WHAT IS LIFE?

I revieved this e mail today and thought I should share it with everyone reading my blog, enjoy and take note!



This was a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quintile
at the graduation ceremony of an American university where she was
awarded an Honorary PhD.

"I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know.

Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out
of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living.

But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life.
Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk or your life on a bus or in a car or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.
People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on a winter's night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've received your test results and they're not so good.

Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children.
I have tried never to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends and them to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, at best mediocre, at my job if those other things were not true.

You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. So here's what I wanted to tell you today:

Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon or found a lump in your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its
goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough.

It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes.
It is so easy to take for granted the colour of our kids' eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again.
It is so easy to exist instead of to live.

I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the destination.
I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get.
I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling
others what I had learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of
the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the back yard with
the sun on your face.

Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy!

Pinewood in e book format

Check this out, my Western novel, Pinewood, is now also available as an e book, and at a fraction of the cost of the paperback. So if you are interested, feel free to contact me at my e mail address: colin.i7@absamail.co.za or by calling me at 27 83 276 8643. Alternatively you can order it on Bid or Buy, e bay or Vottle.
For a sneak preview, scroll down and have a peek. (look under older posts)
Thanks for reading my blog.
Colin

A place to hang my hat.

A PLACE TO HANG MY HAT.

Written by Colin Immelman.
Tom McAskill is huntin’, an ex Texas Ranger,
Slick with a six gun, he never wanted any kinda rep’tation.
He’s been over the mountain and thru the creek a mite,
But ‘s now huntin’ a place to light,
To hang his hat and guns,
To stop working for the other ones.

So he trots into this little cow town Pinewood,
Oblivious of the fact that all hell is about to break loose.
Forced into a range war over rustled cattle,
Reluctantly he joins the battle.

There is this blue eyed cowgirl with long blond hair,
Taller than most and a face, oh so fair.
She rustles his heart without a shootin’ iron or rope,
And against a woman’s power he had little hope.

He has his job cut out for him, no kiddin’,
‘Specially as it can’t be done without any killin’.
Brennan, Sandy, Red and Parks, nursin’ their cows, ranchers all,
Vyin’ for position, an all out range war.

Now no one trusts him, ‘specially him bein’ a stranger,
Until he pins on the star again, the one reinstatin’ him as Ranger.
So he starts cleanin’ up the mess,
Bringin’ justice to this world, that’s what he does best.
Fightin’, palaverin’, riding and shootin’,
All in a days work, and as for Laura, a mite a courtin’.

She however falls prey to Mason, the outlaw,
Who takes her to the border like she is an Indian squaw.
Right into the desert Tom has to ride,
To take back and bring home his future bride.

Leavin’ the Apaches to deal with the crook, Mason,
Him bein’ in no position to bargain or palaver.
His scalp they will take, that’s no lie,
But not before they put him to the test, his brains they gonna fry.

Only Mills, the killer and outlaw is still runnin’ free,
Nearly catches Tom with his pants on his knee.
But his experience saves him…. and his speed,
With a .44 six gun so slick and fast,
He ends Mills’ life with a blast!

Now Tom has found a place to hang his guns and hat,
A home with Laura, the tall, blue eyed lass.

http://pinewoodcolinimmelman.blogspot.com

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