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J.W. Eberle

J.W. Eberle

Tag Archives: life

The Birthday Resolutions Ride Again

09 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by Jonny Eberle in The Future, Writing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

amwriting, being present, birthday, birthday blog, birthday resolutions, experiences, future, humility, life, limitations, living, novel, present, process, resolutions, writing, Writing Life, writing process

Approaching another year with caution, as one does. Photo by the incomparable Stephanie Eberle. Copyright 2017.

Resolutions are funny things. Every year, I make myself a series of promises and every year, I break most of those promises. And yet, I keep making resolutions on my birthday, because while I’m not good at fulfilling them, I still find value in the tradition — in aspiring to do better and be better each year.

This year, as I dive headlong into my late-20s, I’m making three resolutions and if I’m lucky, I may even keep them this time. Hope springs eternal.

1. Complete the first draft of my novel

Astute readers of this blog will probably recognize this one. Last year, I laid out an ambitious goal to write a novel by my 30th birthday. In my original plan, I was going to finish the first draft last year and, well, it didn’t quite work out that way. So, this year I’m going to attempt a new first draft, this time based on a different premise that I’ve been cooking up. With my self-imposed deadline looming, I’m giving myself until November to complete the draft (around 100,000 words). This is a monumental undertaking, but I’m excited about this idea and I’m determined to get it finished.

2. Learn to Accept My Limitations

As I get older, I like to think that I also get a little wiser and a little more humble. I used to think that I could do it all. It turns out I don’t have unlimited time, boundless energy and barrels of talent that I used to believe I possessed — and that’s okay. I have obligations that I must keep; relationships that I must nourish. I can’t follow every harebrained idea that pops into my head. This year, I want to continue to learn how to reel myself back in. Limitations are necessary and by respecting my own limits, I’ll have to be more discerning in my endeavors. From now on, I want to devote my resources to doing a few things exceptionally well, rather than taking on multitudes poorly.

3. Enjoy the Process

In writing and in life, I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to either dwell on the past or start imagining the future. I like spending time reflecting and dreaming, but I don’t want to be so distracted from where I am in the present. I’m writing a novel. I’m young and living in a vibrant, interesting city. These are the years to soak in my experiences and savor the details so that I can draw on them later. I cannot write about fictional lives without living my own life. I want to remember that this year and enjoy the process of accumulating stories.

What are your resolutions for this year? Let me know in the comments!

— 30 —

Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. Today is his birthday. His latest short story, The Disappeared, appears in Creative Colloquy Vol. 4, which you can find at King’s Books in Tacoma. Follow him on Twitter and subscribe to his monthly newsletter for exclusive content and recommended reads.

Full Circle: 2017 Year in Review

31 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by Jonny Eberle in The Future, Writing

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end of the year, full circle, Fulton Orrery, Glasgow, Happy New Year, Kelvingrove, life, mechanical model of the solar system, New Year, New Year's Eve, orbit, orrery, Scotland, year, year in review

Fulton Orrery, Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow. Copyright 2017 Jonny Eberle.

Earlier this year, we were in Glasgow, Scotland at the Kelvingrove Museum. In one of the upstairs rooms, I remember being captivated by an antique orrery, a mechanical model of the solar system. Built by a Scottish cobbler in 1833, the orrery has 200 moving parts and simulates the movement of the planets as they were known in the 19th century. I lingered near the exhibit for a long time, taking photos of it before moving on.

Now, seven months later, on the very last night of the year, I find myself thinking about the orrery again. Like the brass gears moving miniature planets in neat, circular orbits, the year 2017 has taken me full circle — both physically and mentally.

Some things haven’t changed. I’m still struggling to find the time and motivation to write. Blog topics come infrequently. The novel manuscript I planned to complete this year stalled out. My stage play was rejected from every festival I submitted to.

And yet, some things are radically different. I took a chance and applied for a new job where I work. I stood on the sacred Isle of Iona and sat among ruins a thousand years old. I watched the Moon nearly blot out the Sun. I rode a cable car in San Francisco and hiked to an emerald green pool in Zion Canyon. I finished a short story that’s plagued me for five years and got it published in Creative Colloquy Volume 4. I’ve spent lazy summer afternoons reading with my soulmate, baked a blackberry pie from scratch and seen many of my closest friends — even those living four states away.

