"A Writer's Perspective"
(Note- Sometimes I don't publish a column for more than a week,
and times like today I send a couple of them almost at once.
I hope you don't mind. I'm self-employed.
I've put a picture at the bottom as a token of my appreciation.
Jack)
A WRITER'S PERSPECTIVE.
As a writer of songs and stories
I try to see life through the eyes of others... from different perspectives.
There seems to be more drama to it that way.
Our own lives are too close.
Mirrors are weird.
If you look in a mirror the person staring back never blinks,
and no matter how you turn your head the eyes still stare at you like an owl.
If you turn quickly to catch the mirror guy off guard,
he's just as quick as you are.
You never get to see yourself as others do...
except maybe in a photograph.
Strangely, most of us look different in every photograph,
so they're not much help.
If you drive down an unfamiliar street,
you see the houses as a stranger.
The people who live there see it as home,
and your neighborhood would unfamiliar to them.
If you take a wrong turn you might look at a country road with a touch of fear.
Does this lead back to civilization
or to a desolate or maybe dangerous place?
The folks who live around there feel comfortable and safe.
It's all in the point of view.
Ask several people for their opinions of a third person,
and some will say he's a saint and others will think he's a devil,
or at least a pain in the neck.
There are couples who have been in love for a half century,
but you may not like either one of them.
You don't know what they see in each other.
Or you think the jerks deserve each other.
Yet they seem to be annoyingly happy.
I like to sit in a car, on a bench, or anywhere where I can watch people,
and imagine how they see things... how they feel about things.
Now that I'm older
I see things differently from the way I did through younger eyes.
I see my life differently now,
and different things are important or unimportant to me.
I guess I've always been been looking for perspective.
When I was a young boy
I liked to climb a tree in the backyard and look at my world from another angle.
The second floor of our house was at eye level,
I could see more,
and people went about their business unaware of me.
I was the fly on the wall, or maybe the brat in the tree.
I don't climb trees much anymore because the neighbors would frown upon it,
and it would be tough on the trees.
But I still take walks just to look around,
to watch the wind in the top of the trees,
and try to feel how things would look from up there.
How little I would look down here.
I watch the squirrels and wonder how the world must look to them.
I think the squirrels wonder about me too.
A lot of people do.
I don't care. I do this for a living.
Here's a picture of me in a tree: http://tinyurl.com/4rcmpe
Copyright © May 10, 2008 Jack Blanchard. All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission.
