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Lately I’ve felt like I have very little to write — not so much writer’s block but writer’s nihilism; indifference; emptiness. It is much better to have something to express and lack the means of expression, than it is to have the means of expression but nothing to express.
I’m in Grand Central Station, in one of the cafes, with a tall cup of coffee. I’m watching a heroin (an educated guess) addict reunite, awkwardly, with his very concerned bourgeoisie mother. It is a strange scene: the mother can clearly afford to stay at a nice hotel; the son, unshaven, practically in rags — mumbling and erratic — bobs around, talking to strangers, to the great embarrassment of his mother.
Having grown up in a basically comfortable suburban community, the child of baby boomers, I know this scene well — many of the people I grew up with are struggling to attain the quality of life they grew up with; are passing into an underclass, an invisible class, of drugs and poverty. All of the examples I can think of, incidentally, are men.
I’ve been in New York for too long — I can’t really get away, at all, for the summer, and so the best I can do are take little spiritual vacations within the city itself. It’s not easy to do this: to remain at home while breaking with one’s routines; feeling a sense of freedom and newness associated with travel.
