There is just something over the top exciting about receiving a book in the mail that you created. For me this book, North of Secrets, represents so many things.
It's a representation of a decade worth of personal history. It's a record of some people who have been very important to me. It has some of my favorite photos. It outlines some of my thoughts related to therapy, of emotional struggles, healing and the ability to change.
It contains many poems that I wrote from the past when it seemed as if, as a result of depression and some very sad events, that I would not so much think in words or sentences but in poems that seemed to come to me as if given to me by someone else fully formed. They seemed to come so easily back then when most of them were written in the late 90s.
It contains 59 of my favorite photos from places I've been that have most significantly left their mark on me, for better or worse: The West End and Stanley Park. Saltspring. Abiquiu, New Mexico and Santa Fe. Salmon Arm. Chiapas, Mexico.
Yes, I admit it, these are not exactly international destinations of intrigue but places, in my small life, that are alive in my memories and in photos that capture my take on a time and place where very significant experiences happened for me.
I just can't say enough about how great it is that an idea/reality such as Blurb.com exists so that anyone who wants to has the ability to showcase their creativity. Why wait to be famous when the likelihood of that happening is less than winning a lottery?
There's more than enough room in the world for all representations of creativity, not just of the chosen few that are rather arbitrarily determined (by whom?) to be worthy of public recognition.
I don't believe anything has made me happier in the past year than the process involved in putting together this book and now being able to hold it in my hands knowing that I have created for myself, a bit of a legacy, one that I would have no other way to create since I have never had, nor ever will have, children. (But, in a way this is even better because, unlike offspring, I had full control of the outcome!)
I've chosen to keep this book private on the Blurb.com site because of the extremely personal nature of the contents and because some of the photos of people within it, but [if you are a personal friend of mine] and you would like a copy, I can order one for you. The cost is $25.00
It contains 44 pages of 17 poems and 59 photos (along with descriptions about how the poems came to be in terms of the person, place or thing that sparked their origin).
Here's a little teaser:
On the surface, this book may seem to be about some of my poetry and photos.
And, that it is!
But, those are the end products of a much more important journey that forced me inside to that placed located north of my own secrets.
We all know when we're keeping a secret. But, what of that place that's even deeper and full of secrets that we may not even know we have: the subconscious.
It wasn't a place I thought I'd ever be visiting. A melancholy place, always present, extremely bothersome, causing all sorts of chaos in my everyday existence until the emotions were unearthed and expressed...