An easy day. I wake up late, have my usual breakfast for lunch instead. Sit on the back porch with my tea and journal and watch the tops of trees I don’t know the names of move. We’ve had more sun these last few weeks and the world feels big again. Maybe my mood’s just better. I clean my room, empty the wastebaskets, restock the fridge. I eat two Five Guys burgers. I buy some clothes, which I don’t do that often. I’ll go without buying anything for months and then in a span of a few days I’ll have a new uniform. Sometimes they’re spurred by season, these changes, this need to set things in order. Other times it comes from inside, like how people cut or dye their hair after a breakup. We undergo some transformation but when we look in the mirror it doesn’t feel right to see the same person as before. We long for continuity.
I start on the next draft of the novel tomorrow. My purpose is clearer this time around, the work more focused. I was juggling eight grapefruits and now I’m down to four. My energy has been roused, it’s coming from a steadier place. There are unknowns, always, but to paraphrase a sports saying: That’s why you write the book.
My roommate is sitting at the dining table, working on her laptop (I’m on the couch writing to you). She tells me the eclipse is happening – oh yeah, that’s tonight. We go out on back porch to watch the earth’s shadow gradually overtake the moon. I muse about the best times of year for a Five Guys burger (when it’s either really cold or really hot) and I try to imagine what people tens of thousands of years ago thought was happening up there. A heavenly pearl growing a new skin? A giant lizard rolling its eye. A sly squirrel stealing an egg from the dark nest, and a new one laid in its place.