Doing it now. Writing in the ever formidable 04:00 hour. Set alarm, and I slowly bright self to this, quiet typing– stealth on my phone. Now 04:07… this needs to be more a habit. Not even “more” a habit, but just the way I operate as a writer. Nearly went back to my odd dreams, my worries in sleep and my festering and stewing in realities I cannot control. This new wine book, or my only wined ms is about me and vision, breaking patterns to stand as the best varietal I can– sounds cheesy…. to be accepting of my own Personhood. If that makes sense. This hour is odd, and with a slight accentuation of danger to it. Not sure how much longer I can fight off the compulsion to go back to sleep. Would that be failure? I did wake when the alarm told me to… or is it only victory if I STAY awake? I can’t see much in this room, through the glow of my phone’s screen, and can only hear the humming fridge, someone upstairs turning in their sleep. Can’t let self go back to bed. Winemakers during harvest are already out in the vineyard at this time, or at least the vineyard crews are… Farmers, like Glenn. Need to keep those hours, be a farmer with my words. 2015, out in that one vineyard in Rincon valley with Glenn, filming them bring the grapes from vine to bin, then truck it from there to crush pad, Punchdown Cellars up the road from this house, on Hopper.
Not at all enjoying or even mildly liking my sentences this morning. Not sure why I call it morning when it feels like the middle of the night.. but I’m up. I’m up. I finally did it, dealt 4AM a shot in its years-long reign over me. But, my system and circuitries tell me I need more sleep. Need more something. Like what. I don’t know, I’m hoping the Vineyards tell me that today… give me some pronounced and profound sight today. You think? Make the vineyards speak to me, tell me something that will irrevocable helix my Personhood to Craft, to my pages, to an elevated elevation of Wellness that will elevate me and everything around me. Now I’m finding it hard to take myself away from this sitting– though I’m not sitting but laying down on the couch, room that used to be home office but is anything now but.
04:23.. Should I make coffee? Heard odd sound off to right. May have come from upstairs, or maybe it’s exhaustion catching the writer. 4AM… not a weak one’s hour, that certain… but if you write through it, before you know it you’ll be through it. This will be a way for me. MY way… 4AM. This quiet and cruel, dark and enlightening hour. Where it’s only me. ME. It’s all on me… like the vineyards, the vineyards and how everyone’s watching them till harvest, till they deliver what’s wanted then more or less ignored. But not by me. When people are on the crushpad taking pictures of fucking grapes I’m the obsessed pupil out there in the rows writing to and taking stills of the bare arms.
04:29.. Need a little more sleep. At least I’ve started my writing for the day. When up, have to iron some pants, get ready and zoom out of here and up to Jimtown to write. I know how this book is set to conclude– with no conclusion. Just memback out in the Vineyards walking, waiting for some idea to precipitate down to me like a lucrative spiritual storm. Notice I’m using that word more now, for some reason– spiritual. Hmm… What if I just stay up, enjoy the spirituality of this time… this 4AM hour in every inch and micro-measurement of its nuanced instruction. No.. much you don’t want to admit it, you’re Human. Wish I wasn’t. Wish I didn’t need to sleep, rest, eat. Wish I could write tirelessly, more tirelessly than I say I’m tireless. Literally never sleeping. That’s a wish.. just a wish, some sick writer fantasy. Only working– only writing books. Even when I’m touring as a result of a book and speaking about it I’m writing another, writing about life on the road speaking about my book– the ultimate aim is travel, having mornings or nights or mornings like this in other states, other countries. Talking to people about writing and living and happiness… now I think it may be impossible to go back to sleep. But if make too much noise, little Kerouac will come down here, and that will make his day tougher on him, being tired and not connected to school activities. Go back to sleep, Mike… You can pick this up later. Glenn would never say that to himself out in the vineyard, ’round harvest. How many farmers do you know, if any that would just make up an excuse like that, something so it’s easier to talk themselves into something. Well, phone tells me battery is down to 10%. But even that’s not an excuse. I could get out my Comp Book and write with pen. But that would wake Jackie. Just put it down, go back to sleep. This can be finished later. This sitting, or laying is a victory. When was the last time I did this? Can’t even remember.
Have to use restroom. Be quiet… tips of toes, tips of toes. Well, if he did wake that wouldn’t be so bad. Then I could keep working, defeat 4AM even further.