Writing: Still love it, and thank God, still got it

After spending more than 40 years as a reporter and editing in news wire service and newspapers, I produced, on average, at least one story a day. On one wild, dizzying, heart-thumping day a few years ago, I had 17 bylined articles.

Crazy, that. And far as I know, still a Salt Lake Tribune staff record. But what was I trying to prove that day? What was one more story about squatters starting an abandoned house in fire, or another 7-Eleven holdup?

Idiotic, I eventually, decided. And yet, I didn't know that, a year and a half after getting the ax in the massive downsizing at the Tribune in May 2018, some vestige of that drive would still be defining a portion of my self-worth.

There's a rush when you report, interview and then write up and hit the send button on a story. From the first time I experienced that feeling -- at age 20,working up piece about local farmers hunting rattlesnakes in central Washington -- to my last feature for the Tribune, about the last few octogenarian monks at a remote Trappist monastery, I guess I took that fix of accomplishment for granted.

In my semi-retirement since, I've done some occasional online magazine articles and copyedited a few books. But it had been months since my last gig. A few weeks ago, I started having nightmares where I would sit down to write, only to discover I had lost the ability to find the lead, compose a narrative, or even do an interview.

It was an anxiety that rode my shoulders into awakening, a couple times at 2 a.m., and haunted me when I finally got another assignment. What if the dream was not just than groundless fears?

Today was judgment day. Having done the interviews and research for a new assignment, I sat down to write. When I identified the lead -- in this case contrasting the hard work of Romanian immigrants in building a community of faith in Portland, Oregon, with the success of their American-born children building on that -- I felt a physical wave of relief.

Really. The endorphines kicked in. Shoulder knots relaxed. A budding migraine faded. I took a deep breath, a gulp of home-brewed dark roast java, and soon found the "nut graph," transition to background and a secondary source, and . . . the rest flowed!

The subsequent "polishing" and "tightening" of the piece, grammar and spelling tweaks, and even the task of providing of Web hot links were not tedious chores; they were like making literary love.

Yeah, I smiled to myself. Still got it.

Thanks for that, God. My hair is gray and thinning, my waist a memory, my knees tyrannical, and the days of hitting 3-pointers off a pull-up jumper from the top of the key are ancient history . . . but I can still read, write, and wonder.