It is time to get serious.
No more wining the night away, fête after fête, for Carnival. No more all day beach sessions in California when only my hunger pangs could separate me from the sand. No more eats and greets and whatever my little heart desires.
No. The fêtes have been replaced by writing, writing has taken over my beach days, and the eats and greets have been substituted with–writing.
Syracuse, me, and my painstakingly expelled 6,452 words, have spent a beautiful summer together in grad school.
And by beautiful I mean I never saw anything outside of my often blank computer screen and the scribbled lines of my notebook pages.
But I hear Syracuse is lovely in the summer.
I imagine if I had had time to explore, I might have spent my Saturday mornings eating a breakfast of champions (very, very large champions) at Stella’s Diner. My oversized banana pancakes would have been sweet and delectable and just the right way to start the day.
I imagine I would have spent time sipping coffee on Marshall Street, just off campus, enjoying a chat and discussing the woes of the world and a writer’s struggle with my erudite classmates.
I might have caught a glimpse of downtown, wandered through the MOST museum getting my scientific discovery on, and maybe caught a jazz festival or two.
I may have even had a few jaunts to the lake when the day’s heat was unbearable, and the cool water on my skin could quite literally have washed away any semblance of stress.
Sigh. What a wonderful summer it would have been.
Okay, so maybe I did manage to squeeze some of these things in, but they were all “on deadline” and in such a flurry, that they almost do seem like a figment of my imagination.
But the summer was wonderful anyway, and the excessive writing welcome. I may have traded in life and traveling on a whim, for an overweight messenger bag and endless nights attached to my computer, but travel is waiting for me on the other side. I am really learning my craft studying journalism at Syracuse University, and will be well prepared to tell the untold travel tales that lie ahead.
And, the best part is, on most days when I awake to begin a new grueling day, I actually feel like a real writer.
