we, knowing now, pages and pages, FREED
symbol, the lens, the massive metaphor you’ve waited for, the terrestrial and paradis…. the flight, the voyage, the map, the gem trove, the story, the song….sense, happiness, LIFE.
Running is THE Answer. Solution, sight, beat, magic. Answers and more answers, keys and invitation….
Telling it what I see for me.
the best, most present and relevant instructors.
is always close.
Stay in love.
These pod chairs, or seat, I have to have one in my office. For me… My office, can see it. I can. I see it without closing my eyes. It’s a vision I not only believe it but find calm and quietude in. I’m there when I think of it.
Hot with this sweatshirt or jacket on. Can’t stop typing and take it off, though. That will cost me. Time. Time. What I can never have enough of. So aware of time, today. Life and its short stint. I choose to spend lunches like this, most of the time. Monday of course, no, getting lunch with Tasha. Yesterday, getting latte and writing a bit in car. So that suffices, partially. But this, this is a true literary lunch. This is what writers, true writers, do. What I’m doing now, a writer.
Thirsty. Want another sparkling water. Wait till after, after the typing and work for ME.
Someone else, in a pod next to me. Heard him turning pages of a book.
Gathering tax stuff…. Thinking of challenging self, again… what I can do till 4/15/20. 2020… makes me cringe. Time. Again. Reminding me. It’s coming. For me.
…one place. Here. This page and the ones that follow. Writing anymore becomes odd for me. A tricky feel. The thoughts about my character need jazz, so I turn to Coltrane, “I’m Old Fashioned”, the remastered version. I know what I’m doing, what I’m going to do. Surprised I’m this awake with how late I to bed went. I rose, write, more coffee, more jazz, more sight and plans for how the day’s to delineate itself in my life, the life of the day itself. I want today to be different, and different in a way that defines and decides the life of me and those around me, favorably. That is, the impact I have, on their life, the Mike Madigan they meet today…
Up from nap. Tasting earlier at J, then KIN lunch. Cancelled class for night. Angry no sections in Fall for me but utterly elated. So why in this mood. Don’t know. Now hot coffee. Needed. What to do for night, spend time with babies. Trying to add paying projects, from wine to teaching… Going to work late, tonight. Committed to.
Thoughts go in one direction, then another. Need to train them to be on singular path, singular straight, in singular yet compounding and varying effort. Luckily Sonic encourages someone like me. Tomorrow, heading into day like a bull, a hungry and tireless bull. Wake early with wife as she will for her morning workout class. The coffee pulls me from this cloud – Interrupted. Man knocks on door I go to door somewhat agitated and defensive. He sells cleaning services of rugs, carpets, interiors, something. I take his car but by my disposition make it clear I’m not interested in services nor conversation. He points out there’s a Hello Fresh on our stoop or patio I say thank you and hollowly thank him for coming by, pick up the Fresh box then return inside. Put everything in fridge then back to types, coffee.
Wife leaves to get babies and I stay behind to plot, plot something. What I don’t know. Just keep thoughts in tow. Like I wrote this morning being taught by the day and all decisions, everything around me. Put on a beat, start writing, more, not hearing from certain contacts has me feeling nothing. I need look and converse inwardly for more flight, more wholeness, completed character and beat. MY beat now, NOW, is of harmonizes garrulousness. Each figment and frame around me begging to be written, put to page and sown to prose. I feel stalled, not so much confused. I solve the stall by just moving, just typing, inhaling the rest of the medium roast, or most of it. Travel, right there, waiting for me. The classes I’m to teach and the vehicles I’ll be in—planes, rented cars, buses, boats, ferries. Everything is right there, here ahead of me. Like Sal, Dean, Plath and all her aims and dreams poem’d and prose’d. We think too much, far too much, rather than just rolling and being redolent in what’s already present, creating from there.
No new cup. I pull a copy of Road from my home office, an office which has decided to form itself more as a landing for the babies and their toys, drawings and raincoats rather than a writer’s corner, the initial intention. I start reading from a random spot, where Mary has an idea about hitchhiking. I see Mike Madigan as one now hitchhiking, destiny’s the driver, or maybe Mike is the driver. Either way, I’m going where the going’s going. Writing everything, everything… tomorrow in the office, even before I get there, write the entire day. What I want, what I want it to contribute to.. each thought scribbled then later spoken. Known to self and the world I’m in, each character around me. I’m Dean’s whim and Sal’s written method.
The man who knocked on the door in sales mode, much older than me. I pity him then with anxiety and an overtaking eagerness seek to mimic him. Selling, unafraid, just getting out there like the Field Sales Team I work with, doing what you have to for realities of building business. Maintaining that business. You ask yourself, at some point, some point—“What do I want to do?” I find myself there, again. I’m not leaving Sonic, no way. But there is more I want, as you know. Work, what work should do, and Sonic has taught me that it should be an invitation to know Self more intimately, to understand what drives and decides your character.
5:07 and I write freely, refusing to be webbed in meditation and excess contemplation of character essence and my narrative. Just write to this current beat, and see what self sees. I know where I’m going, I see the hotel rooms, the views, me waking early and writing in the lobbies—what I want for work. So I go get it. My wine business…. Little of the blush I opened last night. Decide on that rather than more coffee. Want to again narrate wine as it’s a literary and beatific centricity essential to my functionality. It’s natural for me, it’s ME—rhythmic and redolent, ready with song and eagerness. Thoughts over more thoughts, the thought of me doing something for the rest of my life—one singular thing, act, practice and maintained habit. Wine poured, and I see my shop, store, whatever you want it called. I play with ideas of me showing earlier and writing from a desk before having to take inventory and do what’s not entirely the most enjoyable or fun facets of being a business owner. New experiences, new characters, voices, sights, sight as imperative determiner.
First sip and my memory tussles with me. The race on Saturday. Registering for marathon and only completing half. The rain that fell in the last mile ordered me to accept the narrative shift. To not dismay or despair, but to more joyously blare and what I did run. Up the rocks and steps, the inclines that were more than inclines but more geographic intentionality to challenge me. When across the finish line, or not-so-finished line, I was given a medal of fake metal and went to tent for shelter and otherwise unappealing snacks. Then had a beer. Then just looked around me, thinking of what other shored there are on the planet. What else I haven’t seen. Where else can I write– Interrupted again, now by former student seeking essay advice. The Now of me orders more order. To work. Work more for ME, for my family. To speak and speak with fearless vessel and flight. Rhythm, beat, beats, music. I remove myself from my stall. I’m on my Road, arguing from each thought. Today, while tasting through those wines in the J Lounge with wife, I saw everything. Felt everything. This is more than Philosophy, and more than academics, more than life. But, thought. All thoughts. Living in and from each.
Self Note: Be appreciative of the Now—It gifts you with reason and questions, more Road and sequence than most estimate. Love it all, write it all, see more Self in all beats.