As the famous troubadour pictured above once sang, it seems the nearer your destination, the more you’re slip slidin’ away.
(That’s Paul Simon for you youngsters who don’t recognize anyone holding one of those old-fashioned things called “guitars.”)
I am 64, to be 65 in November. My mom died at 83, my dad at 88. No matter which way you slice it, I’m looking at maybe 20 good years of writing before I’m done on this earth.
So how am I spending my precious last few years? Writing like a madman? Scribbling in the corners of the corners of the day? Working late into the night to make sure the brilliant novels I carry in my head are fully realized?
No. Last Sunday night I watched Columbo on MeTV, an episode I hadn’t seen in 50 years. Last night, after I dragged my weary carcass home from an all-day court hearing in which the opposing lawyer thrashed and stumbled for 8 friggin’ hours. Then I took my ex wife out for dinner at Olive Garden, serves her right. Then I went home and took a CBD gummy to sleep through the night. Right now I am preparing to drive to Joshua Tree for a case this afternoon.
Not a word of writing in there. I haven’t even gotten to my comic space opera, “A Ship Named Sheila” for three days. (About which I will write in another blog entry soon.)
It isn’t that I have writer’s block. As I wrote previously, my big problem is that I have too many good ideas rattling around in my brain and need to work diligently so that the best of them come to life. No, my problem is time and energy. When I have the time, I don’t have the energy. When I have the energy, I need to expend it on my law practice.
Even writing this little blog becomes a challenge. It’s 9:50 a.m. as I write this. I need to get to working on my cases so that I can leave at 11:30 to drive to Joshua Tree and get there by 1:30.
(Don’t ask why I’ve got a case 90 minutes from my office.)
As the poet Marvell noted, when telling his coy mistress that if he had time enough and love that his vegetable love would grow vaster than empires and more slow:
Yeah, those deserts of vast eternity haunt my dreams.
It’s my fault, really. I shouldn’t care. It’s not as if I’ve set the world on fire with my writing. It’s not as if some big publisher is patiently waiting for my next brilliant book. It’s not like my fans are complaining that it’s been a month since I did anything good.
But once one gets it into one’s head that one is a writer, all logic goes out the window. One keeps writing because one never knows if the next foolish thing one writes will be the thing one is remembered for. And why one worries about being remembered after one is dead is one foolish worry.
But one is the loneliest number, and writing is the loneliest profession. And a man can confuse himself if he keeps referring to himself as “one.”
See? It’s 10 a.m. and the most productive thing I’ve done this morning is write this blog. I suppose it’s writing of a sort. After all, recently 15 people looked at this blog. Can’t let the magic 15 down!
But…well, I know myself well. I have an ugly feeling I’ll be 79 and ready to make the final turn toward the Big Forever, telling myself “I can still write a few good books.”
Then I’ll turn on MeTV and Columbo. Because it’s one I haven’t seen for a while.
(For a list of the top Columbo Episodes of all time, go here.)
Mark Bruce, Writer 