Welcome to my new home on the web, a place to hang my hats.
I was blogging before there was such a thing as a blog. I spent weeks and months getting that website just right, a showcase for everything that was me. Coffee Chronicles was the highlight, a travel log-if you will–as I stumbled towards clarity. There were also the occasional essays, articles and short stories that I tried to squeeze into a webzine. But then the world moved on and I was buried beneath too many hats. That fancy site fell into disuse and eventually I allowed the subscription to lapse. The next time I looked, even my fancy website program was no longer supported–by servers or my new computer.
Business owner, partner, homeowner, dad, friend, son, brother and uncle. Let’s not forget golfer. Writer? Eh.
I’ve jumped into it, though, and began stumbling through the new technology here on WordPress. Somewhere around here, if I can get it to work right, you’ll find my first new venture in years: The Big Island. It is just something that I am putting together to give people a tour of the island of Hawai’i. It was meant for family and friends, but all are invited. You can find it under the Travel section section: A Philadelphian Abroad. There are some of the other places I have visited as well. I have added Iceland, Greece, other of the Haiwaiian islands and hope to be adding much, much more soon.
Coffee Chronicles has reemerged, but different and actually for the purpose it was meant for. I am stumbling towards clarity again. Hopefully, this time, after 20 years, I will find it. Through pounds and pounds of fresh ground Hawaiian Kona coffee, I am searching for my authentic self.
Broken Things is the book that is finally emerging from Coffee Chronicles. I have been in labor now for 30 years. Depression is misunderstood and is burdened with the stigmas of mental illness. I am, and always have been, a closet or functional depressive. Nobody else is going to write about so I figured I would. I read clinical pieces or cute essays or how to’s but never the true dissection that I think most people, including myself, need to understand it better.
Will you take my hand and let me lead you into the heart of darkness? Don’t worry, the halls of midnight are familiar to me, the demons that inhabit it old friends. The music that plays is a somber tune, but beautiful all the same. We can dance, and perhaps discover something about ourselves.
I have always said that writing fiction, for me, is just a simple act of asking a simple question: what if? If you scratch at the stories, B negative will seep out. The line between fact and fiction gets blurred. Fact can be twisted and mashed into something else. Where is the line? I’d be happy to tell you over a cup of coffee. Each story does have a soundtrack though. I’ll be adding more soon, all of the older stuff. Some of it is crap, but there is some decent stuff in there.
I struggled a long time with categorizing fiction and essays, which I why I just decided to include it all together. It is the finished stuff. The stuff that maybe should have been published a long, long time ago. You can it all in, well, Fiction & Essays.
Old Coffee. I did a lot of writing. A lot. Some of it just doesn’t fit anywhere else. Is it all crap? I don’t know. I like some of it. But I am 48 and I wrote the stuff a long time ago, so it could just be that fond memory a long ago time influencing the way I look at them. I really have always sucked at self editing. I can tear your stuff to shreds. My own? My mind has a tendency to fill in the blanks of what is not there.
There is a lot more tinkering to be done but I think I finally have the layout I want. The old question, one of the oldest: will you dance with me to the song that plays?
Now, let’s see if I can get this damn thing to post the way I want it to.
Cheers,
Chris Gajewski