Sweet Baby Genome

Only minutes before the whole thing began, I was seated at an inside table near the windows but not too near the cafe door. I was wearing a mood that might have posed a danger to passersby had I been seated at a sidewalk table.

There. The opening--the one you just read--is a gag that I've revised more than once in an attempt to improve the cadence and rhythm, two things I think are crucial when telling a story of any kind.

I think it's something common to writers in general. For example, James Taylor, the wonderful songwriter and musician, once wrote a verse or two of a song that was playing around in his head.

The song began, "There is a young cowboy, he lives on the range. His horse and his cattle are his only companions.

He works in the saddle and sleeps in the canyons.
Waiting for summer, his pastures to change."

Those words have perfect cadence and rhythm, in my opinion. Taylor added five more lines to finish the verse, and then he was stumped. He didn't know where to go with it. So he put it away for later--maybe. Just like I put the opening words of this post away until I can find that perfect phrasing.

Here's another personal experience that I've wanted to write about for years but haven't yet found the flow that I like. It goes like this.

One morning, while working on-site, I happened to walk by an open office door where a young woman was seated at her desk, staring at a computer. She happened to glance my way as I happened to glance hers. Well, you know how it is, one can't share a glance and not say something.

"OMG!" I said. "I love purple!" It wasn't that I was at a loss for anything better to say. It was just that her office was decorated in a disquieting array of purple. It delivered quite a shock so early in the day.

"You do?" she said in a tone that reeked of doubt.

"Yes," I said, "my favorite color." Take that, I thought, slightly offended that she seemed to question my honesty.

"Since when?" she said.

I don't know about you, but I think that's funny and should be an introduction to an entertaining piece of work. But, I swear, I don't know what to do with it. In fact, I revised it once more while you were reading it just now. 

According to my sources, Mr. Taylor also had the recurring experience and came up with yet another bit of song lyrics that began like this:

"Now, the first of December was covered with snow. So was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston. The Berkshires seemed dream-like on account of that frosting with ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go."

And he didn't know what to do with that verse either. Eventually, he remembered that other half song that he'd put away somewhere, and he dug out the lyrics about the cowboy. He wrote a refrain to glue the two verses together, and that merger became one of his signature compositions--"Sweet Baby James."

James Taylor is one of my all-time favorite singer/songwriters, and if he can do it, then it's OK for me. So, without further introduction, I offer the following paragraph to complete this blog post, which I hope will be as well received as the one titled "Coastal Camelot."

The experience of discovering that the lock on a public restroom door is broken differs wildly depending on which side of the door you're on when you make the discovery.

And there you have it. That completes my "Sweet Baby Genome." Thank you for taking the time to read it. See you again soon.