Arguably, there is something soothing in the idea of knowing how you are going to die. If not the actual method of your own demise, at leas the manner in which you would like the days immediately following to proceed.
I was lying in bed this afternoon, ironically reading the epilogue of a very good novel that dealt heavily with death, when the the wafting sounds of Amazing Grace being played on the bagpipes. Whenever I envision my own funeral (which is more often than it probably should be) I imagine good times and bagpipes. Not good times in the sense that there will be no sadness, but more in tune with a celebration of life-well-lived than a lamentation of what could have been. I always, ALWAYS, imagine there to be bagpipes, and a rousing good time of an afterparty. Of course, this is all speculation; or should be.
The problem that I run into is that when envisioning my own funeral it is almost always in the near future. I have never thought of it as being something that happens when I am very old, and where most of the people I know who would attend are very old. In and of itself this doesn't bother me too much, mostly because I have trouble imagining what the future will be like, and have all my life. It's not just the distant future that I have trouble picturing, but the immediate future as well. Perhaps that is also at the root of my trouble with financial planning and that lot. Who knows.
Recently I have been told by a professor that she had a previous vision of many of the events in her life. So, should I simply ignore my current visions of having a memorial service peopled with young, fresh, grieving faces; or should I take heed and maybe prepare myself to shuffle off the mortal coil a little earlier than some others? The truth is that I just don't know. This topic is linked, in a way, to another problem that I am facing in life, right now.
I want to be a writer. Whether or not it shows here I believe that I could be a good writer--with the proper editing. The problem, it would seem, is that I just don't really have anything to write about. I lack experience. The kind of life experience that makes for the stuff of great books. Somehow I need to get out into the world and start living, so that I can have something to write about...In order to provide for the family that I hope to one day have. But here's the rub: I feel stuck in a rut. To me, there is no foreseeable way out of the cycle of working, paying bills, and generally trying to survive. I have considered squatting, which would probably give me something to write about, but it does not jell with my sense of working for a living. I guess the only way I can think about it right now is to find a sugar momma, or some sort of benefactor, who will suport me in adventures to travel around so that I will have something to write about. Other than that I suppose I just have to get my ass out there and try to find stuff to write about. I suppose I could write novels, because you can just make those up and loosely base them on real life. Maybe I'll work on having one of those out by the time I'm 30. I mean, it worked for that King guy. He wrote lots of books.
-A.R. Leith
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