Taking a step back from things always gives you a fresh perspective.

For instance, Downtown Dad, with his career move into the world of Healthcare Public Affairs, has had to take a step back from the very thing that gave him his Downtown monicker in the first place. But downtown, and all things economic development never left his brain, they just got put on a back burner and like apple mash, brewed and fermented and improved on their own.

Last night he was able to tap that hard cider keg of ideas. “I’ve still got it!” I heard him cackle gleefully, returning home in the wee hours after a conversation with some local, like-minded people on revitalizing our little Minnesota/North Dakota border downtown.  “I hadn’t done stuff like this for so long, I thought I would’t have much to contribute, but once the brainstorming started, all of these ideas started to tumble out of me – and I don’t mind saying – some of them were brilliant!” Mind you, some of that was paraphrased, because in the wee hours of the morning when you’ve been woken from a dead sleep by a gleeful cackle, you tend to drift in and out of the conversation.  Nevertheless, if I know Downtown Dad, we should start to see some of those cocktail napkin ideas start to take shape in the not too distant future.

I also learned a lesson from that late night encounter. Recently, this blog underwent a major overhaul, and naively, I thought that with a fresh crisp look would come fresh crisp ideas.  (Hysterical, derisive laughter) OK so I’m a little slow on the uptake, apparently ideas take time to come to fruition – hence my hiatus.  But as I mentioned above, I now have a fresh perspective as a result of taking that step back.  As opposed to the way I’ve done it in the past – get an idea then quick, before I lose it, write and publish the blog post. My new experiment will be to jot those ideas down, and then take a step back to let the idea brew and ferment. Hopefully this will generate an endless stream of engaging blog posts.  Brain Cider is what I’m calling it.

“Cider, and doughnuts,” Mark Twain once said, “make old people’s tales sound fresh and crisp and enchanting.”

Cider itself is fresh, crisp and enchanting, never moreso than when it’s cider from your own brain.