Our lives are made up of these little cycles. Days. Weeks. Months. Seasons. Orbits around the Sun. Much of it is repetition. We wake, we eat, we go to work, we sleep and we repeat the process. It’s not all bad. Habits help ground us. And without the mundane, how could we recognize the extraordinary? If it wasn’t for all of the overcast days, I probably wouldn’t take so much pleasure in a beautiful, sunny day.

Here, on the cusp of the new year, I look forward to coming full circle in 2018 and seeing the brilliance among the ordinary. I hope you see it, too.

— 30 —

Jonny Eberle is a writer and traveler based in Tacoma, WA. His latest short story, The Disappeared, appears in Creative Colloquy Vol. 4 and can be found at King’s Books in Tacoma. Follow him on Twitter and subscribe to his monthly newsletter for exclusive content and recommended reads.

Photographing a Very Nearly Almost Total Eclipse

24 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by Jonny Eberle in Photography, Writing

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Tags

amwriting, camera, camera settings eclipse, eclipse, eclipse photography, humility, life, partial solar eclipse, photography, solar eclipse, Tacoma, total eclipse of the sun, Universe, Washington, Writing Life

Eclipse high in the sky. Copyright 2017 Jonny Eberle.Even 200 miles from the path of totality, the solar eclipse was all anyone could talk about this week in Washington. In the mad scramble for special viewing glasses and the endless debates over whether it was worth it to brave the slog of traffic heading south, I found myself in my office’s parking lot at 10:00am on the auspicious date of August 21, 2017.

For the first time since 1918, a total solar eclipse would be visible across the entire lower 48. In Tacoma, it was calculated that we would see 94% of a total eclipse. The moment had arrived.

I’m not the kind of person who can not take a photo of a major celestial event, so I had my trusty Canon with me. Even with 6% of the Sun visible behind the disk of the Moon, pointing a camera straight into the sky for any length of time is a sure way to melt your sensor. Sunlight carries a lot of energy and camera lenses are designed to focus light into a tiny area — exactly the way a magnifying glass cooks ants. I wasn’t taking any chances.

Eclipse camera setup. Copyright 2017 Jonny Eberle. A few weeks before the event, I ordered a 4-inch-by-4-inch sheet of mylar solar viewing film and built a homemade lens adapter using the ring from a mason jar lid (my wife’s brilliant idea) and cardboard from the envelope the film came in. We were also lucky to snag a few pairs of what felt like the last remaining eclipse glasses on earth.

That morning, as I stepped outside, nothing felt abnormal, although a quick peek through my glasses showed that the Moon was already starting to cross in front of the Sun. I my tripod setup. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, autofocus doesn’t work on an object 93 million miles away, so I had to focus manually. I couldn’t look through the viewfinder at the Sun, even with the filter on the front of the lens, so instead I set my focus on some wispy clouds on the horizon — as close to infinity as I could get without burning my retinas.

I found some base exposure settings online and started from there, bracketing a bit (but not enough, in hindsight) for more exposed and less exposed shots as the eclipse progressed:

First Contact:

  • ISO 100, f/4, 1/1,000-1/4,000 second
  • ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/1,000-1/4,000 second
  • ISO 400, f/8, 1/1,000-1/4,000 second

Thin Crescent:

  • 1/500-1/2,000 second

Eclipse in black and white. Copyright 2017 Jonny Eberle.

Then, it was just a matter of aiming the camera up and clicking the shutter. At this point, my coworkers started filtering out to see the spectacle. We chatted and passed around a handful of glasses so everyone could see the Sun disappearing behind the Moon and watched the leaves cast tiny crescents onto the pavement.

Eclipse through the leaves. Copyright 2017 Jonny Eberle.As the Sun was consumed, the light changed. The sky took on an early shade of grey-blue, like the color just before dawn. The temperature dropped by at least five degrees. A steady breeze picked up, as if a storm were approaching — but without a cloud in the sky.

I looked up through my viewing glasses. At maximum, the partial eclipse so so close to totality that I almost lost the sun in the vast, inky blackness above me. In a moment, the massive star at the center of our solar system was nearly invisible. An optical illusion left nothing behind except a thin, blood red sliver. I felt so small in that moment. For two minutes and forty seconds, I was a microscopic being on a tiny rock orbiting a small star in an unremarkable corner of an average galaxy in a sea of galaxies. Our triumphs and failures, our progress, our regress, our wars; they’re fleeting and inconsequential in that vastness. The size and scope of the universe hit me harder than I had expected and it was stupendous.

