The Book of My Right Now

Sometimes our dramatic landscape shows itself in subtler shades. Sunday evening's storm reduced the mountains to grayscale, with all of the interesting outlines that brings. This is a piece of the ridged horizon I usually show you, my blog-gobblers, just with different perspective.

(I'm also getting better at my telephoto lens.)

When I was a kid, my mom loved to come down to Santa Fe, Phoenix and Tucson for warm-weather breaks. They were within easy striking distance of Denver and she has always loved the desert. Even then I was struck by the way the light down here makes the mountains look two-dimensional. I wrote terrible poetry in my adolescence, as adolescents are wont to do, and I seem to recall that one line went "the mountains are a cardboard cut-out, propped against the western sky." Good set-design makes you believe a flat is three-dimensional, but the real world doesn't always have depth.

I find it interesting to think about, but maybe that's just me.

Kelly Breaky likes to tease me about my interest in perspective, and I suppose she's right that it's one of my core "issues." I often say I'm a grey-area kind of gal. Very rarely am I willing to commit to the absolute yes or no on a scale.

For this reason, I have trouble with writers who talk about their "Dream Agent" or the "Book of Their Heart." Actually, I never heard the term "the Book of My Heart" until I started hanging with more of the romance community. Granted, we're more about expressions of love and passion than some other genres, but it's still an odd idea to me, that there's one book we've written that we treasure above all others. I loved Obsidian, but now I think The Body Gift is a better book. I tend to be passionately in love with whichever book I'm currently writing, in fact.

The Dream Agent hits me the same way. I don't believe there is such a person for me. I can think of quite a few agents that I think do great work, any of whom I'd be delighted to have represent me. But then, I don't believe in a One True Love, either. I think each of us probably could have wonderful lifelong relationships with any number of people. Each person and relationship is different and brings something new. Sure, we can't fall in love and treasure just any person off the street. But the pool is bigger than just one.

The romantic in us loves the idea of the Dream Agent, the Book of Our Hearts, the Happily Ever After. But the practical person in us, who lives in a three-dimensional world, knows that everything runs deeper than that. What is right now, may not be right later.

All we can do is make the best possible choices, given the information we have right now.

The best part about life and the way it always changes? Nothing is truly permanent. If other paths are meant to be, they'll show up, too.

Just wait for the light to change and show you something different.