On Writing and Writing On

I love writing.

It used to be you could always find me with my nose in a book, magazine, perhaps even the occasional newspaper. I used to love reading too. I still like it, but...

Now I love writing.

Hopefully it doesn’t make me vain and conceited that I enjoy writing my own words better than reading what’s already been written. It certainly makes a little harder the task of going back over what I’ve already written, at least. No, I don’t even enjoy reading what I’ve written as much as I enjoy writing it. But maybe with regards the writing of other people I am a little arrogant in that I enjoy speaking more than I enjoy taking the time to listen. Yes, I worry that such is the case.

Nevertheless, I do love writing.

I first began learning to write well when I began to endeavor past what was required in school, beyond what was required to pass my classes.

My interest was piqued as I took to internet forums in junior high, debating with men much older and more educated than I. Not wanting to show my youth, or let on that I hadn’t known the definitions of all their terms before pulling up Dictionary.com or Wikipedia, I worked hard at the beginning to sharpen my skills in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary. I soaked up like a sponge new words and new ways of expressing simple, common ideas. You might say I was eager to employee le mot juste, or “just the right word” as the French say, in every conversation.

And yes, that is to say that I first began to care about writing because I didn’t want to look foolish to debate opponents or on-lookers. Moreover, I wanted to win and prove myself the wiser and more able arguer. In hindsight it seems to have been rather proud of me to have been that way, maybe a little misguided, but those reasons seemed good enough at the time. And maybe they were sufficient to get me to where I am now.

But it wasn’t all debate either. I also spent a lot of time reading science fiction before college, and I think that helped a great deal. Among my favorites were Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, and various authors of Star Wars fiction. I swear my brother and I must have checked out and read every Star Wars book at our local public library. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy also became an instant favorite when I read it in high school, after I saw Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) in my freshman year.

My grandmother was always sending subscriptions for my little brother and I – National Geographic, Smithsonian, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Discover, Reader’s Digest. So we were always reading articles about what the latest and greatest discoveries and developments around the world were. Our bedroom and library walls were covered with maps pulled from National Geographic, and posters bought at the many zoos and museums my parents took us to. Daily we were reminded of how big the world outside was and could be.

In more recent years, as I made long work commutes, or when I held a data entry job for a year and a half that had me bound to a chair 6-8 hours a day, I listened to audio books. One title after another, I enjoyed histories and biographies, books on philosophy, politics, economics, culture, and how to manage myself well. As my hands and eyes focused on driving and typing where I was, my innermost being visited other times and places and imagined what else there is to know and do in this life.

My imagination is good now, or at least better than it would have been without these influences. I’m used to reading and greatly admiring authors who employ vivid imagery and weave a grand story out of the ideas their creative minds conjure, and also those who, basic facts in hand, use their personal perspective and opinions to speculate and highlight important persons and events from the past, present, and anticipated future.

Some part of me has always thought of writers as being on an elevated plane, myself in awe of their ability to convey excitement and enthusiasm about what’s going on outside my home, outside my town, outside my country, and even outside my time or this galaxy.

I watched Star Trek growing up, for instance – a lot of Star Trek. In fact, a main form of punishing me when I was a kid was threatening to take away my Next Generation privileges. Though I know we can’t yet (if we ever will be able to) beam people and objects across distant points like Mr. Scotty did, there’s something about what a good writer does that seems much similar to those transporters in Gene Roddenberry’s stories.

A good writer takes your heart, mind and soul to another place, though your body remains seated on your couch or lying in your bed. Reading a good writer allows you to see through someone else’s eyes and think their thoughts, even if only for a moment, to consider what you may have not known you didn’t know.

Good writers make life seem so much bigger, though objects and places distant suddenly feel much closer. Through reading a skillful author I realize and remember that those objects and places I may have once heard about do still exist, or may exist, and that it is possible to see them, since indeed the author has seen them, or he spoke with someone who saw them, or he at least hopes and wishes to see them. Sometimes just hoping to see them is enough too.

Good writers have contagious perspectives, I’ve found; by reading them I at least have hope that perhaps I will someday see what they have seen. You want to see what they see, be where they’ve been. And in some sense, if they’re able to write well, you get your wish, and you keep reading them to continue seeing through their eyes.

So perhaps it’s not all vanity after all that leads me to enjoy writing more than reading. Perhaps I enjoy writing because I feel that by writing well, or at least getting closer to writing well as I continue to practice the art, I become a better person.

A confession: I always imagined those authors I read to be better persons than I. So in writing I feel that I am growing and maturing, and hopefully giving others an opportunity to grow and mature. Perhaps through my craft they will see lands that, though close and familiar to me, have always seemed distant, even non-existent to them. Perhaps even if I am not ever a great writer I will trick someone else into thinking at least temporarily that I am, or that they may become one.

So I suppose I’ll go on in my love for writing. And hopefully others will love to read what I’ve written. And they’ll continue to write, and I’ll read what they’ve written.

Raising Myself First

Some people think we’re crazy. My wife and I, married five and a half years, have had four little boys in that time. The eldest will be turning 5 this summer; the youngest will be 1 year old next month. Oh, and I’m only 25, with another birthday myself not until the beginning of November.

As I say, some people think we’re crazy.

But that’s the thing of it. We’ve not just gone through pregnancies, births, feeding, diapering and transporting those four boys around. Yes, of course, we’ve gone through all those normal parts. But we’ve not just sat idly by as our boys have come into this world and grown. We’ve grown, had to grow, right alongside them.

As a father of four little boys, I hope earnestly my example will put them in good stead when they reach manhood, and also between now and then. Unfortunately, being human, I encounter facets of my personality from time to time which, as I’m honest with myself, it becomes apparent must be adjusted, removed, replaced or grown if I am to make good on my intention to lead my sons by good example.