Scarlet crescent. Partial solar eclipse at maximum. Copyright 2017 Jonny Eberle.

Somehow, in all of that, I managed to keep clicking the shutter button. Gradually, the sun returned. The shadows softened, the sky went back to blue, and I felt warm light on my skin again. One by one, my coworkers went back inside. I lingered. For a while, I didn’t even take any pictures. I just looked up and watched the slow, predictable movement of the Sun and Moon above and tried to grasp the intensely surreal feeling of standing under an (almost) total eclipse of the sun for as long as I could.

I’m still a little sad I didn’t pick up and head to Oregon to view totality, but I’m grateful I had the chance to view it at all (the weather in the Pacific Northwest, the cloudiest place in the United States, was perfect). A partial eclipse is amazing, but from what I’ve heard and seen online, totality is on a completely different level. Photographic the moment was a fun challenge, too, and something I’d like to try again.

So, I find myself addicted to eclipses and researching where the next ones will pop up and wondering if I might be there to experience them. July 2, 2019 in Argentina? December 4, 2021 amidst the penguins in Antarctica? April 8, 2024 in Pennsylvania? Who knows?

Sun disappearing behind the Moon. Copyright 2017 Jonny Eberle. — 30 —

Jonny Eberle is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker in Tacoma, WA and a bit of an eclipse junkie. He usually forgets to bracket and ends up with a whole bunch of identically exposed photos as a result. Remember to bracket, kids.

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In the Footsteps of St. Columba: The Isle of Iona

26 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by Jonny Eberle in Photography, Travel, Writing

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Tags

2017, Highland cows, Inner Hebrides, Iona, Iona Abbey, Isle of Iona, life, photography, Scotland, St Columba, thin place, travel, travel photography, travelogue, world travelers, writing, Writing Life

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You have to really want to get to the Isle of Iona. A speck of land 3 miles long by 1.5 miles wide off the western coast of Scotland, Iona is remote. To get there from Glasgow requires traveling three-hours by train, one hour by ferry, one hour by bus, and fifteen minutes by ferry (yes, two ferries). But once you’re there, you can feel that the roots of the island run deep.

Iona was settled in the 6th century by St. Columba, who sailed there from his native Ireland with his followers to found a new monastic community. For centuries, the community flourished far from the authority of Rome, where it blended Christian and Celtic belief.

Today, the island has a little over a hundred permanent inhabitants, not counting sheep and shaggy Highland cows.

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But there is more here than meets the eye. On Iona, the ancientness emanates from every stone. The island has long been a magnet for pilgrims. It has a reputation as a “thin place” where the veil between the physical and the ethereal is especially thin. You can feel it in the 13th century abbey church, where ferns grow in cracks between medieval stones. You can feel it on the hike along the ancient pilgrimage route from the abbey to the rocky shores of St. Columba’s Bay. You can feel it while walking on the windswept beaches or at the foot of a cross with enigmatic carving eroded away by rain and salt.

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Iona’s status as a sacred isle is well-deserved. There is something here. Like most ancient sites I’ve visited, I felt a sense of the many layers of stories that have played out on this small Hebridean isle. It’s evident when looking at the Gaelic place names, which translate into intriguing snippets of lore — places with names like Height of the Storm, Port of the False Man, and Fort of the Ruins. Each one a folk tale in miniature.

Beyond the history and the natural beauty, Iona is a place that encourages weary pilgrims to rest and re-center. Whether it’s a solitary walk down one of the island’s two roads or enjoying a local scotch with friends at Martyr’s Bay, it’s one of the few unspoiled places just beyond the reach of the world and all its turmoil.

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There is peace here. There is room for reflection. And there is comfort in its stability. Iona has survived the rise and fall of empires for one-and-half thousand years. Iona reminds me that our lives are fleeting and our individual mark upon the world is small and quickly forgotten, but there are places — distant specks of land in the sea — where time moves slowly. Such places will be there long after we are gone; our triumphs and mistakes nothing more than dust. That is a good thing to remember when we get caught up in the crises of the moment.

Iona is a remarkable island, not just for its history and beauty, but also for its ability to cling to you. As the small passenger ferry steamed away from the dock and headed back to the Isle of Mull, I couldn’t help but feel as if a small voice was whispering to me, telling me that someday, I would return.

