On my day off want
more of my time,
I of theirs.
There’s not enough.
Days off try.
6/24/18
Categories
Category: Health/Wellness
Done. With he regularity of blandness and expected shows, do’s, tasks and tallies. This morning I woke with a slight ache in head from I’m sure that one and only glass of Alexander Valley Vineyards Zin. I never drink Zin, and I had it too late. So this morning leaving pillows and sheets I rolled my eyes and thought about the day ahead in the tasting room, told myself not to take any attitude, especially THAT one. So I’m here committed…. People around me, with the day off. Me, not. Needing my own office… where is it? My mood… writing way out of it, approaching that age. Stop writing about it, I know. I’m legitimizing it. Need to do something drastic, today… creatively radical. Eight hours I could be writing, spent pouring behind a bar. There’s that attitude, I know I know.
At least I acknowledge where I need repair. Book technically due tomorrow. What can I do. What will I do. I sip the mocha and say ‘fuck it’, frankly. I’m a shameless me manuscript and modality. I say to myself, “We all are, from time to time, right?” I have no idea. But this idea, this finding self through more exploration of self and what I want, what I want to be doing for the rest of my life— what YOU should be doing right now instead of being safe and contributing to pattern and the expected formation of everything out there…. Go. And move quick. The clock is a cannibal.
Stories in head, from the tasting room and other realities… my character, Kelly, and her novel, some novels snd short story collection. Will be with family all day, come morrow, so I need five sittings I this morning vindicated, between now and when we leave the house for our drive (taking kids to see race cars, or something, at the raceway in whatever city that is). Five. And I’m doing it. This isn’t passion you read, but refusal, refusing to keep with anything. I’m done with templates, being on a foreign schedule.
So I did it. The same thing I always do on Saturday. Get up, ready self for labor, care for babies while Mama suits up for workout class and leaves, wait for neighbor to come over and watch Jack and Emma, then I leave… come here, write a bit, get to place, and then stress finds me. I decided, on change. That this will be how I make my life more worth living, make a living, more wildly live. There is more in the present than I before noticed… people around me, looking at their phones or talking in small groups on their day off. Me, the writer in corner gathering himself…. Short stories, screenplay, novel. Starting over isn’t starting over. It’s starting. I’m deciding to start, I’ve found. This morning. And why not. Why not decide right now that, more of what you want, what you aim do for the rest of your days, and stop what stops you, or slows you. Decide.
Categories
inward jot
My vibe this morning here in the office, elevating. Brought lunch today, which doesn’t often occur in my morning habit and way. Seeing it not me to do what others do. The job thing. That’s why I make this job, here in the wine world, at this winery, my own. I can’t be comfortable, certainly not conform. Not as an artist. Not as me. I’m finding that there is one oneness about my “literary wanderings” as I put it to M, the wine club manager here asking if she minds if I sit and “engage in my literary wanderings”. Have to be on clock in exactly 35 minutes. So this meditations, providing more soul, more spirit, more health and wellness about my aims..
Looking at book progress. Has to be done and sell-ready in three days. Hoping I can do so. I don’t much feel like teaching anymore, either. At least not at the institution, at the JC where I’m only given what’s left, assignment-wise, as an adjunct. So what next, then… only this. Only writing in the morning and the rest of day living, taking pictures, taking notes, observing… simple observing, here in this office populated by cubicles and people at computers, typing and emailing, scanning and looking for another manila file folder.
Starting the work day… work. What I do for a living. That’s the topic of every human, I feel. Some definitively loathe work, what they do, for what they wake every morning. I can’t live like that. I won’t. I don’t want my babies to see me that way. They won’t. They don’t. Never will. My ebb and vibe, sight, more than positively defiant and definitive. My story, what’s my story, like I ask students every semester. Just a writer…. freedom, waning to be free from any financial woe. And I am. So what are we talking about, what are we looking for and what do we want.
My inward types this morning, knowing, understanding. I’m slightly distracted by something, but I won’t let it fester or grow.. keep writing… have a little wine when you go downstairs. I mean, don’t drink, but taste through the flight like a journalist, like a wine writer… there’s no excuse for me to be in any lull or stall, pause or be caught by any push of anxiety’s ax. Didn’t go to coffee spot as I only wanted to write, not spend money, that $6.05 (Can you believe that?) on a mocha with 4 shots. Difference, this morning… you have to throw yourself outside of regularity and pattern to grow, to get to your There, I know see at my old age.
Where I am— office, winery. What I’m doing— writing to self and hopefully nearing the Road, my travels, teaching, on writing and wine and writing about wine and the act of writing, keeping a journal and writing everything down even the shit that others would soon so dismiss, disregard. This winery, much more sizable than the one I’ll eventually proprietor. Journal on my at all times this day, jotting what I see and imagining the tasting room mine own.
(6/21/18)
Categories
Right now.
PUT MORE PURPOSE ON YOUR PLATE.
Categories
0630
In debt to self.
Owe self more, more than pattern.
More than the regular work day.
I’m going to pay myself back.
Not all at once, but a significant portion, today.
a reciprocal thigmotropism, like those vines reaching for and grabbing to whatever they can. While waiting of coffee, I decided to continue with the morning’s meditation, of me writing, the act of writing and reading, reacting to Sal and Dean’s intersections and separation. Watching the baristas from this seat along the wall, right with the windows, I wonder when they got here. How long they will be working here, and where they go, to what next job after this one.
Trying to define self the same way I do wine. Today, another at work, but I’ve found something else… more refusal. Refusal of pattern, others’ clocks, the expectation. Me writing, right here, like this, this is my IT. Self-assessment not so much as it is a self-exploration… the archeology metaphor or simile, I guess, again. I’m stronger than I thought I was, and surviving what I did when 16, I’m done with certain perceived certainties. Working as others work, nodding my head as others do in inner-dismay that their world may be disrupted, that there could be a reaction. And what if there is, I think now at 39, 23 years after surviving what I did. Oh, I can’t wait to be at the winery with this nerve and verve, new faith.
Keeping self typing, looking at the pen next to my keyboard, the copy of Road in bag. Think it’s my first copy, I think, from semesters past, years ago, now having to put one of those clips, metal, at spine, otherwise the pages will undo and fly wherever they can. A time in my life, now, compared to 16, just-21, mid-twenties when I met wife while working at that wine brokerage office or whatever that guy did, late twenties when married, when Jack was born, then Emma/Ms. Austen… and now. Now. Now is the Now where I do IT.
Me, this, writing. My mocha, only 3 shots this morning as I drank most of what I last night brewed with Keurig. It’s more than finding self, about finding a self or sense therein and of, but understanding where you are, what you’re doing, why you’re there doing what you’re doing. That’s what I’ve found int here past weeks.
Writing more notes on novel… Kelly, what she sees on daily, what she paints, where she wants to go. Like me, in a word, everywhere. But before writing her story, I have to further unearth in mine. I’m present, in this present, realizing more magic in the meta of things and people and table corners, napkins, coffee cups than I ever stressed this past term to students. My coffee talks, more to the questions I have and any lingering doubts, urging jettison each. IT… your IT, once held you’ll be greedy with it, possessive, like with my wine words when I meet a bottle that catalyzes verse, lights the music thought wick.. this, the IT to it all. Refusing to do anything else, anywhere, for anyone else’s reasons or reasoning.
(6/20/18)
Categories
Categories
Focus on an image
that elevates your mood, right at day’s opening.
Categories
article
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Note
You are the best investment.
Stop being cheap.