Greasy Victory

Hoorah! It is Sunday! and I am here, getting ready to make coffee, do a bit of housework, and more of writing! I am trying to get to my buddy's gig in Manhattan tonight. If I go, it's alone, and that's okay. Meeting up with Anna and perhaps a friend of hers. Focus, Sheela, and get there. It's not easy being a recluse; that feeling of wanting to curl up and not move. The sky is a fluffy, heavy white coming down on me like a thick comforter telling me it's all okay, rest, go in, go in, and be well. I have blessed Monday - all day - to write, too, so I need to do it all. Just do it.

Yesterday I made a double cheeseburger and nearly killed myself, but man was it good! May have to do it again, but then I do have to get out or they'll find me on the futon with mayo on my lip and a smile! I am ready for another payday; I want to buy some celery and salad. This life, this life in being a dreamer and a workhorse longing for another meadow leaves one panting and always counting the change underneath the cushions. I'm amazed I've gotten this far. Watch me. I've still some to go.

My daughters are my greatest claim to fame. They have risen up and snatching their stars, hooking their proverbial wagon to decent stars. I wake in the morning and think of them. This being an empty nester is sad in that you think of all the stupid things you did wrong and now that you can think! all the things you'd do right. But I think of them and they are blindingly whole and functioning with incredible energies. I will continue to give all the coal I can provide for their engines of life. They are my stars, the rest of my dreams dim in their comparison.

And then, then the dormant stuff inside me it is rising, it is forming, it is coming together. This is my time. I have not loved the one I'm with and now Sheela y Sheela are arm in arm and I will not let her down anymore. It is no one's fault, not even mine. It is life. It is this moment that tells me this. No worries. Once again, just do it.

The novel burst another seam last night and I realized more of the pattern of what I am trying to do. To Bryan who suggested I fictionalize my angst, my catharsis, I tip my hat. It has made all the difference. And to Eileen, too. "Stop thanking us," I can hear them say. "Do it."

"See if you can do it," I suspect Bryan would say. And for the first time in my dysfunctional writing life, I see that I can, and even if it is riddled with problems, they are my problems. I see the horizon. I'm back in the innertube on Lake Huron, staring at the horizon.

And it is good.