In that case, we must begin again...Good heavens, Watson, what has become of any brains that God has given me? Quick, Man, quick. It's life or death - a hundred chances on death to one on life. I'll never forgive myself, never, if we are too late!'' ---Sherlock Holmes, "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax"
During the events of "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax" we watch as Sherlock Holmes struggles to find the lady before it is too late. He puts his various methods to work, finding he "...must begin again..." a few times before he sorts out the answers. He is not indulging in a "touch of the dramatic"--it really is a matter of life or death. These ideas of beginning again and matters of life and death are rolling around in my thoughts. Last week we had a family member saved by an observant person who happened to be walking across a parking lot and saw the non-responsive family member slumped over in a car. The kind stranger called 911 and started CPR. The family member survived his medical event despite flat-lining for several minutes. The presence of an observant person with methods changed everything.
As I suppose is human nature when these sorts of things happen, I'm thinking about the natural order of things. One is here one minute, gone the next. Sometimes, if you're very fortunate, you get a second chance, precious time to begin again. I've been at a crossroads for a few weeks since submitting Sherlock Holmes Into the Fire to the publisher; I've been trying to decide what I'm going to do for the foreseeable future. I have to begin again in my own small way. Since Holmes and Watson seldom lead me astray, I look to them:
Holmes: "The work is its own reward. Perhaps I shall get the credit also at some distant day when I permit my zealous historian to lay out his foolscap once more - eh, Watson?"
Watson: "When one considers that Mr Sherlock Holmes was in active practice for twenty-three years, and that during seventeen of these I was allowed to co-operate with him and to keep notes of his doings, it will be clear that I have a mass of material at my command. The problem has always been, not to find, but to choose. There is the long row of year-books which fill a shelf, and there are the dispatch cases filled with documents, a perfect quarry for the student not only of crime, but of the social and official scandals of the late Victorian era. "I'm still here (for the moment) and there is a mass of material in this house about Holmes, Watson and the late Victorian era. I'm interested in the many notes about Holmes doing things, and it is time to choose something from the quarry. I'm going back to work, hopefully in an observant and methodical manner. Time to layout the foolscap. I have an idea to create a little of the late Victorian era in a new book. Maybe it will come to fruition. Again, as Holmes said, "I shall sit in that room and see if its atmosphere brings me inspiration. I'm a believer in the genius loci."
I've found one very specific piece of inspiration to sit and look at while I think--
Here's hoping for many more days, filled with second chances.
