Summer Dreams

Does anyone have that thing they just have to do, or nothing else in life will be right? I have a few of those, and one, for sure, is writing. Lately I’ve been doing more editing and formatting than writing, and I’m missing that good old loving feeling of putting words down onto the canvas.

As for what I’ve been doing, I’ve been working hard to get my first book, Climbing Out of Bed, ready for publication on the Fourth of July. It’s going to be released as an e-book first, on Kindle, and it’s going to be published with a variety of photographs as well. In the past I’ve only published the words on Kindle, but the people have been asking for images, and I want to deliver. As I’m figuring out the formatting for publishing photos, I’ve been experimenting with Volume 3 and 4 of The Climbing Zine. The deluxe photo version of Volume 3 was released on Kindle this afternoon, and later this week I’ll release Volume 4, with photos.

This smoky, hot summer has been full of dreams, ones that come true, and ones that drive me wild as they are dreamt up. Durango is surrounded by various wildfires, and the smoke makes for intense red colors at sunset. My friend Tim tells me the fire season will change as more and more lightning happens. So, who knows what will happen in Colorado this hot summer.

I just know this summer I’ll write from the heart, I’ll follow dreams and see where they lead, regardless of what else I have to experience and see for them to unfold.

Climbing, as always, is a driving force. Like the Wu-Tang song C.R.E.A.M. (cash rules everything around me), climbing rules everything around me. It is that force for clarity, strength, confidence, and willingness to suffer to live out a dream. I continue to use climbing as a metaphor for life.

Summer unfolds as it does, and summer is often the greatest time to live in the moment. People come out of the woodwork in the summer, here in Durango the people, especially the beautiful women, are out, everywhere, and they motivate me. Their presence motivates me, drives me wild, drives me to write, read, love, climb, dance, in wild celebration of this precious existence we all share…