Monday morning, I woke up in a mild stupor. I did nothing all morning. Sure, I did some administrative tasks, fiddled with chores around the house, made vague plans to write, plan the week’s meals, go for a brisk walk.
I did none of those things. As a result, I had a terrible day. I was cranky with myself, disappointed with myself.
On Tuesday, I woke up at the same time, pattered about having breakfast and bonding with the Today Show, tidying dishes and books from the night before. I threw on sweats, my red fleece hoodie and sneakers, and took off for an hour around the neighborhood. I passed the pedestrian steps for the Triboro and on a whim, climbed up there. I ended up walking all the way to the second pillar of the bridge, above the Ward Island Park. Up in the center-most part of the suspension bridge, there’s no chicken wire, and you’re fifteen feet above the cars and four hundred feet above the East River. It’s not exaggerating to say it’s fucking brilliant up there.
I got the heart rate pumping, smiling like an idiot at the sun and wind and crisp city skyline to my left. I turned around and headed back, passing a couple of bikers who smiled back because we were sharing a day when so many other people were inside. I got home energized, downed a bottle or two of water, took a shower and made myself a yoghurt and tea mid-day snack, and settled down to the computer. And then I wrote nearly two thousand words in less than two hours.
I’ve been absorbing and processing the difference in days since then. The key to feeling better about this tenuous, self-reliant lifestyle is doing the things that make my days better, that give me a sense of satisfaction at the end of them. Tempting as laziness and procrastination are – and looking at September through December, they are astoundingly tempting – they don’t make me feel better.
So far, 2007 marks the first time I followed the only real resolution I made – make the changes that you want, the changes that support this less beaten lifepath you’re taking. It hasn’t been perfect; there are glitches like Monday. I can’t pinpoint why I only wrote 2000 of my projected 4000 weekly words a few weeks ago. But amazingly, astoundingly, it’s working at maybe a 75% success rate. I’m actually doing the things I know I need to do to make my days better.
I guess what I’m saying is, I never quite grasped what a whole-life approach was. I thought that the only thing that would make it easier to write was just to WRITE. But it turns out, it helps to wake up early, get some exercise, know there’s lunch in the fridge, do the chores when they demand doing, get eight hours of sleep, and enjoy your evenings and weekends. It turns out when I do other things right, the writing comes a lot easier.
Who knew, right? I must be growing up.

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