Today I am distracted. Something has preoccupied me and slowed me down all day. On my way to the Starbucks after work, I thought about turning down the street towards home but then I remembered the word "discipline". That's what it's all about, right, doing something regardless of how you feel. It's a routine, something you train yourself to do again and again. Then one day it takes on a life of its own. It may not feel great or inspired, but the training continues. The work goes on. The creative muscles must be flexed and stretched and molded. The practice, the focus, the word searching, the cutting and pasting, it becomes a tonic and a structural support around which all else may fall away.
Jessica sat facing me in her green armchair with a mug of water on the small table next to her, the one that held the Kleenex and the small clock which faced her. I sat in the middle of the couch and looked at the floor trying to get up the nerve to spit out my words. I had decided that this would be the day that I would tell her but now that I was there the words wouldn’t come out. It was like like the time my mom stopped me in in the hallway. I was naked with a towel wrapped around my little body. Perhaps I just felt naked or perhaps I’m remembering the black and white snapshot of me, naked and bent over sideways with a towel wrapped around my shoulders, and have inserted that snapshot into this memory. I had just gotten out of her bathtub and was making my way down the hall to my room when my mom called to me from behind. “Were you the one who left the heater on?” she asked in a tone. You know the one. It's the tone that says she already kno...
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