
Took my usual ‘down the row’ photo but there was something different about this one, the contrast of green and yellow, the way the air felt. Comfortably metallic, pure and promissory. I slow my narrative finally to look at my to-do list, “It’ll all get done,” I say to myself then look at the time, 11:02. Where is Thursday going? Why is it moving so fast? Why are my kids growing so fast? Time, you bastard! Why won’t everything just SLOW DOWN? An unreasonable request and Time is unconcerned utterly with my woes. Wish I could go for a drive. Maybe I will at lunch. To a neighboring winery. Taste a little, take notes, more thoughts this peculiarly interesting and not-at-all jejune Thursday. Start a ‘Wine Diaries’ motion of mine own. Doesn’t even feel like a Thursday. Or Friday. Am I on vacation? “No, you’re at work,” the photo’s colors command, “keep moving.” They’re right. I can’t afford to slow. More coffee.
Poured into one of the office’s cups, on the outside displaying a standing Grizzly against an off-white background holding the state of California like it’s a baby, snuggling it, and on the other side in a humble and endearing font, “I Love You California”. I hold off on sipping as I want this paragraph to finish without synaptic aid. Another test for a writer, self-assembled and administered. Today’s teaching me to not focus on moving, and just move, just put something on the page, be bold and edgy like your son. Just talk and don’t edit. The story has to deliver and declare a riled truth, oui? So then, today, it’s the day itself. Could be Thursday, Saturday, Wednesday, any day. A day is a day, and my job as the writer is to live, write, it.