I’m at the Uptown Cafe in Bemidji, collecting my thoughts before I meet with Kent Nerburn in about an hour.
On the drive up here, I’ve kept trying to answer the question that he might ask me. “Why are you here?” He probably won’t be that blunt, but it’s got to be on his mind. Maybe versions of it, too: What are you selling? What do you want from me?
I can’t always be sure of my motivations, but it’s a combination of things: wanting to get to know better the guy whose books have influenced me and were the initial seeds for Real Joe. I’m not sure why that’s important to me. I really don’t think I’m into celebrity-chasing. I guess I want him to keep influencing me, both for his spiritual writing and his profession as a writer. The former’s important to me as a man and as founder of Real Joe. I want his writings that make sense to me to have continued reverberations through Real Joe. The latter’s important because I’m trying to upgrade my skills as a writer and I figure it’s good to get to know more people who do it for a living. Something he wrote in Letters to My Son was that you tend to become what you do for a living. When he was a taxi driver, he found himself taking on the worldview of taxi drivers. He hung out with taxi drivers, behaved like them, talked like them.
Time to go. Maybe time for a quick prayer. Help me learn, keep my ego in check, see the possibilities, both for Real Joe and for him. And a prayer of gratitude, too. I’m lucky to be here, to be having this experience.