March 1999 Archives

8:29 PM, Wednesday night. All this bright air and the vivid emergence of spring flowers has me feeling open and kinetic. I want to change things, get out and about, party...buy a new car.

Instead, I blew my nose a lot today and ordered some new CDs from Music Boulevard. What the heck -- I’m working my way up to that other stuff...

A while back I was reading through some story fragments that I keep on my hard drive. The files are mostly just little chunks of this and that, experiments, free writing, and well...crap, actually. But there was this one unfinished story that really caught my attention. The thing was extremely sharp, fast and edgy, and barely seemed like something I’d write at all. (Hah. No sarcastic comments!) I read through the story fragment a few times trying to find my way into that frame of mind, trying to get back into that particular groove. But I couldn’t. I’d really like to finish the thing but I don’t want to push and lose the vibe the story has now. It’s frustrating.

Sometimes a certain style will click for me and a story will blossom with hardly any conscious effort on my part. Other times (unfortunately) it is like trying to plant a flowerbed with your eyes closed. I know that, with practice, I should be able to work my way into any kind of groove I need to create a story. However, I wonder if certain works just have to grow on their own terms.

Eventually I will finish that story fragment. I just have to wait for the right inner season...

Anyway, things here are clear and wide. For the first time in months I have my windows open, feeling the air. Soon the hyacinths will be blooming. I bought three CDs today (Dave Matthews, Creed, and Dovetail Joint) and the weekend is just around the corner.

I’m working my way up to it.

--- JWR, 3/31/99

4:44 PM, Tuesday afternoon and the skies are deep and perfect. I don’t get sick often, but since Monday I’ve had a cold that is both annoying and exhausting. Ironic when the weather is so Spring bright and I’d much rather be enjoying things a bit more. Ah well.

I think I’ll go staccato...

Last week, up on the roof with a handful of nuts, washers, and bolts. Nothing but cerulean skies above. Fixing the metal chimney cap. The smell of McDonald’s french fries.

Today, the moon at dawn looks like an impossibly close tangerine disk hovering on the horizon’s edge. It has slipped below by the time I go out to the car.

Roadside daffodils and a bright yellow VW New Beetle with a dusty red flower in its bud vase.

Koi carp and goldfish gliding like bright dreams in the pond.

A scratchy throat and vegetarian hot-dogs for dinner.

I’m worn-out today. I’m going to lounge around for the rest of the evening and then get to bed early. Two and a half teaspoons of sugar in a cup a green tea...

--- JWR, 3/30/99

7:49 PM, sheen...

In the early morning, when sleep is still stretched over the world like a sheet of pale silk, things seem unoccupied and other-worldly. An inveterate night-owl, I’m not normally one to be awake at five AM -- unless I happen to be getting ready for bed, that is. I rose with the sun today, though, and ended up having a pretty productive time of it, getting things done here and there.

It seems to me that morning is composed of three parts. First, there is the illusory beginnings, that stage at the threadbare end of night when the presence of light rises just above the edge of your visual threshold. Almost like being on the edge of sleep, the first stage of morning is a drifting "partially there" moment that seems to pass without you really knowing it.

The second stage is that spectral, pale silk time. The light is cool and covers the world in a soft emptiness. Less tricky than the glimmer-in-the-corner-of-your-eye first stage, the second part of morning is the real thing. But it is still new and vaguely unoccupied. The fact that people are just starting to live in this area of morning gives it a newborn, almost alien aspect. It’s the day’s New Territory -- and a fine time to be driving, watching empty miles of road unroll before you.

Then the third stage of morning arrives. It’s when the light gets hard, bright. When the day machine starts running on all cylinders. The third stage is coffee, traffic, car phones, radios...and work. In a busy montage of engines and activity, this stage blurs, eventually, into full-fledged daytime.

I’ve never been much of a morning person -- but the time does have its pretty parts. Especially that second stage sheen...

--- JWR, 3/29/99