we, knowing now, pages and pages, FREED
Knowing that life is here and then not, you’re thought clear, again taught. By self to self. Nothing and nowhere, no one else. Today teaches me… no more compromise.. no more approval need, not that there ever really was one. I’m just hearing the day speak, I’m listening, I’m composed and decides, sensible and vast. Only answers in this room with me.
time. No time to waste and no time to wait. All minutes are instructional, all times in your story narrate something to you, teach, they demand your direction and response. Gems compile right in front of you. Eyes should be ever present nets. Catch everything.
Notes to catch up on, and other directions pushing and pulling this morning. On a fast, for I believe 16 hours. For no other reason than discipline. Last night the discussion with students on Wright’s Black Boy coerced me to re-think memoir, to rethink writing in its principle territory. Writing, especially memoir or personal essay, or “creative nonfiction” a genre or type tag that I frankly loathe as what nonfiction isn’t in some degree and walk creative?—Demands more honestly. More boldness, more rawness and the moment itself in all its obtrusiveness and oscillation of concentration and code.
People walk into the room, this breakroom, I think new hires as I’ve never seen them before. Or– Friend Taj walks in. I tell him what I’m writing about more or less and what we spoke of last night in class on Wright. The Human dimension and collection of facets, emotions, observations. I tell him about the student last night who said he can’t relate to the characters in the book as he didn’t live as they did, or didn’t see what they saw. I disclose to Taj how I asked the student “Do you love anything?…Have you ever felt pain?…Do you have a mother?” The student I think felt a bit overwhelmed or confused maybe by my response, but I stood by my point and I at least wanted him to consider it. Taj sees where I’m going with the thought framing and delivery. He’s since left the room, after getting his tea. Now a lady makes coffee or something from one of the machines, and I think fixes it or installs a new filter, something.
I’d be not much a memoirist or narrator if I didn’t put to page I was again sparring, fencing, or just plain boxing with a mood this morning. Similar to the one I felt yesterday before the Pinballing piece, and very akin to what was over me last week. And, honestly, I’m bored of feeling like that. I need Newness. I need be crazy and more wild and flight-prone. Just taking off and not asking permission from any control tower. The JPR project here at work very much was not so much a cause of the mood but a set presence in the mood’s movement. I stop it all, taking this 30 minutes or so to this seat, these keys, going over in head what was discusses last night, and that one student, AGAIN, reading for class and having us wanting more of the words, more story, wherever it was going. And that’s just it, he had us not knowing but wanting to know. There was not so much excitement but obvious atmosphere and personality in the characters and what they may have been doing, or not doing. This student not only shows promise as a memoirist, essayist, but as a teller, narrator, truth-teller.
Now, I plan the day. This fast I’m on, what notes I have to input, and how the book’s going to tell EVERYTHING.
Details:
-8:17am
-Coffee cooling in old tumbler, black, bought as xmas present
-More people walk in for either eats or free coffee—eats, as I can’t see them, obstructed by newly-built wall which denies view of fridges
-Me, Mike Madigan, only one in here, certainly the only one writing memoir, story, any poetic effort to capture a Now
-No more oscillation, new code
-Sip coffee again
-8:20
want to learn more about your story, and why you are where you are, doing what you’re doing.
Go slow.
After a day of collection, and a week of ceaseless collision.
You rebuild and reconnect with self and your music.
the best, most present and relevant instructors.
Planning day. Week. Life. How it’s all to go. Self-publishing this book and changing certain dimensions before “the assessment”. The day I turn 40. Want the book done. No more not-selling writing. No more self-doubt.
This cold, making a second pass, but I’m defying it and denying it any entry or connection to my character. Staying elevated and positive in all pulses.
Almost done with my latte. How the fu– Time just moving so I move with it, and like I stipulated in the thousand words– Guy enters nook carrying a ladder and I ask if I’m in his way he says no I’m fine, I ask if he wants me to move he says he’s going to paint the wall black within the next hour or so. I tell him I’m going to be out of here just before nine and he extends his fist for a bump, I answer with bump, “Have fun!” He says and leaves.
Have fun. I think about that. Of course. Why not. I am. Have fun at work, in work, with my work. What I do. My character and its definition and decision, decisions. Have fun. Enjoy the story.
This morning continues to educate me on me and my work, me here at Sonic. This, this building, me and my role, I’m seeing is part of the There. Yesterday meeting in the Zen Den, or Zen Cove as I call it still from time to time, talking about what’s ahead and how everything now moves in positive pulse, tells me I need focus on it more. My book, on Thought, the definition of thought and what thought does, can do, where it comes from, wildly provoked by this building, this company. And the other building, when I’m in there. I didn’t see this, when I applied, when I first started, or even in my first month.
The first month, I was still celebrating being out of a tasting room.
Work… work… work….. I write about work and making work your own. Making it your own story, your life, what you are and who you are, not just job title and location.
8:41. Made self lunch this morning so I HAVE TO eat and write in car. Not all ideas and thoughts, visions about and from where, past where I am. My office, this office, always working with this company and help tell its story. Revolution, movement, music, poetry, SOUND. I can barely stand and translate everything that’s being said to me by the morning. Sonic very much reminds me of a Coltrane track, in its precise yet frenzied and random patterns, the profuse passion for the Now, the track itself, being there, present and speaking, reciting, reveling in colorful immediacy.
8:44. I’m reminded here and when in Field that each moment serves standalone story. All of them. No exception. From business consideration, this is enigmatic and pragmatically spastic. That’s why I identity with the language, with the scene and stage and ways from day to day.
Save more.
Pack a lunch, eat leftovers, have more little snacks.