Bhagwan @ Large

The things we do at night

A throwaway line in a campy movie I love reads thusly:

“Character is what you are in the dark.”

Of late, I’ve been thinking a lot about who I am and what I do. I haven’t written a word of fiction in over two months, but the stories are still in my head, jostling for position.

Am I in fact still a writer?

The answer of course, is yes. I will never stop being a writer, despite periods of low productivity. I think about Stanley Kubrick and Terence Malick, universally acclaimed directors who worked only when they felt like working. While I make no claim to their level of talent, I feel connected to them in this way.

It’s not about the money, and never has been. It’s not about the word count. It’s really not even about the content, though WHAT I write really tells me a lot about WHY I write it. I am actually more prolific than many of my peers in terms of both content and output, but very few people reading this have ever experienced a world of my creation.

I write because I have to. It’s who I am. A part of my soul I can neither identify or ignore.

At night, when I lie down the last thing I see before the light goes out is a book. It’s the first thing I see in the morning when I wake up, and when preparing for my day I think to myself, “do I have room in my bag for a book” or “what am I reading today.”

My characters are like my cats. They need feeding periodically, but they really don’t care what I do as long as I provide them a place to live and the occasional attention. I’d like to promise that I’ll write more, but those are just words. And the cats don’t care anyway, it’s time for their food.

In a room with thousands of dollars of computer hardware, with the lights on and cats circling. I am surrounded on all sides by books, some of which are the fruits of my labor. I can reach out my hand and touch almost everything I have ever created.

And still there are no words ready to write.

In September and October I revised (read rewrote) nearly 200000 words of text, a complete rework of two novels and three short pieces. A stark look at both who I am and who I was. One of those volumes is in the hands of a friend, and the other is waiting for me to feed it. Three stories went out into the world, and one has come back home with the nicest and most informative rejection letter ever.

And then I stopped writing.

I carry a bag containing needed items. Or rather, I carried it daily for the better part of three years. In the mornings when I prepare for my day, the question of what belongs in that bag is always asked, but since I stopped writing the question of whether to carry it at all is more important. As long as it is no, I feel I won’t write.

I can point more or less exactly to the moment when I stopped carrying it. It’s when I took my computer out to help a friend with some technological woes. I never repacked the bag, never carefully arranged my life so that the technology I “need” to be a writer is at hand and paired with the brown notebook containing the things I “have” to write. In a week when I considered buying two completely new computers, this feels like an active betrayal of self.

I’m not sure how to resolve this. I continue to type here, instead of rising to repack the bag. I did get up earlier to feed the cats, but instead of feeding myself at the same time, I returned to the words.

Perhaps I am still a writer after all.

Mrrs and Brrs

It’s the middle of the night, or more accurately, the start of the morning. Today is a good day–I’ve only been up for an hour. To my left the elder cat has gone berserk, convinced that my disinterest in her plight is really rapt attention. Cat the younger sits beside with a truly piteous look, just happy to be in the room but also wanting the same things.

FUDS! LAPS!

They attempt various ploys for both. Medea’s favorite trick is to jump four feet into the air, bringing all four feet down on my keyboard as I type. Maleficent’s is to come up beside, give a long low MrrrrroW? and then stare longingly with those magnificent gold eyes.

Lucky for them, I have a heart of stone. It’s shower time, and then on to the workplace for another day of joyous creativity and problem solving. I too require noms, but years of iron self discipline enable me to work long hours with the gnawing void. I’ve got a robe on against the NovCember chill, and am envious of the gatos’ sleek fur and seeming indifference to the environment.

The cats? not so much. Free feeding was my norm for both cats and self for 30 + years, and to be perfectly honest I was the only one getting fatter. Today’s cat food is better, more nutritious, and sadly higher in calories than the kibble I dribbled out to my furry companions over the decades. Just a small scoop at dawn and dusk is enough to keep them going all day, and a small amount of overage is enough to pack on the pounds.

Why is it that our pet food is so much more advanced and balanced than people food? We’ve been feeding people a really long time, and should have some inkling of what it takes to sustain a healthy body. Are we really so inefficient? To be fair, it is expensive, but it’s a fraction of the cost we spend on the two humans in the house. One bag (which lasts the better part of a month) costs less than half what we spent on a “simple” meal out Monday night.

Less than half.

I have a theory, and I’m sure people won’t like it. Cats lead better lives than we do. They know how to manage their resources. They understand and adapt to their environments far better than we, and though just as hungry at 6 AM, they can go without for a while longer. Were I to let them out, they’d secure breakfast in short order, find a nice cozy spot to nap in, then arrive faithfully at my door for a lap when they felt I was deserving.

The cats ask not, they tell. Or more specifically, they act. When she’s ready for a lap, she jumps right up and settles in. When they know I need to be up (to feed and pet them, of course), it’s circus time with hilarious and frustrating antics. when it’s time to go upstairs, downstairs, or to chase a crinkly ball, they just do it.

Cats are not polite. They feel no guilt for taking “right” actions, nor should they. They realized millenia ago what the optimal living conditions are : make the monkeys do it.

When Humans try this, we get fat, overworked, and in need of chemical support to operate each day. But when people take right actions, a wonderful transformation takes place.

People are happy, live better lives, and have time to cuddle with a cat or the monkey of their choice.

Have to go, someone’s running up and down the stairs. It’s still an hour till I’ll realize the rightness of their actions and fill the bowls, but it is so very fun to watch.