Author Mike OConnor: Small scraps

Author Mike OConnor: Small scraps: Small scraps of paper lay strewn across my desk each a thought dismissed. A story started but no end, a poem without love. It goes this ...

Small scraps

Small scraps of paper lay strewn across my desk each a thought dismissed. A story started but no end, a poem without love. It goes this way sometimes, the words trying to join together and find some meaning. Then there are the times when words barely have a chance as they spue out in a waterfall of sentences and something worth telling.

   The soft glow of a candle lights my words as they dance across the pages to a beautiful melody. It becomes a place of make-believe where words collide with words and paragraphs jump out at your hungry eyes filling you with strange and marvelous tales.

   Oh and the characters who are born in front of me running and skipping across the pages each growing with every passing chapter. Some live while others die but each buried deep in my mind for all eternity.

   Writing is a circus, a broadway show, or a school musical. It is the impossible becoming so, and it is beauty, love, and sorrow all wrapped up in my mind shouting to be set free. Writing is laughter and surprises with twists and turns that carry you away and even into sleep. And when you awake you realize it wasn’t a dream but a book that lays open on your blanket.

   To write is the most magical, thrilling thing a person could ever do and for those of you who never put pen to paper, well, try it sometime. Open your mind and dream, imagine, and dream.

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Author Mike OConnor: Just walking

Author Mike OConnor: Just walking:    The forests were his sanctuary, his peace, and the only place on earth where the voices and defining noise didn’t exist. He had no wo...

Just walking

   The forests were his sanctuary, his peace, and the only place on earth where the voices and defining noise didn’t exist. He had no worldly possessions, not anymore. He had rid himself of everything the day he walked away. Nature and his skills would provide him with what mattered, nothing more.

   He walked the walk of a man trying never to get anywhere but his mind needed for him to walk, just walk, and so he did. From the first light of day until the sunset he stepped lightly and without a sound except when an occasional fallen branch met the soul of his boot causing him to stop abruptly listening but only hearing the birds frightened right alongside him.

   He came back a different man someone he didn’t know or understand — someone who couldn’t fit in anymore although he tried so very hard to do so. His family prayed for him, wept for him, and tried to understand why he just walked away one day. It was the last time they would ever see him.

   The forest to him was like a dream where he was the only person invited in to roam and become as one with all it could offer him. He lost track of time as months turned to years as he kept walking and trying to silence the voices and the noises that buried themselves into his very soul.

   No one understood how he survived the harsh winters and the relentless rain and storms, and no one except me ever looked for him. He was a memory to those he left behind — a story at the supper table shedding tears onto food. I tried to find him spending weekends walking deep into the forest looking for signs he had passed through one way or another, but my efforts became less and less as time past and eventually I made peace with myself and let him go.

   I think about him often and wonder if he's still out there waiting to find himself or giving in to the realization he is who he became and will never walk out of the trees that protect him from his life he can't forget. I pray he is free from the pain, and he has become one with the silence.

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Author Mike OConnor: My back yard

Author Mike OConnor: My back yard:    Yesterday comes back to me when dreams are awakened. I'm six years old, and I move without direction, only curiosity.    My worl...

My back yard

   Yesterday comes back to me when dreams are awakened. I'm six years old, and I move without direction, only curiosity.

   My world is a patch of green sprinkled with fruit trees onto which I climb and reach for the sweet food above.

   Across the street and high above the trains speed by but never disturbs my quest. There are small animals in the trees and sitting on the wires that cross my patch. Some I've seen in storybooks while others leave me puzzled.

   I've ventured from the back door to the end of my patch only to be stopped by something I can't see through. Quite the milestone, I believe. Yet even at this distance, I hear my moms' voice calling me in for supper.

   I will begin my journey again tomorrow, and tonight, I will dream about new discoveries and endless moments in my back yard.

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Author Mike OConnor: Salted breath

Author Mike OConnor: Salted breath:                                                                                                                                      ...