"The End"

After 264 pages and 601 footnotes Craig was Finally put to rest today leaving behind one very happy Me!


According to my Microsoft Words Stats: This file has been on my screen for 336 Hours or 14 DAYS. I have opened this document 132 times. There are 452 paragraphs & I have been happy with the placement of exactly 74,328 words.


This last month it has taken me longer to write a single page than last year it took me to write an entire chapter. I don't think it was negligence but perhaps avoidance. It is hard to end a life on paper to say this is the end. I remember the day in the archive when I reached the end of his papers. It is a family collection, 16,000 items extending from 1765 to 1890. Craig's papers, letters, receipts, notes just stopped and a new generation of Craig's and their letters began. It wasn't just that life moved on, it was knowing that he would become forgotten. As someone who has been touched by the cold hand of death more than her fair share of times there was something very final and lonely about this experience in particular. It left a great and quiet sadness in me. I drove home without the radio on (very un-me, my life is immersed in music). I have felt a great responsibility in helping Craig tell his story, and although his death was but one small event of his life it seemed such a personal moment. Putting his death back onto paper felt as though I were dressing the body for a wake as opposed to what I wanted to do, bid him farewell on his journey to Aman. (psst it's a Tolkien reference)


As for me - It is not necessarily the ending of a project I don't like it is more the idea of starting another. At the end of each project I look back on the collection of stints where I ran my keyboard hot with good ideas and It scares me to think I will have to do it again & again & again because What if ... What if I never have another good idea...what if this time it was a fluke... what if I already played my best card...worse yet...what if I never had any good cards to play to begin with. This is the thought that scares me as the sun begins to set on any given project. This is the thought that makes Me (the worlds biggest lets-just-do-it-right-now-non-procrastinator) suddenly gain a back burner.


But for now, for this very short moment I'm going to sit back & as one dear and evil friend reminds me... feel like "amazing...crap" ;)



...Of course there is a great deal of editing to be done now...but that is a monster of a very different breed. For now I am just happy to say I am done.


Mw/h