There it is, that empty page. Yet my head swirls with what feels like maze of loosely related silly string threads knotted and interweaving in my head, waiting to get out. While doing the dishes & listening to the latest Melvins one of those threads emerges as a coherent idea. It's like a sub-particle in physics escaping the chaos of an atom's nucleus. The idea feels so clear and full of truth that my next thought is, Damn, this must be be written down. To waste this brief, yet potentially powerful burst of creativity from the subconscious is to fail, to say no to potential, to let something that others may enjoy, as I enjoy others work, retreat and disappear into the enormous vault of other forgotten ideas. Now is the time to write it down. The time is now!
The next thoughts are drowned by the sounds of the internal logistics machine lurching into motion. This happens as I dry a mostly-clean frying pan and the logistical machine attempts to stay upright inside a head emphatically nodding up and down to King Buzzo's latest off-kilter, angular, and devastating riff. A second or two later the plan to get the thought down emerges: after the dishes I will sip some whiskey in front of a DRV'd Mad Men because the long day drained the river of creative juices dry. Any attempt to turn that momentous thought into coherent, linear words tonight will be a train wreck and an embarrassment. After sleep and waking at 5:15 come the morrow I'll get it down. Plan set, the frying pan is hung on the pot rack with care. Next stop: two fingers of Knob Creek followed by Mr. Cable Box. An hour or two later Mad Men ends, my neck is sore from nodding off in an awkward position half an hour earlier, and the brown liquor is not finished. Up to bed I haul myself to sack out while looking forward to the energy of a new day.
5:15am arrives, the eyes open and the hoped for energy still seems far away. Heavy legs swing out of bed, the back ache reminds me middle age began a few years back, and quietly, so I don't wake Allison, the slippers go on, as do the pants and underwear from the day before. The tight arches from years of running, not yet awake, rebel at opening against their will on the walk downstairs. I open the front door and yesterday's news wrapped in a rubber band looks up at me. A quick step outside to the porch affords time to take a deep breath, stretch, be invigorated by the crisp Northwest air on a cool cloudy June morning. The waking ritual continues with the soothing sounds of coffee beans dropping into the grinder and the jarring whir of their decimation. The unbleached filter molds to the shape of the cone, supports the weight of the coffee as it's gently poured onto it, then does its work supporting the soup of piping hot water and near-black finely ground coffee. As the toast browns the filter lets go of the delicious brown caffeine infused water.
The first sip of coffee with butter and jammed toast nearby signal the end of the morning ritual. Now it's time to write.
