The next day.  Shamed in that I don’t write till the next day, the next morning, and not at the hour I want, which frustrates me to no end.  And then I have it decided that I’ll leave work a bit early to get done what I need done; all the tasks for clients, some writing for the novel, and whatever else.  I can only entertain what I’d be getting done while at the winery, when it’s slow, hating how it’s slow, and then pacing around the tasting room wishing I could get all that stuff done.  But I put myself there– and this new idea I have, getting one more class to teach for Fall, but online.. never taught online before, but I know I could, and can, and will.  Just have to push, make that part of my hustle.

Jackie still asleep and I badly need a coffee.  All I have to do is put the little cup in that bloody contraption and push BREW.  But I can’t separate or sever my thoughts from these keys, this laptop thatI had charging all night and in the corner of this bottom floor by the couch with my work bag and all the other worlds of me, this current Mike Madigan, so riddled in angst and ambition, that only wants to write and can barely find it in himself to repeat those descriptions behind the bar–  “Keep writing, keep writing..” I tell myself so I won’t have coffee any time in the next few minutes or so but that’s fine, I just won’t let myself stop, and think about farmers and how early they rise and that they have no choice, they don’t have the luxury of flakiness from time to time.  It, whatever the current “it” is, has to be done, finished, then there’s another “It”.

Then I hear my boy, talking to his mama.  I have to stop writing for a minute–

And we’re both downstairs with my coffee and Jack continually saying he wants to go run, as Alice just left with her friend to take on the hills of Fountaingrove in their now-tradition’d Sunday morning powerwalk.  Which leaves me here with the little Beat, and now I can only think of how it’s just 3 minutes before 7, might as well be 11 or 3 in the afternoon.  Again, I failed to get up at 5, or just before 5 to write and do things of clients as I told Alice last night.  This morning I just feel separated and not quite as directed as I want to be.  I have to leave work early today for the prose and its sake and its development.  I look around the internet for distance learning courses but then turn it off as Jack comes closer to me, to play on the other side of the toychest and arrange his toys as he likes, then I just watch and type while he does with his alway-obsessive placement of the larger little trucks afront the little race cars.  “You see, Daddy?” he says.  I go back to typing without looking noticing all my typos, fix them then I’m back off on my story.  And the story today is building not just my clients’ stories but my own.  And the regularity and patterned ‘anything’ has to be shed.

Something Glenn said the other day, about his business and waking up as early as he does, “You have to live it,” he told me at the tall Campo Fina table.  And I want to now live as a writer like I never before have, finishing my novels and either self-publishing them or having them printed.  More than likely the former as I want ALL control.  I’m not letting them fumble my ideas so they’re more marketable, or letting them quarantine the most truthful tellings only to have them absconded, stricken altogether.

Jackie begins to lose patience with his cars for some reason and pushes them all to the floor, which he often does, now settling on the new endeavor of putting everything on the floor into the little plastic tubs, each a different color.  I should have gone for a run this morning, yes, but then I wouldn’t be able to see this, his projects and how he doesn’t complain like the writer but just does, and has fun doing so even if there’s the occasional vocal grievance .  There’s a focus, or certain cynosure to his movements.  And now to mine.  I’m learning from my little Beat, everything I need to be as an Artist, and he takes me through every step, “Daddy I have to put this toy away.” And he follows-through, doesn’t become diverted or pulled to some other urge, “And now I gotta put these toys…” I WILL be more like Jack as a writer and Artist, and teacher as well, with students and their assessment, and writing about it all, everything, the discoveries and stories, and the blog for the students– just learning and teaching what I learn as I go.. but then I again think of killing the teaching blog, right?  Too much.  Consolidate.  Or not.  Just keep it, as I did renew it recently.  Feel like a mess this morning but I’m rather centered.  OR that could be self-deceit.  Who cares, I’m onboard, fine with it.

This next day, writing and teaching myself something, and being taught by my little boy, to just live, play, and forget about stresses.  Yes I should have been earlier up, but I’m now here with my pages, with my thoughts and the visions of what I’m to do with my business and with the teaching, and the tasting room– how much longer, not sure, but not much I know.  But why I’m there I’l embrace it, use it, learn what I can from it and let it continue to contribute to the novel, novels.  Now Jack’s on the floor trying to assemble something, I think one of those air-motivated toys that sends some foam missile to the air when you jump on one end, not sure, but he tries to connect a cord to one of the pump-bases.  And he narrates each step, what he sees and learns and thinks should happen.  that’s how I should be with this new day, this next morning and till whenever I decide to leave the winery.  Have to find online classes to teach, if I can.. just one more, one more section then I’ll be in the place I need for the books and for the clients so I can focus on their needs and projects.. it’s the hours at the winery that seem to be infusing the most interference, much I enjoy being there, right in front of that Japanese water garden.  Have to plan, everything from when I wake to the drive to work, to the tasting room and what I want from there, to the couple free hours after.