Case in point: my wife and I recently were chatting about a decision I made some months or years ago, or a number of decisions I’ve made in life, in which I wonder now whether a wiser course of action was available as an alternative to what I chose. At the time, when I made these decisions, as I weighed my options, it seemed I could only go one way, that there was only one course which was wise and good and honest, and that the other options were cowardly compromises. Still I wrangled with self-doubt, wondering in hindsight if I could have avoided some discomfort going another way, or thinking longer on the matter, or asking for advice from someone wise.

What a gift my Lauren is to me, though.

She stopped me, as she often does when I get to talking that way, and asked me directly: “If one of our sons were in a similar situation, what would you have wanted them to do?”

And that settled the matter. As I thought about it for a moment, I answered: “Well, I suppose I would want them to do as I did.”

“There you have it,” she said.

But as I continue on as a father, I learn more and more that I need to be making sure I know well the lessons I need to teach these young man-cubs before I venture to instruct. So a great deal of maturation has come for me, and probably more opportunities for growing personally than I’ve noticed or taken advantage of fully, by way of the blessing of these boys God has given me a chance to be a father to.

Had you asked me years ago, I might have thought I would be the one doing all the teaching. Instead, I find that I have learned a great deal more than I knew I didn’t know.

That’s the thing of it. Fatherhood, at least for imperfect men like me, takes a great deal of humility to do well. That’s not to say either that I am humble or doing fatherhood well. Rather, I at least know that in order to do it well I must be humble, and the more humble I am the better I do it. I know I must be able to look at myself honestly, to see my faults and shortcomings without turning away or denying them, and to be willing to apologize, to ask questions, to learn, to grow, to stand corrected. Won’t that be what I’m asking my children to do, after all? I can’t teach what I don’t know.

I want strong, courageous, honest, humble, gentle, considerate sons. So I must choose to be strong, and to do what I know I must despite fears and opposition; I must choose to tell the truth, even when it’s inconvenient to do so; I must be humble, not arrogant; though choosing strength, I must use my strength in a way which guards others instead of either purposefully or accidentally hurting them; and I must consider my ways, the circumstances and those around me, and be respectful, polite and wise in my conduct.

Those little eyes are always watching, those ears always listening.

So again, people think we’re crazy. But I think we’re getting wiser as we go! Yes, these children try our patience. But also, yes, they are helping my wife and I to become more patient people, and I am growing as those children grow, trying earnestly to stay ahead of them in terms of maturity, to know what’s ahead that they need to learn about, what they need to become in order to live in peace and prosperity. And I learn in them that it’s okay to not have all the answers, to not have arrived yet in perfect maturity, so long as there is still hope to continue learning and growing.

And there is.

Coming Back West

Glendive, MT is my hometown. Born here November 5^th, 1986 at the Glendive Medical Center to Byron and Alice Mullet, I remember cold winters as a kid, the feeling of a fresh wind blowing on my face, looking out over grassy plains and hills in the summertime, seeing pheasant and antelope and coyotes roaming about freely, and my brother and I fishing with grasshoppers as bait in the creek that ran through our farmland out near Bloomfield.

Eastern Montana has a sort of rugged beauty about it. When dry, the land reminds me of an elderly person who’s lived a full life, with laugh lines, wrinkles around the eyes from squinting in the sun, wrinkles in the forehead from cares and concerns, gnarled hands and arms that worked their whole life long.

Now I’ve been home for just over two weeks, returning from the little town of Hillsboro in Ohio, the place where at least my body has resided some fifteen years now. But though I’ve spent more than half my life in Ohio, moving there with my parents and my younger brother when I was about 10, I’ve never really felt that Ohio became my home. My heart and some portion of my mind has continued to reside in Montana, my homeland, and I’ve continually thought about and wistfully longed for this rugged beauty again, those grassy plains and hills, this fresh wind in my face.

When you tell someone out east that you’re from Montana, their eyes go wide. That’s been my experience, anyhow. The typical first question after they learn you’re from Big Sky country is, “So what’re you doing here?!” From looking at pictures or watching nature documentaries (typically their only experience of Montana), they just can’t understand why anyone would trade this pristine landscape for the drabness of life in Ohio, or most other similar places.

When I came rolling into town again from North Dakota on March 17^th of this year, passing through Medora and Makoshika just as the sun was setting on the horizon, sky painted crimson, orange and yellow over layered, striated, rocky hills and buttes and boulders – I’d have had a hard time answering for why anyone would leave this rugged beautiful wilderness.

Now I’m also one of those who’s come from elsewhere to find a job, though my being a native helps perhaps alleviate some of the stigma of being an out-of-towner. I have a wife and four little boys back in Ohio that I need to work for now. It’s difficult to find a good job these days, at least in our neck of the woods. But I haven’t just come back to find work. I’ve also come home, and there’s a real sense of accomplishment in having made it back here, to this land of open spaces I have fondly remembered for most my life.

I somehow feel as though I am everyone here. My father and grandfather and great grandfather were farmers in this area. I was born here. But I, like so many others, am also migrating into this part of the country looking for opportunity, for work. I’m here looking for a job that will not just pay my bills (though that’s a good start), but perhaps help me to also pay off debts I’ve incurred, and build up savings, and maybe carve out a little piece of the Earth for myself and mine, maybe even a piece of Earth here in the wide open spaces of Montana.

God help me, it’s good to be home. So far, so good. There’s just something about having come back here. What is it I’ve heard in my spirit? “Go west, young man.” So did I and my ancestors, and so did you or yours. And because we have come west, we share in the privilege of breathing in this Big Sky.