Language is Our Landscape

March 24, 2009 By 17 Comments

The original version of this post was written last October for Write to Done.

3355654120_e64957ece2Flowers feed the fire in our souls like little else, stirring several of our senses in a single swirling second. Language is the landscape, populating the white space of an otherwise empty page. Our ideas are the seeds we plant and our words are the blossoms in spring time.

I worked in a flower shop for a dozen years, back in the first few chapters of my adult autobiography. In those years, I arranged flowers one by one into the perfect bouquet; peeling petals, laying layers, and designing displays intended to halt the heartbeat of whoever happened to see them.

Now I’m a writer and so I do this with words.

I was young when I first nudged my heels into the shoes of head designer, eighteen as a matter of fact. Circumstance had set me there when everyone ahead of me fled in the middle of the night for some rather nefarious endeavors. I had no experience, but I was hungry, and had an innate belief in myself. Without training, I could only rotate my wrists according to instinct, slowly bringing every bloom into brighter focus. I ignored the rule book, following only intuition.

Within two years, wedding seasons were thriving.

Flower design is about color and texture, married in immaculate measure, not too different from writing great copy. Each of us sees the world through a different prism, the view prepared by our own million moments. Individual interpretation dictates design. Just as we all see color a little different, so do we hear the hues of language.

The way in which we string our syllables is our art to share, with no two thoughts the same. I am thankful I never sat for a class in flower design.  I would have spent countless hours in earnest study of all the things I should never ever do. Instead, I discovered there are no limits.

Again, I would argue that writing is no different.

Each of us has what it takes to be a better writer. It is already sleeping inside us, waiting for its salutation. For some, this means discarding the rules the gatekeepers have handed down and listening to the quiet whisper of our instinct. Only we know how we view the world, and it is us who best understand how to make our thoughts sing with all our soul.

I’ve been writing now for a year and a half, each day arranging my words with a better measure of color and precision.  Now I am a ghostwriter. Whether I am penning my next post or working on a novel, it is I who ties the bow around the bouquet.  Let’s close our eyes and forget what we think we know.

We do not think of the book of love when we whisper to our lover.

When we speak through our heart, as our fingers dance across the keyboard or glide across the page, then we can make every post as pretty as a bouquet, each word placed as perfect as a posy.

Writer Dad

Sean Platt is a Ghostwriter and creativity consultant who knows a thing or two about potty training help.

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The End of the Rainbow

March 23, 2009 By 25 Comments

“Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true”

~ Lyman Frank Baum quotes

3355651724_d51db41867When my parents first decided on the name Rainbows for their one of a kind boutique flower shop, one year shy of three decades back, they couldn’t have had any idea how fitting that moniker would turn out to be. The extraordinary business they built from nothing has lived through the arc of a rainbow; climbing toward the sky before descending to the other side of the horizon and disappearing into the mystery of tomorrow.

They created a market where one didn’t exist before, bringing a European bucket shop into the city. Rainbows carried the high end flowers found in the chic shops of Santa Monica, Pasadena, and West Hollywood and sold them for next to nothing in Long Beach. Their business model was based on volume and it worked well for a wide width of time.

After three amazing decades, the brick and mortar mercantile has fallen subject to the iron law of diminishing returns. That picture you see was shot by my sister. It shows the final shrunken display that will ever sit beneath that particular rainbow. Trends have shifted and the business of buying budget bundles of flowers has drifted to the wider aisles of the local grocer. The particular cocktail of tapered margins and reduced foot traffic has left it imprudent to fritter long days idle inside the store, awaiting the echo of footsteps while a multiplicity of eager commerce is lingering online.

The store is now closed, its final satisfied customer leaving with a smile just two weeks ago. The store has been run by my father for the last fifteen years, my sister and I standing by his side during the majority of that time. He is now moving the business to a studio space that will be closed to foot traffic, but still open to online and telephone orders. My father is now thirty years older than he was on that sunny September day when my parents first threw open their doors and crossed their fingers.

