What an opportunity a vacation is for developing characters, creating scenes and discovering new plots.
If you are fortunate enough to have a vacation coming up use it to stock your writing treasure chest. Watch the way people walk, talk and what they tote. Wonder where they are going and where they just came from.
One sad thing - not many are smiling, looking up, or walking tall, most are a bit hunched over, backs rounded, right shoulder up, left shoulder bent to listen to their iphone cradled there. They seem to be leaning left as they walk.
Others are chatting away to themselves or the air - or are they talking to me? No, they’re wearing a blue tooth devise, involved in some other time and place.
I'm visiting old friends. We reminisce. They take me to the homes of their children and I get to meet the grandkids, too. I notice how they gather to eat, at the table or around the TV? What they eat - from vegan to meat and potatoes families. Are they night owls or morning people?
We tour their favorite places, two Elks Clubs, a small hole in the wall place in Beverly and the big, bright and airy Elks surrounded by windows overlooking the rocky coast in Rockport, MA. I'm with my friend Mary Jane. We exercise at the YMCA for water aerobics, and have brunch at the Wenham Tea House. I've been driven up and down my favorite coast north of Boston - to airports, subway stations, and museums.
One of the most interesting places was Charles Street in Boston where I sat at an outdoor cafe. It was around 6:30pm, horns tooting, runners getting their bodies moving after a day at the desk, or in a meeting, some with pizza boxes others with carryout dinners or bouquets of fresh flowers. Each living a life of many stories. Imagine!