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  • Where: Isle of Iona, Inner Hebrides, Scotland
  • How to Get There: Train from Glasgow to Oban, ferry to Craignure, bus to Fionnphort, ferry to Iona
  • Where to Stay: St. Columba Hotel
  • What to Drink: Jura Superstition Single Malt Scotch
  • What to Beware Of: Sheep droppings, bogs, the bull

— 30 —

Jonny Eberle is a writer and photographer in Tacoma, WA. This is the first in a three-part travel series about a recent trip he and his wife took to Europe. Next up: Munich and Dachau.

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My Fifth Blogiversary

22 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by Jonny Eberle in Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

am writing, art, blog, blogging, blogiversary, discipline, five years, life, personal reflection, stories, writer, writing, Writing Life

underwood_canvas_2016_zpsnuitjq6c

Five years ago today, I started a writing blog. I didn’t really have a plan for what I was going to do once it was up and running, but it seemed like a natural extension of my dream of being a writer. I knew I needed a discipline; something that would force me to write on a regular basis. So, I signed up and paid for my domain name. The rest is history.

Looking over the last five years of blog posts, I can see my evolution as a writer. When I started, I posted twice a week. Two hundred seventy-eight posts later, my updates are more and more infrequent. I’m not as disciplined as I was when I embarked on this endeavor as a college junior. But that’s mainly because I’m so busy.

Since I started blogging in 2011, I’ve published three short stories, written a full-length stage play, moved across the country, and gotten married. Through it all, one of the few constants has been my writing. This blog has chronicled not just my writing life, but my everyday struggles and my existential crises along the way.

While I don’t have the time or the stamina to post biweekly, I still write on a regular basis. This week, I submitted a story to a popular fiction contest. Next week, I’ll start submitting my play to theatre festivals. I am also lucky to live in a city with a thriving literary scene, much of which is made possible by Creative Colloquy. My short story “Inheritance” will be appearing in Creative Colloquy Vol. 3.

As I look forward on another year of pursuing this wild dream, I am excited about the possibilities that lay before me. Most of all, I am humbled that you have chosen to experience it all with me. Thank you for reading. Here’s to five great years and many, many more to come.

— 30 —

Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. You can follow him on Twitter or find him wandering downtown Tacoma on Wednesday, October 5 from 6-9pm for the second annual Creative Colloquy Crawl. Feel free to drop in and say hello!

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No-Good, Rotten Liars Like Me

10 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by Jonny Eberle in Rants, Writing

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am writing, books, creative writing, fabrication, fiction, Hamlet, Holes, liars, lies, life, Neil Gaiman, personal reflection, real world, rotten liars, short story, story, truth in fiction, Where the Red Fern Grows, writing, writing is lying

truth20eberle_zpskeoppk3l

“Writers are liars, my dear, surely you know that by now? And yet, things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.” – Neil Gaiman, The Sandman

Last year, I read a short story of mine at Creative Colloquy, a local reading event in Tacoma. The story is about a boy who develops an eating disorder after his father is laid off from his job. Afterward, a woman asked me how long my father was out of work. She seemed a little confused when I explained that nothing in the story had actually happened and that the first person narrator wasn’t me, but a character I invented.

I took it as a compliment. It takes a lot of work to write a good story and even more to infuse enough realism in detail, dialogue and emotion to pass it off as truth. If I’ve hoodwinked you into believing that my fictions are fact, then I have succeeded.

As writers, lies are our business. We’re no-good, rotten liars. Every single one of us. Tricksters and charlatans with pens and laptops. We’re those not-to-be-trusted adults who never quite grew out of their childhood white lie phase. Our craft is the art of fabrication and yet, when done with care, a piece of well-wrought fiction can feel more real than the real world.

Some of my oldest heartbreaks were caused by books. It’s strange that ink, paper, cardboard, and glue can provoke strong emotional reactions and yet it happens every day to almost everyone who picks one up. The lies told between “Once upon a time” and “The End” can hold surprising truths. Because where life falls short, fiction continues to push the boundaries in search of deep, universal truths.

There’s a reason why we root for Stanley Yelnats to break the family curse, why we are disturbed by Hamlet’s madness, why we cry at the end of Where the Red Fern Grows. To us, those things really happened. Great writing uses people that never existed in situations that never occurred to tell us something about ourselves that dry reality can never match. We suspend our disbelief in reading fantastic literature not because we want to escape, but because we want to uncover something hidden in the everyday world. These stories — these utter falsehoods — can be paradoxically more honest than anything you will read in a newspaper.

