es180614 Anniversary and the empty seat 

Today is June 14, 2018, the 54^th anniversary of our wedding day in 1964. At 76 am writing my memoir, and the marriage to Lynda marks the first major turning point in my life. From what she has said to me, I believe it was the same for her, so we’re on the same page! If I had known then what I know now, I would not have done anything differently.
The craft of writing requires some finesse, and to learn that finesse I have had to read several books about autobiography and fiction because they are interdependent. Mainly it is to the reader that a writer is obliged. After all, there are many things people can do for themselves and reading is only one of them. In the of digital reproduction, the reading population may be in decline.
Reading takes effort. The reader must direct the monkey mind to attention. That’s why books about memoir and creative writing exist—to suggest ways capture and hold the reader’ attention. It is the same for the playwright and the screenplay writer. The poet, too, may be advised to think how the reader takes in the lines of the poem, and come back to read them again.
In my memoir, our 1964 wedding takes place part way into the third volume of my eight-volume project. This morning, while I’m doting over our anniversary before going to the gallery to write, my monkey mind (more like a sloth-mind) thinks about an empty seat in a theater. I’m fascinated by a play-auction I dreamed up about a dozen years ago.
It’s a staging of a printmaking scene in which a ghost of some memorable person comes on stage where a printer is working. The printer, too, is memorable for a legacy of prints. A huge press, a replica of a 17^th Century printing press like the one Rembrandt probably used, is on the stage, and the printmaker looks a lot like self-portraits of the Old Master.
The ghost addresses the printer, making a request or asking a question such as, “Are you a printer?” Dumb question, and it’s here where humor may come in and set the tone for the audience.
The theater seat is empty. The question I am asking myself, “Can you fill that empty seat? Can you convince the person to buy the ticket for that seat? Can you fill all the seats in this theater? What theater is it?” In Seattle, the one theater that comes to mind is the Cornish Playhouse, which has four potential spaces to accommodate 70 – 500 people, ranging from intimate settings for private auctions to dramatic stage settings.
My time is up for doting on our anniversary and this, what it has led to: This freedom of mind to allow the creative process into the theater of my mind, the freedom to contemplate my stage-play idea. For this freedom I’m grateful to Lynda. I have read accounts of artists’ lives, and few of them have been as happy stories as mine, thanks to the wife of my life.