Sharon C. Matthies

I’m 62 years old and have always loved weaving words together and have been writing since childhood…poetry, songs, journals, long letters to friends, newspaper articles for my high school sports team, creative essays in college, silly rhymes while nannying, complex technical instruction manuals while working as a computer network administrator, online blogging and books (my first self-published book “Eagle Born to Fly, Finding Life Beyond Depression” sold over 500 copies, mostly through an online women’s forum, signing events and from a website that I had created specifically for EBTF). I have more manuscripts sitting in my filing cabinet…waiting for tidbits of inspiration to help get them back out into the light of day again.

Many of my poems were originally written as songs, which have been played at weddings, parties, coffee houses, prayer meetings and social gatherings. But my fingers are not as nimble as they used to be and I rarely play the guitar anymore, so have forgotten the tunes to most of the songs…but the words still mean a lot to me, so I’ve included them in my new collection of poems, called 124 Poems for God.

I’m married, retired and thoroughly enjoying living life at my own pace here in Ottawa, Canada. We’ve traveled quite a bit over the past 10 years, but now our passion is building indoor bathrooms in a remote village of a 3rd world country. It's slow going, because everything is difficult there, but it's exciting when one is finally finished and the family gets to tear down their beyond-disgusting old outhouses. One of the things I would love to do some day is write a book for our Spanish-speaking friends…but I’ll have to be more fluent in the language before I dare to try that!

I still love weaving words and thoughts together, and often wake up in the middle of the night or am inspired during a long stretch of highway with pieces of poems or tidbits for my journal or thoughts for a new blog ( https://eagleborn2fly.wordpress.com/ ) …so there are always pens and scraps of paper nearby for the next tapestry of thoughts in need of weaving. But now I have the added dilemma of needing to remember where I’ve misplaced those scraps of paper with those new tidbits of wisdom scribbled on them.

I’m looking forward to seeing where “124 Poems for God” goes…and am looking forward to the people I’ll be meeting along this new adventure.