Had pictures take with family in Dry Creek, at winery, and after a schedule sewn morning I can write freely, not that I’m complaining or looking for sympathy, but I’m in a glide at the moment, just riding the moment’s current and letting it take me wherever.  So far behind on grading that it’s not even worth an attempt.  So, I treat myself to a freewrite.  While on property this morning looking out at the vines while Stephanie the photog’ examined the terrain for the most optimal light, I examined my own terrain, existential and vocational, avocational.  Something has to be shed.  And I’ve been saying this for a long time but 2016’s about to end and next year I’ll be 38.  I’m not quiet, or really at all where I want to be, career wise.  And I’m not convinced nor will I ever be convinced that either education or wine’s industry, no matter how inspiring or generous the winery is, can provide what I want in terms of life quality— being able to take my family on vacation, getting a new car when need (and now we so much need), put my kids through college, buy myself a new camera or anything related to my photojournalism or writing or journalistic efforts.  So I need to, for the rest of the day, be on an intensity that I’ve never been.  Creatively, that be.  And other dimensions but more specifically and poignantly with the creative.

In the adjunct hole with my 4-shot mocha I bought with family at the Vine Street Starbucks, Healdsburg, after our little wine country shoot.  I look left and up at the corner of the room, wall meeting ceiling with some books in view.  Take a quick pic with phone.  What do I see?  I see blandness, a trap, a lack of air and general lack— a contaminative drought.  I have to get out of here, but I have a class to teach in just over an hour.  What do I do?  Take pictures.  Of everything.  Just took one of the odd carafe or pot holding pens and pencils of another adjunct or several of the other characters that use this space for whatever.  Grading, meeting with students, imagining themselves in a job that actually provides something, promises at least some growth.

Writing freely, seeing I need more visuals, more pictures, journal everything, even this Starbucks cup upon which they wrote my son’s name after wife gave them his name for the kids hot chocolate.  Just looks odd, funny to me, seeing my son’s name on a coffee cup.  So my son drinks coffee now?  I have to laugh.  I have to laugh that I took a picture of it, and I have to laugh that I’m this quick on the keys after such a rough night last night with Emma crying either from teething or a little cold she most likely was gifted from daycare, then Jack crying wanting me to sleep in his room with him.  Yes, I’m tired, but I need to absorb the entirety of this moment in the adjunct hole, cell, chamber, box.  I’m free for the moment.  Want to get out there and take pictures, more shots of where I am.  I realize this isn’t where I’m meant to be—  I need to be out there, taking pictures, writing in notebook, journaling everything, EVERYTHING.  And if the students ask why their papers weren’t handed back, the answer will be curt, honest, staunch:  “I was busy.”