You stand in the center…..you gaze below….you give thanks for the solidity of the railing.  You know how easy it would be to fall, or, in the old days, to jump.  To fly free…oblivious to the consequences.  Today there is no wind…nothing to shake you, nothing but awe and joy and “OMG” rapture repeating in your head.

Pictures do not offer justice to the depth, the sharp canyon crevices, the width, the sound of water, the smell of clean air, the sound of children giggling and cars slowly passing.  The bridge straddles the deepest gorge I’ve seen since the Grand Canyon.  With camera in one hand and car keys in the other (not a very smart idea, btw!!), I breathe deeply, exchanging stale breath in the lungs for new, fresh air…rejuvenated breath to fuel and strengthen my purpose in being in the southwest.

Standing above the deep crevice, I found myself filled with an expansiveness of experience.  I felt a sense of how wide open and large the world is..with its forever horizon, its long distance mountains, those cartoon clouds, the flat prairie of sage brush, and the jagged cut of the gorge itself.  I realized in that moment that my writing is lacking that sense of wide open possibility.

My plan of making three passes through the memoir by mid March was forcing me to believe that my direction on Pass #2, which is where I am at now, should be an attempt to make the narrative perfect…except for minor proofreading edits.  But twirling in the open air far above the quick flowing river, I realized that my current writing requires expansiveness.  Round one of the writing, which I completed just before moving into Questa, had me simply telling the story…providing the facts, the events.  I knew Round 2 required development…but I’d meant to keep it controlled.  As of yesterday, I have given myself the necessary permission to go WILD!!!  Gypsy Wild!!  To write and write and Overwrite!!!!  To include all the sensory details I can recall…to add snippets of fairy tale and inner monologue, retrospective voice, dreams and flashbacks.  To create the color and sound and richness that a true story demands!!

I’ve now given myself permission to have fun, to make my writing process a daily adventure, to allow the book to become 600 pages in this round of writing, if need be!!  Make it big; make it full!!  Then Round 3 revision will be about cutting to the bone…..but I can’t write to the bone!  I have to expand, to jump trampoline high, and touch the ethereal gossamer of clouds.  In that way, the writing will be done with gypsy joy, with a rebel abandon, and with anticipation of every euphoric sunrise!!!