Writing: A Medium of Quiet

I write most mornings.  Today I'm in Connecticut on the shore at South Norwalk.  I'm waking up in my best friend's mom's house, like I did many mornings in junior high school and high school.  We lived in Greenwich then and their house was right on the water by Byram Shore Road. We could walk or swim before school in the early summer months on warm days like today.  Of course the water was freezing, but we were young and foolish.

I'm here for the Book Expo in NYC, a busy noisy place I also used to live in, but now, I crave this quiet sunrise and slightly dewy porch furniture waiting for a new day to start. No hustle and bustle need apply.

No noise here, just so much quiet and as I finish my book, I was thinking about the privacy and quiet neighborhood of a book. It's a place you go to find the thoughtful quiet, reflective musings of another person. I can share the delicate noise of one bird on the porch and the peaceful silence of this shore at sunrise with you in a book and it's hard to find that peace many places these days.

Despite the many ways you can write now (blogging, tweeting, facebooking), a book still has a solid weighty feel like no other.

No surprise there. For goodness' sake, a book is made of trees, like any good neighborhood. The medium has a luxurious quiet and whispers a story person to person, which we share, writer and reader, because as the writer I get up early and carve out the time to take you to the places I see and imagine.

Her house stood in Hurricane Sandy while many to the right and left of her house did not, because it was built in the 1960's by a contractor who already knew how rough Mother Nature could get.  He'd shored it up on a higher level with a rocky undercarriage to keep it out of harm's way, never knowing in 2012 his house would have the last laugh on this street, as his house stood up to the proverbial test of time. That's my idea of a good story with a happy ending.