Seasonal Changing

Above photos courtesy of the brilliant Brian Castagne

The skies opened and started dumping rain over the Bay Area this morning, and it continues tonight. That made it a challenge for our young athletes playing in the final games of this soccer season, in the case of the orange-clad CRZ Fusion, for the championship of their division.

It wasn't to be. In the rain and mud, they played well but lost, 3-1. It was also a close, gutsy game for our red-clad SF United, who lost at the last moment, 2-1.



The great thing about kids who play sports is that even when they lose a big game and feel down (above), with a little encouragement from the photographers, they still can show plenty of spirit (below.)



Lots of writers like to say that they write because they can't do anything else. It's kind of a form of false modesty. Another school of thought (which I've been known to express) is that writers write because we have to.



So, what does it mean to be wired in such a way that you have to write?



Could it be that the stories inside your head have to be expelled by some sort of synaptic urgency? Quite seriously, what is this need to tell all about?



If it's a need to be seen, heard, or recognized, that wouldn't be so hard to psychoanalyze, I'm sure.



I'll offer an alternative scenario. Some of the urgency to write might be about the need to connect. It may not be very much about ego. It might be about how isolated and alienated we all can feel, from time to time, as if we are alone in our lives.

***

My father used to like to sing a certain song called "You'll Never Walk Alone." It was a song from the great 1945 musical Carousel, created by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

These are excerpts from that song, leaving out the religious references:

Along life's road
There will be sunshine and rain
Roses and thorns, laughter and pain
And 'cross the miles
You will face mountains so steep
Deserts so long and valleys so deep...

The path will wind
And you will find wonders and fears
Labors of love and a few falling tears
Across the years
There will be some twists and turns
Mistakes to make and lessons to learn
Sometimes the journey's gentle
Sometimes the cold winds blow
But I want you to remember wherever you may go

You'll never walk alone...


(The editing is mine.)

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