This is a bit of a #ulog about my daily routine.
I realized the other day that I could pretty much write one journal entry that would cover my entire year - my routine has become that entrenched. Part 1 is here.
That's not to say it's particularly interesting. But since this is the first period of my life in which I really enjoy where I'm going every day, I figured it was worth sharing - or at least worth celebrating for myself.
I wake naturally at 5. The alarm is set for 6 but I haven't needed it in months. Check the time on my phone. Try not to get embroiled/distracted by messages on Steemit. Fail a little. Stand, walk. Pour coffee. Pack pipe.
Sit down in my office and write for an hour or two. Longhand. Watch the beginning of the sunrise. In a few weeks, as the days lengthen, I’ll be watching the end of the sunrise at this hour. Watch the way the pipe smoke bellows and traces shifting landscapes beneath the shade of the desk lamp. Attempt to launch a smoke ring towards the beam of light.
Wonder if I should attempt to write some fiction, or if just rambling in this journal is enough. (Enough for who?) A theory: if I do this for enough days I’ll get tired of writing about myself and will have to start telling stories out of sheer boredom. But after 42 years it’s looking unlikely that will ever happen. Maybe I’m just too much of a narcissist. Although it would be cool to emulate Trollope, who penned a shelf of lengthy novels in the early morning hours before his shifts at the post office.
I put down the pen at 7:00. This leaves exactly half an hour for the shit/shower/shave ritual. (Confession: I don’t always shower.) Dress and chat with the wife, who is in bed with the laptop making her rounds on Steemit. Also bring her a cup of coffee. Put on a tie, which isn’t required but is the quickest and easiest way to garner a certain baseline level of attention and respect from strangers in the day ahead. (Why don’t more people realize this? I walk out of the back room at work with a tie on and customers assume I’m the owner.)
Pack the second pipe of the day and head out to the car. On the 30 minute drive to the train station, listen to the music Spotify’s algorithm has selected for me this week - and if some artist seems particularly intriguing, delve deeper.
Or I just savor the sounds of the car while I smoke: the hiss of the tires and the whistle of the wind past the cracked window, the baseline rumble of the engine getting louder as my muffler deteriorates.
If I’ve left myself enough time, I can take the back road, a rural route past homes, farmland, businesses, and old New England churches, and which is usually wreathed in fog and slanting sunlight at this hour.
Else - the highway, a sort of monotonous desert stretch where the cars feel stationary and the land passes underneath in a foreshortened dream, but which, in a way, leaves more empty mental space for contemplation. The mind wanders and sometimes inspiration strikes and I’m left with mental notes - the start of a post, something to write about - or more likely be forgotten.
Park at the station and walk to the rearmost car, which has been designated the “quiet car” - a tradition which is only loosely enforced by the conductors, but beloved by introverted misanthropes. Pay the parking charge with the app on my phone. Nod to the conductor as I show her my pass. Eat my breakfast of four hard boiled eggs sprinkled with salt and pepper.
Now comes the first major decision of the day: what to do with this precious hour of enforced idleness?
Read a book? Go on Steemit and catch up on posts? Write something of my own? Stare out the window?
It’s amazing how many options one has, sitting in a seat and rolling along at 60 miles per hour. One can’t be too structured in this life, so I leave the decision to whim and spontaneity. Once made, though, I do try to stick with it for the full hour’s ride. My day is chopped-up enough as it is, and I find that if I don’t give myself a chunk of time here and there to focus on just one thing, I’m left with a shattered, disconnected feeling - as if I haven’t lived through a day at all, but have simply been moved one step closer to the terminus of a game-board by some foreign hand.
Once we arrive in the city we are presented with further choices: Ride the subway, or walk? And if walk, which route? Chinatown, or the shopping district?
Much depends on the season or the weather. Cold and rain favor an underground route, with the bonus of some additional people watching.
But on a clear day, walking the streets above offers the possibility of snatching a few photos. And I can stop for a few minutes at the antiquarian bookseller, where they roll out their offerings into a parking lot, $3 a book in the open air, and where I always find something I’d like to read someday.
But never make a purchase, because I don’t know where I’d put any more books. Browsing is enough.
Stay tuned for part 3 tomorrow (probably) in which we actually get some work done (more or less.)
Unless otherwise stated, photography is the work of the author. Feel free to copy, remix and share photographs from this post according to the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike 4.0 International license.
Camera divider and signature illustration by @atopy.
If you'd like to read more, you can check out a categorized catalog of my posts on Steemit here.
