I woke up early and ran downtown, hoping to see the 9/11 light memorial, which I read was going to be left on until dawn. By the time I got to 14th Street, though, I was lost in other thoughts and forgot to look south. (Duh.) When I *did* remember — at some point in the twenties — I turned around and saw what looked more like a bright moon behind the clouds than twin columns of light. It was a little disappointing, but I had other things to ponder and appreciate (or dread), like the cool breeze that had finally replaced the unbearable humidity and the many, many miles that remained in my run (but not as many as there had once been).
Today was also the first time I ran with a new watch that I recently bought when a button on my old one began to stick. After doing some research on running watches circa 2020, I was quickly overwhelmed and bought the same (mildly upgraded) model I already had, which has GPS and pretty much nothing else, although it does track pace, strides, and elevation. I was tempted to get one that measured heart rate and [a million other things], but I feared losing myself in the ‘data’ of running, which — like the data of everything else — is so much more of A Thing these days than it used to be. I have a friend from my high school cross-country team who — unless he’s training for a race — never wears a watch, and sometimes that thought appeals to me, but not enough to cut the cord, because I’ve become addicted to reliving my route on the app. I like knowing the precise number of miles I ran instead of the estimates I used to make in the past. That said, I’m often struck by how much more of our lives we record than we used to, and I increasingly ask myself whether there’s any point in having this record, particularly when you consider the burden of organizing it. Anyway, I bought the watch and was happy when the button worked.
This week I published a piece, written at the request of my publisher, on the topic of how I became a writer, along with some of the privileges I’ve enjoyed along the way. More specifically, it’s about a Very Easy job I once had, which gave me the time to research and write my first novel. It’s something I’ve (half) joked about in the past without considering the job — and the time it provided — in a larger social/political/economic context, which I now wanted to do in light of our failing government and the critical need for a new and better one.
It felt good to write again (outside of this blog), which is something — longer writing — that has fallen by the wayside for me over the past six months. Like many others, I find it difficult to maintain a level of sustained concentration. There’s more time to write, but I can’t escape the feeling that we’re on the precipice of something that, whatever it is, will make a new novel seem even more superfluous than usual. Do I really want to spend 7000 hours at this point laboring over a work of fiction? I’m not sure, but it’s not a question I would have asked myself a year ago.
As we begin the seventh month of the Covid era, I’m learning to appreciate what I think about as small, low-stakes respites from what so often seems like a death spiral of our society. One example is to stopping on my daily run to spend a few minutes watching the sunrise on the Hudson.
Another example is writing and recording a song, which — in contrast to a novel — can be done in a few days. It feels good to finish something in the middle of so much uncertainty. I’m hoping that, when I return to writing, I can bring some of the improvisational spirit to the venture, which can lead to some interesting (or at least unexpected) results. Here’s my latest 🙂
Here’s a link to the song and the isolation playlist.
After six months, I’m not sure how long it’s going to take to reach the other side, or even what the other side looks like.
