Running to keep up with the keyboard

Dijbouti. Suez Canal. Night vision goggles. Combat rescue. Cargo ships. International flights. Missed flights. Arab culture. Clans. The mechanics of heat and missile speed. All the things a good writer should know. Like David L. Robbins. And me.
Yes, I write. And I don’t write in the genre of David Robbins. Good thing, because not only would I never be able to steer a ship the size of five football fields under the smile of a whimsical, indulgent Arab captain (I am, after all, a woman), I would never be able to keep pace with David Robbins, who has the energy of five cruise missiles and the stamina of five football teams.
I felt like I’d had five cups of coffee after I’d listened to his talk at Christopher Newport University today.
To say that I enjoyed his talk immensely would be an understatement. To say that I felt inadequate would be, too. I write about art. Family. Gardening. Health care. Mental illness. Asperger’s. A bit of science fiction. And yes, I have had a short story published about an honor killing in Pakistan.* I blush to think that I had to look up the spelling of Kalashnikov. David Robbins I am not.
I focused on the protagonist as a woman in a harsh and unfair culture, a woman as a mother and a poet, a pure spirit, an individual. I researched the type of food a typical, if poor, Muslim housewife would make in Pakistan, the smells of that food, the smells and colors and noises of the marketplace she so seldom sees. I focus on the place she hides her forbidden poetry–so near, so intimate, and so undiscovered–beneath the bed in her own home. I write about the beautiful embroidery she stitches to sell behind her husband’s back.

These are the things I know. These are the things I weave into a story of willpower, family, betrayal, terror, despair, faith and love.
And then it dawned on me, why should I be David Robbins? I have no desire to aspire to his scope of of travel, level of production or genre. “Write what you know” is a well-worn phrase, to the point of cliche’, but it is so true. I know art. I know embroidery. I know marriage. I know children. I know nature. I know dogs, cats, and horses. I know what it feels like to stitch in haste, to prick my finger with a needle, then observe a single drop of dark red blood spring from my fingertip like magic, to wonder what would happen if my blood were diseased, or if I accidentally smeared it on an expensive fabric that were to be given as a gift to a head-of-state, or if I licked it and found that I’d developed a desire and addiction for it.
It doesn’t take a whole lot to send my imagination into a flight of creativity, a what-lf situation that leads to a story or a description that leads to a poem or painting. I take it for granted; I was born that way.
So with David Robbins in mind, and not in spite of his animated, high spritited adventures and his engrossing story telling skills, I continue with my smaller life, my quiet paintings, my detailed descriptions. Shame on me for thinking I have to keep up with the Joneses of the writing world. There is no need to run to keep up with the keyboard. I only have to make sure that it’s there, waiting, each time I’m ready for it. I only need to keep pace with myself.