Appliances hum, the sun has not yet come up; I wait for the oatmeal to cook, the coffee-grounds to steep in the French press. Life is something more and less than this — this moment of exhausted inertia. I went to bed less than five hours before; having celebrated a successful closing night of my play. Over the weekend, I was a successful and feted young playwright in Manhattan, this morning, I am a struggling school-teacher in a run-down part of Brooklyn. But teaching pays the bills and the regular work is a source of pride — thus, this Monday morning of re-calibration to the working world. There is no alternate world where I am just an artist and do nothing else; where all the dimensions of my life are artistic or beautiful. The money-requirement will never go away; my books and plays will never sell enough copies to support me — and I’m not sure that they’re supposed to. My living room is cut off from sunlight by two bedrooms which steal all the apartment’s window-access; it is poorly designed, I feel like I’m living in a cell. It’s only when I begin my morning run that do I feel awake, or human (whatever than means). The sun rises while I’m running. As it always does. And I never know what that means either.
