When we were 16, Michael and I fancied ourselves creative writers. Whether we were or not remains an open question to this day, but one thing was true: we made an effort to be creative. One day in Mrs. Dishman’s Principals of Writing class Michael and I decided that the following night we would host a creative writing session at my house, which we called a “Create-a-thon.” We wrote “Create-a-thon tonight at RB’s” on the blackboard. No one came, of course, but at least we were trying.

On another occasion, I wrote in my journal, “I am nothing without creativity.”

Tonight we arrive at another opportunity to be extra creative. I just picked Robert Stinson up from the bus station after his two-day ride from Boston. He is here for the expressed purpose of being creative. I don’t mean this in any kind of shallow or facetious way. He and I almost always get together for that exact reason. Often it involves imaging, since we are both photographers, but not always. The last time we hooked up, we went to Utah, and the results, both conversationally and photographically, were amazing.

Robert is only here for a couple of days. He is in the process of trying to find a job in the imaging field, and he wants to spend a couple of days in the midst of news and magazine publishing, and I was happy to oblige.

But tonight as I left him to rest, from his long journey, in our humble but comfortable RV/guest house, he said, “I know when we’re going to work, but when are we going to get creative?”

If we’re doing it right, Robert, the minute we wake up.