Dog days

It's such a common phrase (dog days of summer) that I wanted to look it up to make sure I was using it correctly, and it turns out it's an astrological reference rather than having anything to do with dogs or even really with heat, although it corresponds to the hottest days of high summer. But on this particular day it was too hot to do much of anything, so I parked it on the couch for a moment and thought it might make for an appropriate image and reference to that phrase, which turns out to not mean what I thought it meant.

And lots of things don't mean what I think they mean.

For example, I'll admit I'm still licking my wounds (ha! accidental dog reference) over my little blog fiasco, wherein I accidentally wiped out my Google account, thus deleting two whole (different) blogs and my images on this one. It shook me up more than I expected. I whined about it, a lot. I took to Facebook to proclaim my shock. A wise writer I know responded with something that's been knocking about in my head since: "Kill your darlings," he wrote, "and then make more."

Wow. Bam. Pow.

And then, yes. YES.

I wrote some good stuff (some bad, too), and it's gone and it's not coming back. But I'm not out of ideas or creative juice. I can formulate words into sentences that will be good again. Hell, maybe even better. I can keep learning and taking pictures. And I will probably lose more writing and photos and it's still going to be okay, because I can make more.

Until I'm blind, or my fingers fall off, or something else prevents me from shooting and writing, I can make more of this stuff. More good stuff, more bad stuff, more stuff in the process of creating for the sake of creating. "In the process of creating for the sake of creating." I want to live in these words.

Even lounging on the couch in the indescribably delicious heat of the late afternoon sun (or what most call the dog days of summer), I want to live in those words.