The Evening Series: Thursday, July 27, 2017

The Evening Series: Thursday, July 27, 2017

I spend the day looking forward to 7 pm.  Cocktail hour.  I think if I stood in front of the blank computer screen it would make the time go faster.  It doesn’t.   I pretty much schedule my day on a daily basis.  I know exactly when I wake up, which is 7 am, and I know when I will have my first cup of black coffee.  I then start writing, or to be honest, think about writing, and then when I put my first word on the page, it’s lunch time.  I then have lunch which is usually something that puts me to sleep. I go to the couch and read, which means I close my eyes for 40 minutes or so.  When I wake up or should say, when I leave the couch, I come back to the computer to do some more work.  I put the first word on the page, and then think about changing that word.  This goes on until 7 pm when I have my first sip of white wine. 

When I am drinking wine, I don’t want to see or hear from anyone.  One may call me on the phone, but there shall be nothing but silence on the other end.  I reserve this time for me and my thoughts.  Not saying that this is anything different from the daily writing chore I put myself through.  To focus on oneself takes a great deal of concentration.  I think therefore I am. 

I have been working on a short story that is taking a long time to complete.   From the very first day, I hated the story.  Yet, I felt compelled to finish the narrative.  It’s a strange thing to struggle on a piece of writing that one hates, and going through the motion of trying to complete it.  You have no interest in the story, so, therefore, who can appreciate this tale that has no or gives no pleasure whatsoever.  It’s maddening.  The waste of the hours to work on such folly is a terror.  Then again, there are pieces of literature that I have been working on and off for the last 40 years.  It sucked 40 years ago, and it still sucks today.  Why it was just yesterday that I added a sentence to the work that has no beginning and no end. 

As the daylight gets darker, and head towards the night, I think about the day, and how I wasted it with little or no effort on my part.  My existence has no meaning to no one  Yet; my only friend is the minutes that pass me by, without even looking back.  I’m on the Titanic, and as I go down, I notice time is mocking me from a great distance.  If I stay alive, it is only to mark my time here as a form of habit.  I collect time like a little girl who keeps up her Barbie collection in order.  

I have memories of the time that is neither good or bad.  Sentimental feelings went down the bathtub drain, as I sat in the luke warm water complimenting the passage of time.  The subject matter of time, as the foundation for one’s narrative, is a tricky procedure.  How does a writer express the anxiety that comes with moments passing by, and not coming to any conclusion, except that the journey from Point A to Point B is an emotional disaster?   The adventure is the destination to who knows where.  “Ordinary life doesn’t interest me.”  I realize that I have no interest whatsoever in anything to do with entertaining another.  For the reader, I can’t imagine the horror of reading this text.     

- Tosh Berman