Wallitner Weekly 12

Hello everyone!

A lot of productive things happened this past week.

My fiancee was out of town for the week so I was able to really focus in on my writing. I also went to visit my parents in Oroville and helped my mom make a website for her furniture store! If you had asked me last year if I thought I’d have semi-consistent work building websites on squarespace for people, Id have said no. But here we are.

I had a meeting with my friend who writes short stories this week two. It was a three hour long conversation almost entirely about storytelling and distractions. It was wonderful.

I read (listened, I am an audio book guy) to “On Writing” by Stephen King. The book is wonderful and I highly recommend it to any aspiring writers/storytellers. King talks about his formative years in little snapshots and just by watching (hearing) the words on the page you feel like a better writer. He has this wonderful way of teaching by example. Of course somewhere in the middle he talks more specifically about grammar and vocabulary and when to or not to use an adjective. It was wonderful.

I have a lot planned for next week too!

Due to the heat wave in Washington I will be hiding in my air conditioned apartment as much as I can. This is the time of year when we move the entire bedroom into the living room because it is cooler. I will have a legitimate office with a closed door until it begins to cool off again.

I hope to use this closed door as a way to ward off distractions so I can continue to get some writing done even though my fiancee has returned from her trip. I am a social person by nature, so living with my best friend doesn’t bode well for working at home.

The most valuable gift I can give is my time.

Fathers day was this past week, as many of us are aware. I am usually the type to scramble for a gift or thing to do at the last possible moment (See Wallitner Weekly 11, I am a procrastinator). But after growing up a bit more learning about life a bit more, I realized that time is the greatest gift we could ever give. Going to see a loved one in person that you haven’t seen in a while. Writing a letter, or calling them. We live in a fast paced world. Everyone shuffling from place to place doing all that they can in those precious twenty four hours. Time is a precious commodity. When we’re young we think we have limitless amounts. When we’re old we wish we could trade in the cars, the house, the jewelry, for just a few extra moments . As a twenty three year old, it’s haunting to think about in that way, but it is inevitable. And it is beautiful too. If time were cheap, it wouldn’t have the value that it does.

Fathers day was last week. My dad asked me if I wanted to go to a fly in in tenasket. This was the day before fathers day, but it was close enough to count. I think I have mentioned before, I am not particularly interested in air planes. But I have also mentioned that its not about the flying. So I rode with him the half hour up the mountain to the airport in his air conditioned jeep. I say air conditioned, what I mean is it doesn’t have windows, so when you drive fast its pretty cool. He would say it looks cool too. My dad reads what I write here, so I will not say how cool it is or isn't.

So we made the trip and then we had a steak dinner and it was wonderful. It was not wonderful because I love sitting in the sun at an airport. It wasn’t wonderful because I love talking to old truck drivers turned pilots about how annoying bicyclists are to drive next to in a semi. Or because I love trading war stories with divorcees. OR because I love explaining to old people what I like about that confounded music that they play on the radio these days.

It was wonderful because for the first time in a long time my dad asked me if I would go with him to a thing he knew I would rather not go to, and I said yes. My dad has this sheepish way of asking me to do things I don’t want to do. As soon as I was able to say no and get away with it, I abused that power. It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with my dad, it’s that id rather sleep in, or watch a movie, or be lazy. But something about the way he perked up and said “Really?!” after I said “Sure.” It was nice.

I love my dad, even though he also asked me if I wanted to go to the breakfast the next day which started at 7 am. The breakfast was ON fathers day so I couldn’t say no. Time is valuable, especially when its before noon. Dad, I hope you read this and know that haha.

But the time I spent with my dad isn’t actually the point of this story.

My fiancee went on a trip to see HER dad who lives in Utah. The plan was to fly down, and then drive back with her brother. Things rarely go according to plan. I received a call from my loving fiancee that they had broken down, and were getting towed to Burley Idaho. The hope was that the car would be fixed and that they would only be delayed. Spoiler alert, it was not fixed, in fact it was so busted it was scrapped. So they booked a hotel and worked on solutions on how to hobble back to Washington from Utah.

Car rentals were booked out, so that wasnt an option. Same goes for Uhauls and friends. So I made the decision that I would start operation “Damsel in Distress”. The damsel of course being my fiancee’s brother, as it was his car that broke down, my fiancee was just along for the ride.

So I got up at 430 (well before noon, so very valuable time indeed) to drive the eight hours to burley to rescue these poor unfortunate souls. Then, we drove back. Given their track record with cars I drove most of the way back too.

Spending those eight hours alone with not even so much as other cars to look at, gave me a lot of time to think. What it didn’t give me was time to write the Wallitner Weekly, as this drive happened on Friday and as we know, DUE on Friday means DO on Friday. So I apologize for not sending this out when I said I would, but I was spending my time elsewhere. I hope that you’ll forgive me.

Anyways, now for the moral of this story. I am realizing that these things tend to have some sort of lesson at the end of them. Time is valuable. How you spend it has meaning. It is not limitless. Just know that. If there is a loved one you haven’t talked to in a while, talk to them. If there is anything that you need me to do before noon, and I say yes. Thats a big deal. If there is a story to tell, tell it. AND if there is a road trip to make, check the oil before leaving.