A gluttony I am choosing to ride….

Multiple browser tabs open. Two books. A fiction novel building in the wings. Notebooks in my bag, notebooks in my pocket, catching flying thoughts and muse dictation before they evaporate. Writing like I am running down the sand dunes of Malibu as a kid, or the Atacama during an ultra.

Arms out, laughing, absolutely no brakes.

It is FUN. I want to be clear about that. This is the good stuff.

But I paused this morning.

A little frustrated. As I have been most of my life. The hours between waking and sleeping refuse to stretch no matter how hard I pull at them. And then, with a loud gong, it clicked.

My behavior with writing is eerily linked to my drinking habits of not too long ago.

There. I said it.

When I was in control, it was martinis and red wine. Elegant. Intentional. Mine. But when I stepped over the line, stepped in the hole, invited the wine witch demon in like a vampire. Opened the door myself. It became something else entirely. Frantically reaching for any bottle in the cabinet. Would anyone notice the sherry gone? The good scotch down a few inches? Is that leftover wine we saved for cooking?

I am embarrassed to see those words. And I am embracing that Iris with compassion and observation, both hands open.

She was trying to fill something. Or let something out. Maybe both.

Either way I understand the frantic now. The search for an answer, knowing all too well it isn’t in a bottle. The hunger for dark, quiet, nothing needed of me.

What I try to observe now is this torrent. This rush of words flying out of me at all hours. The tabs. The notebooks. The muse arriving at 3am with zero regard for my sleep score.

This is my gluttony. And unlike the other kind, I am choosing to ride it rather than cork it.

Here is what I am practicing: balance on the surfboard. Work, home, family shifting underneath me. Just as I find my footing and take a few good breaths, a sip of oxygen, writing instead of scrolling (yes Iris, THIS is the way), the universe hurls a fish directly at my head. Upturns the board. Cackles with absolute delight.

WEEE.

And isn’t that exactly it? We cannot see ahead. We don’t know what’s coming. The only move is to enjoy the now, make it the best now available. Surf the waves while you build up your core. So when you do wipe out you laugh heartily, shake off the water, come up with a funny name for your new bruise (“Brutus” was my latest one) and climb back on.

This morning I can see something on the horizon. A whale I am naming Moby Dick, and he seems intent on upturning my surfboard with me on it. The particular madness of running an arts organization in New York City. The beautiful, crushing, never-ending privilege of it.

Bring it on, bitch.

I’ll be the one with all the tabs open.

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This essay first appeared in Camera Dark Notes, my newsletter. Subscribe there for field notes from the work in progress, every other Sunday.