and what work he has to do, what I have planned the next day and the remaining hours of this day, I am honestly with nothing. But I make myself write. One student tonight saying one of her goals is, was, is to wake at 2am to get ahead in her studies and I assume write a little as she does write poetry and write in short lines, short stanzas, pieces that span only a page. And I say ‘only’ out of awe, that she does so much to a page in only a page’s pulse.
Was nearly too lazy to write anything tonight. Told self, “Just a hundred words, per blog.” But I can’t hold self to that. Should I do what this student plans on doing? Should I set alarm for 2? Isn’t that the time of the artist, the writer and poet? Didn’t I read that somewhere? On my lunch today grading papers and writing in the Sonic journal as this goddamn laptop didn’t want to let me use it. Of course, now, I do push the buttons and have a note in my writing normalcy.
Finish the fucking book, I tell myself. Like my son said tonight as I poised to make his bed with new sheets, “GET TO WORK.” I am. I say the same to self.
Sip the Barbera I popped last night. It, she, more calm. Me the opposite of anything tranquil at the moment. Working in the home office which isn’t as common as I’d love to tell you it is. But, WORK. Work. What I write about. Force self to write when I don’t want to. I do write about wine, but that’s not my only onus and thought light.
Now, I’m like a train with this, these writing thoughts. I, not failed. Not failing in my aims. I won’t allow that. No one should. Why would you. You are here, once. And I’m not addressing the fact one only lives once…. I’m speaking to myself and you, that where you are, right now, the opportunity and life invitation to bring a project to completion is singular. You see it once.
You are a train, if you wish be. Some unknown animal of fruition, bringing works to an offering stage. There are only stops that persist acknowledged. So acknowledge none of them. I see so many of these speakers and motivational-who-be’s profess all this counsel but don’t consider the most apparent reality… the audience member has to decide. They only elect to act if they bring themselves to movement. Tonight I could have just as easily poured this red from El Dorado, sat on the floor of this home study, went on phone and scrolled through some photo pour. No. We decide to draw, paint new plausible for our Personhood. Decide to move, be alive, mentally, alive, wildly alive in all movements of your steps and actuating saunter.
What work does for and to the character is animated in divinely lucrative chant. Dodge the task, never. Distractions and suitable sanctions to project-dodge are terminal. The panacea, always, is preemptive production. Never, labor deduction.
10/15/18
11:18. Been a day so far but finally I can sit, go through the few pictures I was able to pocket and store earlier from a vineyard off Guerneville Road. Sometimes you need to take yourself out of the picture to understand it better. That’s where my head is, presently. Could have woke just before 5 this morning but didn’t. No dwelling, just staring. At my pictures… the one of the leaf, the one of that wheel or jagged pulley. Wish I could have stayed out there all day. Wish the whole day could have been out there then it wouldn’t have been as it was.
just write. Refusing to be pinned and penned in that shared adjunct office I come here to the conference room. Have thirty minutes to write, and I have no idea about what. Today has shown me a harsh side to days, principally. But I’ll write through it. Out of it. What if I gave the best lectures of my career over the next few hours? I could do that, right? I will. Just talking to them. Will be in Room in 27 minutes. Which means logically I have 17 to write. But write about what. I’m an adjunct instructor of English here in the conference room of the English department fulfilling no part of my contractual duties. Should be grading, but no. Why. Want to feel free. Free from the day. Just for a minute. I know… this isn’t very wine writer-y of me. Not sure I care or even want to talk about that dimension of my direction, if it’s a direction.
I’ll slightly edit and post shots later. Right now I need a meditation. A separation. Not so much a release, but reason, reasoning. Getting distracted by life and bills, obligations, appointments, and all compounded by certain ingredients since the fires. Nothing I can do now, and why get annoyed with what you see on the drive up ‘SM’, then on Coffey? Just drive, keep going. Focus on the vineyards as you did this morning. Look through my old photos for something of focus. And I find something… leaf during fall transformation. Need a walk, now… well, you’re going to get one. Across campus. To class. My mood falls, tailspins, just want the day to walk vineyards in France, Spain, Portugal, anywhere but here— Not right what I’m feeling but it’s what I’m ping-ponging, tirelessly back and forth in my total totality.
Hard to even compose myself to compose, frankly. The mood attacked at work, toward, the end. But so what. I’m fucking human so what do you want me to do— Sipping the night’s cap, sitting on floor with legs crossed, back against the couch sipping a Lagunitas while I type. I don’t care, has to be my continuant disposition, it has to be. I know I’ll be interrupted any minute, knowing my luck, and how the day’s gone. BUT, one thing I did right, or pragmatic action, I made coffee for the next day. Just had an idea— write the students. They ALWAYS listen, or most of them do. The still, now, however long it lasts, calms me, but then I hear Jackie cough, of course. My luck, and his, and this house’s— the Madigan disquietude. Again, my current posture and view. Don’t listen to me. I won’t, wouldn’t, won’t.