Writers are the best kinds of liars. We’re liars who seek out and tell the hardest truths.

— 30 —

Jonny Eberle is a writer, filmmaker and photographer in Tacoma, WA. Or is he? You can find half-truths and outright yarns on his Twitter feed or join his mailing list to receive blatant lies delivered straight to your inbox.

Lucky Numbers

13 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by Jonny Eberle in Flash Fiction, Writing

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fiction, flash fiction, gambling, jackpot, life, lottery, lottery winner, lotto, luck, lucky, lucky draw, lucky numbers, powerball, relationships, win, winning, winning number, writing

lottery_ticket_cropped

The man and the woman sit on their futon, watching the lottery results. A ticket rests on the cardboard box that serves as their coffee table for now. They both know the odds of winning are low, but they secretly think they’re special. Everyone casts themselves as the hero of their own story.

The man will buy a flashy sports car if they win. A Ferrari or a Lamborghini or something equally outrageous. He’ll buy a real coffee table and a penthouse in South Beach. He’ll blow a hundred million on smooth-as-hell tequila and finely tailored suits and still have millions to spare. He will be disgustingly, grotesquely rich. Most importantly, she will quit nagging him to get off his ass and get a new job. He’ll walk up to his old boss, tell him off and then buy the whole chain of lumberyards. And the sawmills that feed them. And the forests. He won’t let anyone log it anymore, not because he’s an environmentalist, but because it will make his ex-boss furious.

He smiles and watches the numbered balls tumble in their cages. Somewhere in there, he thinks, are his lucky numbers.

She smiles at him, but she feels like she’s tumbling in that cage. If they win, she’ll call her mother and brother and probably get her nails done. Then, they’ll fight over the money. He’ll want to spend it on luxuries; on parties and clothes. She’ll want to be sensible.

“Let’s invest,” she imagines herself saying. “Let’s give some to charity. Or go back to school. Let’s think about the future.”

And she imagines him buying her a diamond necklace just to redirect the conversation while he guzzles Dom Perignon because he can. She imagines their winnings in cash piled into a high, impenetrable wall between them.

She imagines herself leaving before the debt collectors start hounding him for the reckless spending of his youth. She imagines herself watching from afar as relatives and old friends devour him. She imagines herself in roughly the same place a year from now, on her futon, eating dinner and watching TV alone in front of a cardboard box that serves as a coffee table for now. Until something better comes along. Until fate intervenes.

That’s what the lottery is, she decides. It’s a desperate hope that fate will intervene and save you from having to save yourself. Maybe if they don’t win, he’ll revise his resume. Maybe she’ll go back to school. Maybe they’ll stay on the futon, watching the lottery drawings.

She rests her head on his shoulder as the numbers are read. They come slowly. The first number matches. Then the second. His shoulders tense. Her jaw clenches. The rest of the numbered balls line up in a neat little row on the screen. None of the rest match.

“Damn,” he says.

She reaches for the remote control to change the channel, saying nothing.

— 30 —

Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. He did not win the largest lottery jackpot in history, but his written work has appeared in Creative Colloquy, which is also pretty cool. You can find him on Twitter.

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A Great Big Ball of Wedding Stress

16 Thursday Jul 2015

Posted by Jonny Eberle in Rants, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

commitment, details, life, love, marriage, party, planning, stress, totally worth it, wedding, wedding ceremony, wedding stress, writing, Writing Life

The wedding approacheth. In less than 30 days, I’m getting married, which is wonderful. But there is still more preparation that needs to happen between now and then. The thing no one tells you about planning a wedding is that it’s a logistical nightmare — you have to figure out everything from coordinating the different vendors (food, photographer, rentals, etc.) to the nitty gritty details of what color hydrangeas will serve as the centerpiece, who will pick the wedding party up from the airport, whether there is enough cake. Never again in my life will I plan such a single day in such intricate detail.

To be fair, we went the most difficult route. We decided to have our wedding at a private home instead of a staffed venue and we didn’t hire a wedding planner. I still think those were both good ideas, but I didn’t anticipate the extra work that came as a consequence.

Now here we are, at the end of the process. Just under four weeks left until the big day is here. And we are still consumed by details. When will the caterer get paid? Will it be sunny or will it rain? What music goes on the playlist? It gets exhausting quickly and after 11 months, it becomes a habit. As soon as I take a break from one thing, my mind is instantly on the wedding and the to-do list we have yet to complete.

