Starting Over

Thinking

I am an American living in Prague, Czech Republic.  I have lived here almost 3 years, to date, and sometimes it has been glorious…other times, it has been very trying.  In 2012, I gave up a good career in the US to move back to Europe (I attended college in Germany) without any plan or idea of what I might do here and I can certainly say that it has been an ‘adventure’ thus far.

I have been inspired by my adoptive city and completed one novel last year with a second one in the final stages of editing at present.  I have exchanged my business management/executive career for that of a poor language teacher and part-time communications consultant.  I have struggled to assimilate into Czech culture, learning an impossibly complex language and myriad bizarre social rules and customs (for example, it is de rigueur for all passengers to to say ‘hello’ and/or ‘goodbye’ each time someone enters/exits an elevator that you are riding in?!).  And I have relished the freedom that walking away from my past life has given me – I live an unstructured, seat-of-my-pants existence, and it keeps me on my toes every day.

I’ve been blogging on my personal web page, on and off, for a while now but I’ve not made a priority of trying to establish a following since it has mostly been ‘medicinal’ subject matter.  I mean, let’s face it – when you scrap your entire life and move to a foreign country where you have no roots in either friends or work, don’t know the language, and are generally ‘feeling things out’ on a day-to-day basis, writing is a lot easier than trying to find a local psychologist!

Any-who, I’ve decided to restart my blogging efforts now with WordPress….both as an attempt to genuinely connect with other writers (since I have become more serious and less ‘recreational’ about writing in recent years) and also to finally seek some additional perspectives on my brain-droppings.  I’ll be posting some new stuff each week, as well as some reposts from my old blog – mostly select observations regarding life in the Czech Republic and general thoughts on society and culture, but also some of the random stuff that rattles around in my head on a daily basis.

Sooooo, without further preface, let’s go to it – please follow me and comment liberally.  I can’t wait to hear what you think! 🙂

About Me…

I was born in Rhode Island in August 1975 and grew up in the wooded and sparsely populated town of Foster, bordering rural Connecticut.  Like most ‘country’ kids, I participated in local athletics, rode motorcycles in the woods, and generally had the freedom to get into (and usually out of) quite a bit of trouble without the burden of a tight parental noose. I dreamed variously of one-day being a truck driver, a soldier, a lawyer or a world traveler; the latter in my novelty collection of prospective careers ultimately proving triumphant.  Through chance and struggle, I’ve managed to live and travel outside the US through some significant portion of my life and my writings have become an illustration and an integration of the divergent philosophies, cultures and people I’ve encountered.  I’ve learned the key lesson – nothing is better or worse, it’s all just ‘different’.

Just like any of my readers (I imagine), life for me has been in nearly equal measure both a struggle and a pleasure at various times. The daily happiness I find comes in reconciling the fact that on my worst days, I still have the good fortune of being neither persecuted, imprisoned, in failing health, or homeless.  In short, I believe that I’ve led a fortunate life – I’ve been able to pursue life as a both a student and teacher of others, a philosopher and a dreamer, and somehow to have found the time to put some of my thoughts on paper – breathing life and realism into the characters in my stories and, hopefully, giving you a vicarious adventure as you live along with the triumphs and travails of my protagonists.  I will always chase new experiences in life, adding the lessons learned to the repertoire of actions and intentions in each of my characters.

Thank you for taking the time to read my stories and thank you, in advance for sharing my books liberally with friends and people you meet.  I hope they serve as inspiration and escape for each of you.