Bright Lights, Big City

A soft rain crawls through the valley. The sea is warm but tempestuous; my swim is unusually short. I dive instead into the pile of books I brought. Already, too few remain to sustain me. I pretend to ration them, knowing full well I am bound to fail.

I read over my journal, instead, trying to make sense of the months and the year that have passed. I realize large parts of them were omitted. Heart-wrenching episodes ignored, and I hypothesize that, being left un-recorded, in time they will become untrue. Good riddance, perhaps, if it is that easy.

In my latest book, so many familiar street corners. The Village butcher still run by the same name. The bar unfazed by the years. New York is constantly changing, ever a tide of people and places eventually swept out to sea and replaced, but it is still, perpetually New York. I take more comfort in that fact than in any other constant in my life. There aren't that many to begin with.

Now I am here. Wasn't I just in Times Square? he asks from the other end of the earth. As the days turn to months and to another year, I wonder if he will begin to doubt, if his life here will become untrue. Years from now, New York will fade into a distant memory. Will he know it from a trick of the lights?

Good riddance, perhaps, if it is that easy.

Sinking into Sweet Uncertainty

Another cup of coffee, and another. All day, so tired, so apathetic, so unable to fill the empty sheet with the words that would pay the bills, would appease the Very Important Person on the other end.

Patience, said a voice within. Trust that it will return.

And then there it was. The tickled rush through my synapses, the insatiable hunger for loud music in my ears, the complete disregard for anything going on around me. How much easier when the rest of the world grows dark and silent, to spread out one's ideas and energies on the floor and begin to piece them together again. Hours pass, without food or break or weariness as the deadline adrenaline writes its story, as it will. Years of this, and I never learn. Not to do differently, but to accept the process.

There is, at the end of such a night, a feeling more delicious than any other. The free soul, the tired body. The quiet room while my mind races to wind down. I enjoy this bit the most.

I chose the right life for myself, it seems.