DH and Bean played and napped for 4 hours this afternoon while I got some real writing time in. I went to Borders, ordered an iced latte and a walnut cranberry cookie and plugged in my laptop next to an old man with a leather hat and a newspaper at the counter that faces out into the store. With Stan Getz on my ipod, and the background bustle of people coming and going around me, I was finally able to focus on my writing long enough to actually figure out what the hell I'm trying to write. I forget, until I have long stretches of time like this, what it feels like to really WRITE. To move past the snatched observations and the background twitter of my brain overloaded. At home, invariably, I distract myself. I get sidetracked into the minutia of crap I convince myself I need to do. But at Borders, where my worst vice is people watching, I more or less stick to what I'm there for: navigating the terrain of the story on my brain.
It's a crazy process. I feel like the blind lady I see around town often. She taps her way down familiar streets with hardly any hesitation. But when she comes to a crosswalk, or a change in pavement; a new flowerbox perhaps, or a heap of fallen leaves, she hesitates. Tapping the obstacle's outline with her stick until she knows its shape. Until she knows how to proceed.