Success

It's such a strange word, and an even stranger concept. I went to Melville's house on Sunday, and that led me to ponder the idea of success. Herman Melville is perhaps the most posthumously successful American writer. Moby Dick is always mentioned in every list of the five great American novels, and considered the absolute greatest by many English profs, literary critics, and just plain readers. So why did the writer of this masterpiece have to a) live off his wealthy in-laws for years, and b) then have to take a job as a customs agent in New York until he died in obscurity and relative poverty? Nobody's quite sure. But his novels and stories only gained popularity (by leaps and bounds) after his death.
Arrowhead, the house in which Melville wrote Moby Dick is in what is now the pricey edge of the smallish city of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. And although by our modern standards is a large, lovely Colonial farmhouse, it must have been pretty hellish to live in in the nineteenth century. I have lived in houses like it, idyllic houses in summer, with views of sunny field and lush forest, with wildflowers waving like a gentle sea. But in the winter, woe betide the misbegotten souls who have to haul firewood, trudge through howling storms to feed the animals, get in supplies to last for a month at a time, between days of decent weather. I feel somewhat akin to Melville, having lived like this myself for years, in the same pursuit , the pursuit of writing. And I wonder if he felt as I do, that even without what the world terms "success," (the word seems to me a combination of "suck" and "cesspool") he was happy in his study, or on his "piazza" (which was what they called the rather narrow and unpretentious porch) gazing at Mount Greylock, writing away. My measure of success, and possibly Melville's too, on good days, is the words on the page. The ideas and characters leaping to life. Possibly, someday, I will make a little money doing it, hey maybe a whole pantload of money, who knows? But will I have "succeeded?" In the eyes of the world, maybe. It will be a whole lot easier to find decent writing space, that's for sure, maybe even my very own house, and it's always nice to be able to pay the bills on time, buy nice food, give parties, purchase gifts and beautiful notebooks and state-of-the-art laptops. But it will really just be more of the same to me. The words on the page, the ones I'm happiest with, the ones I want to share = success.
What is your version of SUCCESS, the non-monetarily based kind? Is it the look on your child's sleeping, contented face after a day at the beach? Is it your dog's eyes gazing at you rapturously while you brush his silky coat? Is it a camping adventure where you remember everything and have a fine time cooking over a campfire, then everyone is gone to sleep and you get to have that last cup of cowboy coffee, admire the stars, and the last red embers of the fire like castles, and your amazing ability to rough it in style? Is it the huge dahlias in your garden, as big as platters? Is it, like me, the words you have written moving across a page? Whatever it may be, remember it, commit an Act of Attention to it. Write it, draw it.