The Best and… The Rest

It must have been the time spent in Cuba on the Hemingway Trail that led me to this story.

“In the 1920s, Ernest Hemingway learned something about “bad luck” and getting kicked by life. He was struggling to make his mark as an author when disaster struck.

He lost a suitcase containing all his manuscripts — many stories he’d polished to jewel-like perfection — which he’d been planning to publish in a book.

According to Denis Waitley in his book, Empires of the Mind, the devastated Hemingway couldn’t conceive of redoing his work. All those months of ardurous writing were simply wasted.

He lamented his predicament to friend and poet Ezra Pound who called it a stroke of good fortune! Pound assured Hemingway that when he rewrote the stories, he would forget the weak parts; only the best material would reappear.

He encouraged the aspiring author to start over with a sense of optimism and confidence. Hemingway did rewrite the stories and eventually became a major figure in American literature.”

Forget the weak parts… and only the best remains.  I’m down with that.

This past month I have been traveling in a bubble of what I can only call a “protected ambivalence” as I journey through the Caribbean and Central America. Unattached to any one outcome, I find more positive experiences come my way by simply saying “yes”, even when it looks like ‘bad luck’. 

“Yes, I feel stalled on the website and overwhelmed by the volume of stuff that I simply don’t know.  (Yes, Word Press is kicking my ass!)  Yes, I will re-write, revise, revisit and make it better.  Yes… I believe in me.  Yes.  I can do it!”

“Yes.”  It’s a great word.  It allows for MORE. 

To some these last few months of my life look like indecision, to others it looks irresponsible.  To me it just feels… right.  So many choices. Why not try something new?  Taste something new?  Learn something… new?  Start fresh?  Say “yes”.
Follow the bliss.

Ride the wave and let it be amazing.  I am determined.

Texas travels on, on to Untila and a new adventure.  I knuckle under, just me and the page in a little apartment a block off the beach. I’ve come to call this ‘home’.  Letting all the weak parts fall away as I re-write my (wonderful) life and… only the best remains. Thanks Papa!

Yes, I am… the Food Gypsy.