Next Life in the Afternoon

“I have to go back to Thailand,” I remember Phramaha Nattapong saying once. “It like I am empty. My heart empty. I need to see my family and my country.”

“Like you have to recharge your batteries,” I said.

“Yes, like recharge battery. I think you understand.”

This is just what I have needed to do myself after a long time working in a day job and teaching at night, with very little time to work on this book. What I have rediscovered in the meantime is a writer I have enjoyed on and off for a year or so. In her blog Nothing But Bonfires Holly Burns writes in the most incredible way – amusing, humorous, deep, philosophical and is able to turn a story from a yarn a person might tell into a string that artfully leads back to itself the best self-referential way.

Burns is not just a great writer but a refreshing one. Reading her work helps me recharge a bit. I can’t put my finger on why or what it is but it feels nourishing, like a salve I didn’t know I needed. Maybe it’s just perspective – seeing things through another set of eyes, both familiar and foreign. I can feel myself regaining the hold I had on my writing and am excited to continue.

But the best part about Holly, and likely what makes her just a bit alluring is that she is a language geek like me and even has a favorite punctuation mark. Not many of us admit that. For me, it’s hard to say. I love em dashes; I am not as big a fan of semicolons (or of parentheses), as Holly is. I suppose it takes all types. Not everyone will agree on something as controversial as punctuation.

Thanks, Holly, for providing whatever it is I get from your blog that seems so refreshing and inspires me to continue forward.

If you have not seen Holly’s blog, please go check it out. Her careful dedication to the craft of writing is clear and I am sure you will find her style as interesting and intelligent, yet down-to-earth as I have.

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