Monday, September 2, 2013

June 26, 1977



I was 10 years old when I went on my first recorded adventure. I haven’t stopped noting observations, surroundings, and ideas in the 36 years since then.

Growing up in Brooklyn, New York offered a lot of colorful moments, people, and places to write about. One day, I believe the final day of school (4th grade at P.S. 199); I walked on my own and took notes of what I did. It was more of a blog than a journal, listing store names and the times of day I visited them. But it gave root to the stacks of diaries that I’d eventually generate.

That date, June 26, 1977, sticks in my brain. It seemed monumental when it was happening and it still seems important to me today, all of those years later. It’s funny how certain moments shape our lives and stay with us for as long as our memories permit.

I remember walking about a half-mile from my apartment building, which isn’t a big distance, but it was far enough to cross over into another zip code. It was out of my mom’s perview and I was on my own. I felt independent and on a mission. I was an explorer.

Over the years I’ve come across the few pages of ink-stained handwritten pages that recorded my historical day. I can’t imagine how many words I’ve written since that day. It’s like speaking your first word, only better. All of the words I’ve ever written seem familiar to me. It’s like my DNA is attached to them. I can recognize my writing anywhere, even if it was stacked amongst the scribblings of a thousand writers.

It would be 21 years later, in June of 1998, that I’d write my first email and online newsletter. It would be 13 years later, in May of 2011 that I’d write my first blog post. But it all seems like yesterday that I started writing.

The summer of ’77 was an interesting one for New Yorkers. Son of Sam, a crazed lover’s lane killer, was on the loose. A few weeks after my journal initiation, the city went dark with a major blackout. The Yankees would go on to win the World Series for the first time in over a decade (when Mickey Mantle last played). That same year I played baseball for the first time, for the now defunct North Highway Little League.

For me, writing adventures are synonymous. In the past I used words to describe what I saw and felt. Now I use them to imagine a better world. In words, we truly live.

Whether it is 1977 or 2013, writing about the world around and within me is still what gets me out of bed.

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2013

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