Small miracles

Now and again, reviewing my blessings, I marvel that I did not become homeless. Especially in my drinking days, I escaped any number of possibilities that would have started a downward cycle of behavior and consequences. For example, I habitually drank and drove. Yet in several decades of the practice, never had a ticket. I did have two fender bender solo accidents. That's it. I could have easily killed someone in a traffic accident, for all my recklessness.

Also as a writer more interested in personal perfection than popularity, I could easily have had no career at all. Luck of the draw, I began when grants were plentiful, as they are not today in the pendulum's swing between art and commerce, and therefore had financial support and psychological validation when, in another era, I could have had invisibility and depression, with its personal consequences.

At a time when I was tired of the stress of freelance writing, and needed a stable income source, the telephone rang and Portland State University asked if I'd be interested in creating a screenwriting program as part of their new graduate Creative Writing program. The timing could not have been better.

In other words, I've been in the right place at the right time often through my life. A different timing, I might have ended up on the streets. This is why I consider my life blessed.

And what an interesting life it has been! I wrote about it in my memoir Dress Rehearsals, then later came out with an annotated edition called Always A New Horizon.