Extreme mellow

One of those continuing moments this morning when I marvel at my own survival. Good timing had much to do with it: beginning my writing career when grants were plentiful, so that the burden of  being commercial was greatly diminished; and becoming obsessed with hyperdrama at the very time the World Wide Web developed, so that I could find the overseas markets when so few existed at home. Circumstances made it easier to focus on inside-out writing, rather than commercial outside-in writing. I got to do things my way with less difficulty than if the special circumstances had been "normal." And even quitting a wilder lifestyle when I did, in my early 50s, a decision without which surely I'd have been long gone by now.

All of these components strike me as more accidental than a result of any right decisions on my part. I think I went with the flow but the flow itself was particularly helpful to encouraging my artistic work. I was in the right place at the right time.

And here I am, approaching 80, and still hanging in.