Mike knows he’s overthinking.  Lunch or run, quesadilla or 7 miles?  So many would elect anything but a run.

No run.  Full from lunch.  Over three hours left in day.  So now what, Mike wonders.  Keep self busy.  Compose own projects and directions.

Mike thinks of what he’s so far eaten today.  He can’t remember.. was the burrito the first anything?  He believes so.  No.  Well, yes and no.  Latte, four shots with whip and a light ray of cinnamon dust.  He chews gum, no consumed with diet but approaching the age he’s approaching (today he can barely say it), he wants to be more present and decisive of what’s consumed.  Proud he ordered a veggie burrito, water with lime slice.

Detached today, he looks around his desk.  Restless, a bit, but then he sees an idea sea.

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4/14/19

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.

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Waiting for haircut

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.

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4/8/19

Done with singular piece.  About run.  May add to it, now that I see it’s only 3 pages, full, when double-spaced.  Have about an hour left to self.  What to do.. oh, have to plan for …. Walked away to get pen from mail room and can’t remember what I was going to say.  Oh, yes, plan for class.  Or don’t.

Overheard one of the full-timers say it’s raining outside, quite hard.  Tempted to go look.  Tempted to get something to eat but no…. Have water, gum, coffee, and I hate not too long before pulling into the spot I found in the lot outside Emeritus.  So I’m good.

5:53.  In shared office.  Much cooler in here than that conference room.  Want to be home with my kids…. Do bath, play, read books.  These night classes, especially this semester even though I only teach one, have truly incensed me.  Letting it go… enjoy this time before class.

 

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Running is the

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….

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Breakthrough In A Room

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

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