There is no sadness beget by the closing of Rainbows’ doors. The business of running a flower shop is exhausting and the overhead extortionate. By removing a single avenue, my pop will effectively, and exponentially, widen his potential. Our family is proud of the store’s storied history and the legacy it leaves behind. Our only sadness comes from the countless faces who have crossed the threshold to order flowers for family gatherings, weddings, and parties, or simply because there are fewer ways to more precisely say, “I Love You.”

The store must close its physical doors because it is an appropriate time to do so, but the memories shall swirl inside our minds forever. The end of this arc has led to a new sunset, every sunset precedes a new tomorrow.

Writer Dad

Sean Platt is a ghostwriter, creative blogger, and occasional potty training expert.

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: , , , , ,

He Plays With Open Hands

November 12, 2008 By 60 Comments

“A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives roses.”

~Chinese Proverb

I‘m a bit of out of sorts.  The children had the day off from school and so did we.  It feels odd, tomorrow being middle of the week.

This morning we went for a walk.  This in itself is not unusual.  We walk often. What was unusual, was running into my father two blocks outside our house. He was delivering flowers, and we live on the other side of town. The odds of him passing us at that particular moment, in a city of nearly half a million people were slim.

“Was that Pop?” Daisy said. “I think I just saw Pop.” She repeated herself without missing a beat in expectation of my disbelief.

The four of us held hands on the corner as my father pulled the car full of flowers against the curb and idled.

It was California crisp. The sun was confident enough to fill the sky, but not cruel enough to make us anything less than perfectly comfortable.

Pop rolled down the windows and I immediately smelled the pungent scent I’d slowly grown immune to over the dozen years I peddled petals.  Our exchange was brief, mostly made of fancy meeting you here; the motor was running, and the flowers weren’t getting any fresher.  Max and Mia each took a final whiff of the flowers before waving farewell.

I said good-bye to Pop.  Neither of us said anything during the quiet that passed between us, each one remembering a time when we had less sharing to do, and time didn’t arrive in such a premium.  He turned around, we waved goodbye, and continued our trek to Walmart for an armload of essentials.

We took care of our must dos, then headed toward the deepest pocket of the nation’s smallest Walmart (located smack in the middle of downtown).  We wandered the toy aisles, and allowed the children to look like we always do.  They love this activity, both of them constantly drawing imaginary lists.  “Can I have this for my birthday?”  Max will ask, even though his birthday is still seven months away.  “Can I have this for Christmas?”  Mia will look up, even though she already knows the answer.

“You may add it to your list,” we say.

Max’s current favorite X on the treasure map is tied between anything Thomas and anything having to do with garbage trucks, or trash in general.  This morning, he parked himself at the bottom of the Thomas display, pulled a box from the shelf, and ran his fingers across the top.  He turned it in his hands and traced the letters, starting with the T and ending with the S.  He returned the box to the shelf and pulled down another.  He continued to do this with a series of boxes, investigating the merit of each.

Max knows there is no possibility that we are leaving with anything beyond what we came for.  There never is.  We leave the house with only cash, and perhaps a dollar or two more than we might need.  Daisy and I have been parents long enough to know our shortcomings.  Max has a handful of expressions that could possibly convince us to crumble our cardinal rule of NO CREDIT.

Daisy and I have never been more excited for the holidays.  They will be modest for certain, but Max, for the first time, will have toys that he will not have to share.  Max is by nature, an immeasurably generous child.  During his first year of life, he shared everything he had with his sister, always and without hesitation.  Daisy and I have run the preschool since he was one, and he has carried the habit forward like an eye color.

We’ve given him plenty of opportunities.  Every time he has a birthday or occasion for gift, we tell Max that he does not have to take it downstairs if he doesn’t want to.  But that just isn’t in his nature.  The Radio Flyer tricycle Pop bought him stayed his for only days. Max doesn’t know the opposite of share.

It is okay to have some things that belong to only you.  It could be your favorite book or toy, a journal, or perhaps your parents. This Christmas, we are giving the world to our children.

Writer Dad

Ghostwriter Dad specializes in SEO web copy and custom blog posts. Just in case yesterday was your day off, you can find Lucas with the lid off here.

Filed Under: Fatherhood Tagged With: , , , , ,