WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW

…is more time to read

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

– Howard Thurman, American Theologian, Clergyman and Activist 1900-1981

This time of year I get a little morbid. I am missing summer. The grass is withering, readying itself for winter. Trees are shedding their leaves faster than Gypsy Rose Lee discarded clothing. The wind doesn’t cool as much as it freezes the bones – and I hate being cold. A local TV meteorologist announces the Chill Index temperature by how many bowls of chili it will take to warm our bellies. Winter approaches and brings with it a death of sorts. I’m feeling like the character, Denise Huxtable from The Cosby Show, who wrote poetry and read in a somber tone known so well by angst-driven teenagers and Beatniks of another era. The only lines I remember are: “I walk alone. I walk … alone.”

I found this quote from Dr. Thurman and thought his words still carried merit. His picture looked rather solemn and I wondered what he looked like when he was doing something that made him “come alive.” I bet he had a nice smile.

I started working on a speech I’m giving to a women’s group early next month and found myself typing faster as my mood lifted. Usually writing effects me that way. I forget about the dismal weather, crabby sales clerks or chores I should be doing. It’s nice that my anti-depressant is both readily available and free. It has proved to be habit forming though I’m not complaining about that. Especially not when it works so quickly.

Reading works its magic in the same fashion. Yesterday afternoon, I picked up a magazine I’d bought a few days ago and very slowly and deliberately, read several stories uninterrupted. It was a fabulous experience – better than a spa.

Afterward, I felt calm and quite content. It was as if I’d done yoga for an hour. Amazing. I plan to give the gift of quiet reading to myself more often.

One of my mystery-writing buddies from Colorado says I must live on the computer because every time he sends me an e-mail, I answer it while he’s still sitting there. Sometimes it does feel like I am living online. It’s too easy to get sucked into spending just a few more minutes, whether I’m working on a project or just seeing what’s out there in cyberspace. Routine has a way of becoming maddingly, well – routine. Reading online (to me) is not the same as sinking into an overstuffed chair with a cuppa Joe beside me and immersing my consciousness into a story. My soul requires mood lighting from a solar source if possible. Fluorescent isn’t quite the same, but it will do. Light from a computer screen? Not so much of an ambiance.

Maybe the days of fall and winter are meant to be taken slower, to relax a bit after all the work’s been done during the spring planting, summer tending and early fall harvest.

Sowing seeds in the context of writing the novel, sending it out in the summer and taking care of the marketing portion of the business-side of writing which instills a nice bumper crop of sales by October.

Shall I settle down for a long winter’s nap and mull some plot ideas along with my mulled wine? Nah. Maybe I’ll just rest a while. There are miles to go before I sleep …