Read the signs and Grow Wise

    

I stood and stared at the little sign.  It was the only thing on the wall to read and there was nothing else to look at.  But even if there had been a fire engine blasting past, my 11 year old mind still would have been mesmerized by the message printed.

PLEASE DO NOT THROW

BUTTS IN URINALS

     I was intrigued by the image I had of someone in the men’s room.  Perhaps all the stalls were full.  He would drop his pants and turn sideways to the wall.  A few practice swings with an anxious count up to three.  Then with a little jump he would fling his posterior into the urinal.  My young imagination conjured someone walking in moments later to see this poor soul evacuating where he had thrown himself.  The newcomer would say “Hey, can’t you read,” and point to the sign.

     I finally brought my dad into the men’s room to show him the sign.  He told me it meant cigarette butts. 

     Oh.  Throw butts in… oh.  I got it.  Throwing cigarette butts into the urinal made a lot more sense.  But the erroneous image I had was considerably more entertaining.  Sometimes it’s more fun to not know the truth and carry on, if not in blissful, at least in amused innocence.  Sometimes when faced with the truth I back away like it’s a draft of cold air first thing in the morning.  I would rather be warm under the covers and dream of what isn’t real.  You might think that I don’t accomplish a lot living in denial.  And I will step forward and say that denial is an unhealthy state to remain in.  But I also can get a lot of writing done.

     I started My Roadwalker blog on May 11^th 2010 with an entry called Navel Gazing. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to accomplish or prove writing a blog.  But I likedto think that I’m a writer and that something writers can do.  I wrote a lot about myself and a lot of stories from my past.  The early entries may be good stories, but I had not found my voice yet.  I don’t like how they’re written. I wish I could go back and re-write a lot of them.

     Less than a year ago, Prajna encouraged me to write more about what God was doing in my life.  That is when my blog began to take a more spiritual turn.  Some of my favorite blog entires are there.  But for each time I hit it out of the park there are several more grounders, and even some swings and misses. Sometimes they are self indulgent. Sometimes I wince at how much proselytizing I was doing.  I never wanted this blog to read like that.  All the while I was living in this blissful and amused ignorance that I had a blog read by people around the world. 

     But I am aiming too high.  The truth is obvious.   Roadwalker is a writing exercise.  I love to write.  This blog is a discipline that I do and then, just for fun, I share it.  Keeping track of my pageviews, I learned that all of my readers from Russia come from a spammer that leaves URL’s for people like me to click on.  So much for a worldwide readership.  I know I liked it better when I didn’t know the whole truth.

     I am going to back off on the proselytizing.  I am going to continue to post Roadwalker every Monday.  But it is part of a writing regiment that I keep to because writing is my hobby.  It kind of hurts to admit that.  The innocent image is a lot more fun.  But the truth is the right thing.  This is post number 175.  Thanks for sticking with me.