Today, I am forcing myself to remember that when all is said and done, our wedding is not about the lights, the decorations, the weather or the food. It isn’t about getting every little thing right. It’s about love and commitment. It’s about celebrating our happiness and the future yet to unfold.

At the end of the day, it’s just a party. Good friends, close family, food, wine and dancing. That’s all it is. So, if all the hydrangeas are dead and the dessert gets a little melty, it will be okay. Because it isn’t about those things. It’s about love and we’ll have plenty of that. And that makes the great big ball of wedding stress feel a lot more manageable.

— 30 —

Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. You can follow his blog or find him on Twitter.

Stephanie and Jonny vs. The Printer of Doom

20 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by Jonny Eberle in Rants, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

amwriting, DIY, do-it-yourself, frustration, life, printer, tech, technology, wedding, wedding invitations, Writing Life

The fight between humanity and technology is real, my friends. I’ve waged battle on the front lines of the war and I’ve lived to tell the tale. It all started a few weeks ago when my fiancee and I decided to save some money and print our own wedding invitations. That was our first mistake.

Early on, we decided that we were going to use Stephanie’s parents’ printer for this delicate job. That’s when things went wrong. For the next hour, we wrestled with the beast. The photo tray centered our strangely small papers, but the computer insisted on printing as if it was off to the right. It escalated from there. Without the tray, the printer skewed the pages wildly. It would print an inch too high or three inches too low.

We got frustrated. Maybe printing with more paper would help the feeder catch. Perhaps slowing down the print speed would fix it. Nothing worked. The Printer of Doom mocked us at every turn. It made horrible crunching, rasping sounds. After destroying all of our test sheets, we finally gave up.

Dejected, we left believing that we would have to go to Kinkos to get our cursed invitations printed. Later that evening, we went to my place and decided to try again. But this time, we would use my printer — an ancient inkjet that I found in a dumpster ten years ago. And amazingly, it printed the invitation correctly the first time.

With the happy hum of my old printer filling the room, we could finally relax. It was over. The Printer of Doom won the battle, but we won the war. Take that, evil office robots.

— 30 —

Jonny is a writer and fighter of printers and office chairs in Tacoma, WA. Find him on Twitter.

Ceremonial Considerations

11 Monday May 2015

Posted by Jonny Eberle in The Future, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2015, ceremony, getting married, life, love, marriage, narrative, new traditions, ritual, symbolism, symbols, traditions, wedding, writing, Writing Life

Photo by Rowell Ducay. Check out his website at www.hazegreypixels.com

When Stephanie and I Skyped with one of the two pastors who will be officiating our wedding, we hadn’t given much thought to the ceremony. After nearly nine months of planning every other detail of the reception and the honeymoon, our ceremony was still an empty shell waiting for substance. So, when he asked us, “What do you have in mind?” we didn’t have much to tell him. Which is strange, because the ceremony is the most word-heavy part of the wedding day and I’m a writer.

Perhaps that’s what was so intimidating about it. Choosing the food or where the dance floor will be are important details, but they don’t feel as important as the ceremony. It’s the central moment of the celebration; the point at which we will be joined in marriage. That’s big. We both want it to be just right and so it got put off over and over again in favor of other details.

For me, the ceremony is important not just because it is an important ritual. Words have power. To string the right words together in the right sequence is as close to magic as the human race is capable of. The perfect words can provide a solid foundation on which to begin a marriage. We didn’t want to put any words on paper until they were the perfect ones.

Perhaps sensing that we were spinning our wheels, our pastor advised us not to search for perfection, but instead to make it personal. We didn’t need grand declarations of love or polished prose. We needed to find words that were meaningful to us — words that captured in tiny details our love and our commitments to each other. Instead of saying that I love Stephanie, I may instead say that I love the way she sips at a cup of tea that’s too hot because she doesn’t want to wait for it to cool off.

We don’t yet have a finished ceremony, but we are making progress. The words are falling into place. It won’t be the perfect ceremony. It will be so much better, because it will be ours. The readings and vows will reflect our quirks, our humor and our imperfections. That’s good advice for any writer. Don’t make it perfect. Make it personal.

— 30 —

Jonny Eberle is a writer and soon-to-be-married-person in Tacoma, WA. You can follow his ramblings here and on Twitter. His latest short story, The Cannibals of Kitsap, is available to read at Creative Colloquy.

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