Somebody working near me is playing that heard-it-a-million-times-in-a-movie-trailer song "Just Breathe". I think that's what it's called. Well, it's the refrain anyway. When it started playing just now I thought she was singing "Just Dream", and for that brief moment I wanted to stand up with my dreams and walk out of the door.
I got to work at 9:03 this morning. I guess I should be proud about that. I don't like 9:00. I like 9:00 when I'm at home writing. I like 9:00 on the train to rehearsal. I like 9:00 boarding a flight to some faraway place where adventure lives. But the beauty of a 9:00 job-for-money still eludes me. I can appreciate this 9:00, I can enjoy it from time to time, but I will never love it and will always want to leave it.
I watched Cormac McCarthy on Oprah last night. He talked about never choosing to live a 9 to 5 existence because life is too short. "Why would you want to spend this ONE chance on the planet doing something you don't like for somebody else?" Or words to that effect. I then spontaneously threw my arms around my head for two reasons. One, because I agreed with him wholeheartedly, and two, because I wanted to shout, "But, Cormac, have YOU ever lived in New York City??? Do you know how to live in this town as a writer or an actor on NO money? Would you walk for hours from Brooklyn for an audition because you can't afford the subway? Would you show up unwashed because you can't afford to have your water turned on? Would you type on stolen paper?"
I think his answer to all of those questions would be a firm but quiet, "Yes." Because he did the same. And then he'd ask me, "What's most important?"
When I was living in Austin, I went to see "American Beauty" with a bunch of friends. We were all crazy with energy afterwards. Fists in the air, a fight fight fight mentality for not wanting to bend to the system and living life as it should be lived...for art! And with no rules! To create! To be free! To LIVE and FEEL and MAKE THIS TIME HERE MATTER. We decided to get up at the crack of dawn, dive into the chilling waters of Barton Springs Pool, and then sit on the couch which sat on the roof of my friend's big ol’ house eating donuts and watching the sunrise. Then we would BE. I remember my friend saying he was going to quit his job making sandwiches in favor of being a musician regardless of the sacrifice. Somebody else wanted to quit waiting tables so she could be a poet. There was talk of doing a group walk-out on all of our jobs the next day. We would rise up together, early every morning, and live the dreams we talked about endlessly. "Life, everybody, is too short not to BE."
We never did jump into that pool, and we never ate donuts on the roof. Work continued the next day on time. And Cormac McCarthy was being a writer somewhere typing punctuationless paragraphs on an old typewriter in a $40-a-day room in which he was already probably behind on the rent.
I admire your spirit and determination, Mr. McCarthy. I can see freedom in the form of cabs and tourists many stories below me, and believe me, I’d love to be down there right now. BUT, right now, I have to carry this spirit in secret because I really do have to pay the rent. I'll carry it just like I used to carry my blankie, though. When I was a kid, my teacher wouldn't let me bring my blanket to school for naptime, so my mom cut a square off of it and tucked it into my sock. “Like a secret,” she said sweetly even though I knew she was really mad at my teacher. She told me to wait until all of the other kids were lying down and the lights were off, then I could take out the blankie from my sock and hold it in my hand. “No one else has to know you’re holding onto it.”
Looking back on it now, though, wouldn’t it have been great if I’d marched back into class with the blanket anyway? Thrown it down during naptime, carefully spread it out, and then screamed, “AHHHHHHH BLANKIEEEEE!” while diving for it triumphantly?
It is 11:30 a.m. as I write this. Yes, I'm supposed to be working. The girl next to me just changed the music, and the refrain is, "Every time you close your eyes! Woo-ooo, woo-ooo! Every time you close your eyes!" Hmmm, must be naptime. And the secret in my sock is scratching. So I'm choosing to walk out without leaving the building. Oh, I’ll walk out for real one day. My dreams definitely have somewhere else to be. But for now, I’m choosing to drift away from the 9 and the 5 in this 20 it takes to be me. To just write words and be free.
