Going my way. Got a map?

Sleeping like a blog. . .waking way early these days. Any normal person might ask why. Why get out of bed long before daylight on a perfectly good Saturday morning to scribble in a notebook that no one will read? Why indeed . . . noting that I actually turned up the lights at 4 am on Saturday morning and 5:00 am on Sunday. Unintentionally. It just happened that way, as my mind started wandering out of sleep and spinning dayward to work. Nothing unusual in that, even on a weekend. Work is always on my mind on one level or another.

As a scribbler of words, ever on “assignment” in advertising for nearly 25 years in Cleveland, then in the stretch to PR and fundraising for the Jewish Federation of Metro Detroit, and now as an exhibit designer/content developer for the Detroit Science Center, my work has always been a form of creativity, a source of energy and discovery. And so, I’m well accustomed to wakeful rest and restful awakening.

I suppose if I were better organized, I’d keep a notebook at bedside, near the shower, while driving, walking, exercising. . .but what a bother and what a menace on the road, hunting for a pen. And so I have come to trust those ideas that knock gently, let themselves in, and stay where I choose to keep them, content to be “on the back burner” or ready to jump into the stew up font.

Do I have a “book” of my own simmering somewhere? Not really. Not that I know, and not that I will ever find by standing on the sidelines of writing for others.

Why here, why now? A brief introduction: For those on this road who don’t already know -- Annie is a former colleague of mine. Actually, more than that. Ann and I met one another first as “Shaker moms” -- family friends, some time before she joined Liggett-Stashower. Our sons have been close friends since junior high. We have shared big chunks of our lives together. It may have been Ann who introduced Morning Pages to me, I don’t recall, but I do remember the giddy venture we started at Liggett-Stashower with Lynn Lilly and Rip Ruhlman and others more than a decade ago, embarking on “The Artist Way at Work,” just before I moved from Cleveland to Detroit.

Why now? Why again? Because my dear friend Ann has generously asked me to join her. Because I’ve discovered it’s more fun to say yes than no to most ventures in life. Because for the time being, the time being right now, I have given myself the assignment of opening up to “The Way” again, this time at the instigation of Ann (the only real and serious writer I know) and in the company of good friends from Liggett-- Maura, Laura and Marilyn -- and others whom I hope to meet soon. I hope to take this journey with you as seriously as Ann does, and to do the work as conscientiously as I would any other “paid” assignment.

That in a nutshell is my reason for being here -- rolling out of bed, shaking off sleep, awakening to Morning Pages . . . and blogging (of all things)finding my way again . . . reading, writing, noodling. . .who knows where it will go. See ya'll on the path. -V