if i were a writer

Every weekend, it’s more of the same.  Every weekend, we anticipate and plan and pack and climb aboard. 

Every weekend, it’s unique.  Every weekend, we sail off into a different direction towards an uncharted destination.

 

 

Writers of books and writers of songs and writers of plays have sailed these waters and walked these steps and bellied up to the bar and spent weeks on these magical grounds.  Cabbage Key attracts a certain type of folk I suppose and it’s no coincidence that these folk are all writers of some sort.

Once I stepped off the boat and onto the island, I got it.  I could feel it in my head, the damn was lifted and the water flowed freely.

Isolated…  Quiet…  Simple…  Understated…

I would be able to clean out my head and organize my thoughts and do great things…

if I were a writer…

 

It would be nearly impossible to not be inspired by the sheer lack of all that’s distracting and the abundance of all that’s essential.

if i were a writer…

 

 

If I were a guest using the guest laundry, I would probably write poetry in my head while I folded grand, thick, soft, ridiculously large snow white towels. 

if i were a writer…

 

 

Simple and crisp and white and classic on the inside and green and plush and wet on the outside.  I would set up a little desk right here, facing the window (adjacent to the washer, but inspiring none the less).

if i were a writer… 

 

The timely afternoon showers would bring a different mood.  I would put away my sunny writing and slip into my more serious dark pieces and pour out my soul for all to read.  I would scribble it out as quickly as it came to me, never hesitating or second guessing.  I would write till the pounding turned to a pitter patter and then when the steam would lift, I would close my book and send it out to the masses (because there would be masses waiting) without editing or spell checking anything, just raw, untouched, direct quotes from my soul…

if i were a writer…

 

 

The morning sunrise would no doubt find me at my table with a boiled egg in that pretty boiled egg holder table decoration drinking my black coffee (because I would drink coffee if I was a writer) scribbling as fast as I could because the ideas that would have flowed into my brain overnight would already be flowing out of my pencil onto my napkin or the placemat or the palm of my hand or whatever canvas I could get my hands on first. 

if I were a writer…

Afternoons would be tea in the greenhouse.  Potting soil and dainty potting gloves and an apron (and a size four waist that would look classic in said apron).  I would get my hands dirty to clean my soul.  Ideas would drift in between my thoughts of peonies and hydrangeas.  If the notion hit, I would throw down my gloves, grab my pencil and curl up on the wicker sofa to capture my thoughts.  I would spin a beautiful masterpiece in the warm sunlit sanctuary that would be my greenhouse. 

if i were a writer…

I am so certain that inspiration  is actually what the core of this island is made up of, not some shell mound left by the early natives like historians claim.  Just pure inspiration waiting to find a willing host.  I know I felt it coming up through my feet as I walked the grounds.  My fingers flew over my camera and ideas danced through my head and the creativity begged to find a little hole to seep out of.

Cabbage Key gets mixed reviews, you either get it or you don’t. 

It attracts a certain kind of folk i suppose, a type of folk that have enough distractions going on in their own heads, that they don’t need external distractions like traffic or real jobs or bills or the IRS.  Once the external distractions are removed, they can hone in on those internal ones and hunt them down and round them up and carry them off to be processed.  The words are there, this place just lends itself to opening up and letting those ideas transform into words which transform into sentences which transform into pre-bestseller manuscripts which transform into years of success and happiness. 

Here on the island the writer once again becomes free as he purges his head of his crazy bits of creativity and then sends them off to his publisher who binds them up in a pretty little thing so he has a carrier of a  little piece of himself to give to the world.

if I were a writer I would come here.

If I were a writer.