Tag: strength

Cathy just left with babies, dishwasher running and chugging and roaring, and me at the desk trying to get in day’s words before leaving for winery.  This morning’s been one certainly of the writing father, trying to find time to write, barely able to wait for his time at the keys— Creativity, expression, life, who he is.  For the next 8 hours I have to be someone else, on a clock, assigned a life— one I don’t quite mind, as I enjoy being at that winery, but I’m just stating the reality to Self in hopes it’ll motivate me to the Road.  Everything back on desk, clutter… need more time.

Student posting she woke at 3:30 or 4-something to write.  I filled with envy quicker than a backyard pool during a hurricane.  Sip coffee.. move quicker, but how—

Have about 20 minutes, as I measure, to get this sitting into the word-count-realm I want.  What I want from today:  STORIES.  Nothing more.  Just stories.  Not wine knowledge, not clubs, not tips or some new connection which will do nothing for me.  Just stories.  I concentrate in the studio’s enveloping silence to hear self recite— does this sound like poetry or not, or something I could read?  Now that the house is empty, mine, I forget about the pattern, the constructions and constrictions, the adjunct life.  Then ideas for lectures dash at me like I’m a wounded gazelle enclosed by hyenas.

Allergies attack, and I shrug it off, keep typing, hoping for some thesis to this sitting.  And I think it’s simply that I get to have the sitting itself, these words before the day ignites.  Another person I know posted that she was up at 5-something to run, or work out.  And what was I doing?  Sleeping.  Incredibly frustrated.  Think of that trucker student of mine who wakes every A.M. at 4, as that’s what’s needed, there is no option.  He has to be at that truck base or launching site before 5.  He doesn’t show, he doesn’t have a job.  That’s what I’m facing as a writer— if I don’t change pattern or consistency, with everything from when I wake to how I write, how I live, how often I run, then I lose my job as a writer— my LIFE, as a writer.  So today punctuates the change.  Remembering the HST words, about life getting “immeasurably better” since being FORCED to stop taking it seriously.  Indeed.. thesis garnish for day, and perhaps forever, ever.

This quiet in the Autumn Walk Studio is opiate-like, truly drugging, sending my thoughts everywhere, into an optimistic spin and serum.  I drink and drink and drink more till I forget I have to drive 30+ minutes to Dry Creek.

7:31.  Should leave now, but I’ll cut session at 7:40.  Then head to corporate coffee brothel, Starbucks, get something with those birthday gift cards, then enjoy my music all the way to ‘the crossing’.  Interesting I work at a winery with the word and thematic anchor of a ‘crossing’ in it.  An intersection… a confluence… a blend… an overlap.  Now, at 37, there’s definitely a crossing, one of caring and playing by rules and the other of being happy, free, not caring and loving every blink in the writer’s day.

note, side:  Where did all these pens come from?  Huh…  Mom yesterday advised that I put down the pen for a bit, just live, be happy (not that I’m not).. to just enjoy the day, and my family.  She’s right, no surprise.  I actually didn’t write for much of yesterday.  Certainly no thousand word sessions like this.  Went wine tasting again, this time at Benovia, where another Michael helped me through some amazing wines, convivial a chap he was, while I took pictures of course and a couple notes on the Chards and Pinots, and just felt like I had an actual day off.  Imagine, a day not working.  For me, not writing.  It was like I was another character, one I loved and wanted to better know.  AND NOW, I write in my thousand-stride, ready for the day, feeling HST-ish, not giving a shit but very much giving a shit.  My former “student”, more ‘colleague’, who woke this morning at 3-something to write, taught me something—  To live, to be a student forever, that I’ll be young forever, and that this 37 number is such a bloody contrivance and sour coinage.  I’m me, a writer, teacher, and I will live the way I see, envision.  I do what will get me There, wherever There is.  If you know me, it’s on the Road.  This morning while washing my face, looking at Self in mirror like I liked the bloke, I said “Madrid”.  Then, “Spain, I want to go to Spain.” Not sure why I said that, and yes I did aloud, but not so little Emma would wake.  A whisper.  To me.  A secret plan, map set out, a mission for the writer which will begin with research today in the tasting room, reading about everything connected to Spain, starting with history and food, beaches, wineries.. everything.  I will be a thorough Spaniard when I land.

7:42— shit, have to leave.  Will return when at winery, I guess.  My attitude changes, headed for nihil, a nihil habet, something.  But I block that attitude, and remember, I don’t need to be in any mood, as I don’t have to care anymore.  MY defense is happiness, grinning in the face of any suppression.  Oh this feels lovely, and I credit Mom with her counsel, my student for posting what she did this morning, and Mr. Thompson for telling me it’s okay to not care if you’ve been so forced.

I have been so forced.

Now I use my own forcing qualities against the negative, any frown or orders.  People who make policies for policies, who want me to write their story and not pay me appropriately.

This is getting good, I whisper to self, another secret:  Italy.  This of course from Katie telling me the other day, in the backyard on my birthday that she’s going to Italy on some winemaker research trip.

“I want to go!” I thought.

Huh, I just might.