First

Yesterday, we left our cubicles for an endless meeting.  On the status of our business.  On the future of our business.  What sits at its core.  I couldn't sit still.  My mind wandered. I looked out the glass windows at my city's skyline, a city gasping for air.  The heat here is extreme.  It's trapped between buildings.  It hovers over concrete.

Afterwards, we sat in a windowless room.  We were put in groups, told to come up with ideas.  We were given prompts and tasks, post-its and markers.  There were facilitators and easels scrawled with notes. I don't thrive in these situations. Being told to think leaves me empty.  In my opinion, this is not how good ideas are generated. But there was no choice.  Ideate or bust. (Or look out the window.  Oh. Wait.)

As a warm up to the idea vomit that would ensue, we were challenged to think of a child's 'firsts'.  The first day of school. The first time riding a bicycle.  These kinds of milestones.  Eventually, it became tedious. Isn't everything, in it's own way, a first?  First birthday party.  First movie.  First pancake even.  (I wondered, in all this ridiculousness, how dark we could take it: 'First time I was picked last in gym class' 'First time I realized Daddy didn't love with me'  but, no, this is not what anyone wanted to hear.)  And so our facilitator, our fearless hunter and gatherer of ideas!, asked us to think of our own firsts.  Not then.  But now.  What firsts do we still have yet to experience?

This is, perhaps, the only time I chimed in before retreating to my wallflower status: My first Safari! I shouted.

I don't know where that came from.

But out it went and I'm thinking, still, about firsts.  This, to me, is worth thinking over.  Not for five minutes.  Not to plaster on a giant notepad so we can say we've accomplished something rather than actually accomplish it (Look!  We wrote it down! We are masters of innovation!)  A concept to actually sit with.  The possibility of first.

Where I'm At

It seems like lately I've been telling random stories on this blog and haven't really delved into the heart of things. Ya know, this 'writer's journey'...

But it occurred to me that some of you may be curious.

I was at a local restaurant when there was a very strange incident. We were sitting down to dinner and something came hurling through the open window. Tyler was whacked square in the back by a full Poland Spring water bottle. He was not hurt in any way. But as soon as it happened, two people in the restaurant took off running after the kids who had thrown it. One of them returned, out of breath, and said he couldn't catch them. The other guy, the waiter, came back, called the police, and offered Tyler a free glass of wine. The whole thing was utterly ridiculous.

Why am I telling you this story?

This incident led me to my current work in progress. Working title: Here Now. The main character came to me after the incident. And the story has absolutely nothing to do with getting hit by a water bottle in a restaurant. It just alerted me that things can happen in an instant. And they can be over so quickly, it's like they never happened in the first place. And therein lies a story.

So that's where I am at.

If you're working on a creative project, what are you working on? What inspired the idea?

If not, I don't want you to feel left out. Can you answer me something? If you could only eat one kind of cheese for the rest of your life, what would it be? Sharp white cheddar for me.