Carpe Diem! Carpe Viam! Carpe Scribendi!


"No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world." - John Keating (actor Robin Williams) in the movie THE DEAD POETS SOCIETY

On Thursday, April 11, 2013, I thought Ed was dead. That's exactly what I screamed as I ran out our front door to my neighbor's. "He's dead! My husband is dead!" I was trying to dial 911, but couldn't find the dial pad on my "smart" phone. I could pull up Facebook, Twitter, and the recently dialed numbers, but not the squad.

As I scrambled to the house next door, Ed sat in our bathroom unconscious. He'd become severely dehydrated from either food poisoning or the norovirus. He had fainted in my arms, fallen, hit his head hard enough to dent the bathroom door, and remained unconscious for the excruciating minutes it took me to get help to work my phone. He regained consciousness as the EMTs pulled into our drive. They wheeled him off to The Ohio State University emergency room for intravenous fluids and Zofran, the magic anti-nausea drug. He recovered fabulously just in time to take care of me when I fell ill the next day. Thanks to more anti-nausea drugs and his tender loving care, I recovered over the weekend without incident.

The following Monday, April 15, 2013, Hubby and I had watched a live feed of the elite runners finish the Boston Marathon from our respective computers in our central Ohio home. When the live streaming ended, we packed our car for an overnight to Athens, eighty miles south. An hour after we left, as Ed and I blithely drove along somewhere between Logan and Nelsonville, the two bombs were detonated killing three people and injuring at least 260.

We heard the tragic news when we reached our hotel and immediately turned on the television. We could only tolerate watching for a while. The images and commentary overwhelmed us. Once we realized the newscasters on all channels were recirculating the images and information and that nothing new was being revealed, we headed for dinner with little of our only recently-regained appetites.

I spent several days after these events following Ed around. I took his temperature and his blood pressure and asked if he was feeling alright. He was patient, but eventually he asked me if I didn't have something better to do!

I'm in several running groups. One is a primarily on-line group named The Dead Runners Society after the 1989 movie The Dead Poets Society. In the movie, The Dead Poets Society adopts as its motto the aphorism, Carpe Diem which can be loosely translated as, "Seize the day!" To suit their purpose, the Dead Runners Society amended this to "Carpe Viam!" which (also loosely translated) stands for "Seize the Way (or Seize the Roadway)."

Recent events made seizing things seem like a great idea. Carpe Diem! Carpe Viam! Why not Carpe Scribendi? That was it! I'd seize the pen!

So those are my mottos and that's what I've done in the days since. Each day I wake and feel grateful for another 24-hours with Ed. Carpe Diem! Another of my running groups held a fun run fundraiser for the bombing victims. I participated in that. Carpe Viam! And I continue to work on the book about running. I'm nearly done with a first draft. Carpe Scribendi!

What about you? What's going on with your writing? What will it take for you to Carpe Scribendi? I'd love to hear about it.

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