happened had I been home writing.
Sometimes the best thing one can do for their writing is to step away and do things worth writing about.
(I’d argue that may be where the best writing is actually done.)
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