A movie or novel starts in the moment when something is about to change for our protagonist.

This change is always brought on by some outside force. Dorothy, home and all, is spirited away to Oz, accidentally committing murder in the process. Gandalf shows up and disrupts Bilbo’s peaceful existence. Hagrid comes along and tells Harry he’s been a wizard all along. We’re in for a wild time.

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Rolling past the coastal marshes on a northbound train on the last day of August felt like seeing the summer fade away in realtime.

How could it be over?

The funny thing is, it’s been “over” in some parts of the country for a month. The kids went back to school in Atlanta on August 1, and that’s when I would have returned to school, too — if I were still teaching.

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Did my self-delusion waver when I was climbing up the ladder and onto the plexiglass platform in my evening dress and heels?

Or was it when I was playing the white grand piano on that plexiglass platform, suspended eight feet over the bar of a downtown Atlanta restaurant?

I think neither. I think that the entire time, I believed that the fact that I was making money playing music meant that my career was headed in the right direction.

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My friend Tyler is almost a year into a round-the-world sailing trip.

However, he’s in the midst of selling his sailboat and buying a different one. A trimaran, acquired in New Zealand. (He did not sail to New Zealand; he got there by plane.)

One of the things I admire about Tyler is that he doesn’t have a lot of rules for himself. He has lived off the grid. He’s lived on the grid. He does what he wants.

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I’m starting to build a map of the experience of a creative person who longs to create something new.

I’m thinking of it almost as an old school board game-style journey, like Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, or Life — except with less randomness.

There are choices to be made along the way. Some of those choices keep you progressing linearly. Some open up shortcuts. And some are dead ends.

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