I paid $92 a couple of months ago for the privilege of riding my bicycle 38 miles through the five boroughs of New York City.   Thousands do this ride every May, I’ve done it several times.  Sections of highways are closed as motorists seethe, and it is very cool to be biking on the FDR, the Belt Parkway, across the 59th Street and Verrazano bridges.  The trouble is, I hadn’t been on a bike in months.   Last night I took my 7th ride in 11 days, getting my legs and lungs ready for that long ride.

But that’s not the point, nor should anybody be particularly interested.  In fact, there is little reason for anybody to be interested in what comes next– and I can say that with confidence, even as what comes next, at the moment, is an expanse of white below the words I’m typing now.    

I like to draw and I have become addicted to certain drawing implements lately.  If I don’t have a black ink filled brush (calli free-flowing waterproof black) , a yellow ink (Winsor Newtown’s beautiful Winsor Yellow) filled brush, black and red calligraphy pens in two widths, a .9 mm mechanical pencil and a few other odd devices, I am desperate.  I look over at the metal mug filled with them and I feel happy.  Leave one of them at home, I am bereft.  I have extras, empty and ready, in a drawer against the possibility I might lose one of these marvelous drawing implements.  I say again, I love to draw.  I cannot help it.

But I am not organized about it, do not sell the drawings, or send them anywhere to be published.  I rarely even think to give them as gifts.  I’m sure the ones I do give most often get lost, or tossed.   So I draw something and put it to the side.  Another drawing goes on top, but not in a neat pile, there are other things under the drawings.  A bunch of cables for electronic devices, a coil of wire, some one-hand folding knives, a bank statement, metal rulers, a roll of gaffer’s tape, phone charger, digital recorder, wire bound and other notebooks, music– I can see the corner of the lead sheet for Body and Soul winking out at me as I tap here.  The desk, as large as a door, is basically two precariously piled haystacks of drawings and other items, with a little space in the middle, under the computer screen.

The leak in my ancient bathroom sink (it has two spigots, one for hot, the other for cold) had become a waterfall in recent weeks.  I ran into the super and he told me he could come by any time to fix it, I just had to call him.  Weeks went by as I glanced at the floor, which had become an extension of the desk, the kitchen table, papers spilled in an avalanche, papers I daintily stepped over.   I could not expect the super to do this dainty dance.  I realized, to my horror, I’d have to make a wide, clear path from the front door to the bathroom.

This may sound like common sense, something every five year-old learns “pick your damned stuff off the floor!”.   Well, common sense, as Sekhnet’s mother used to say, is not so common.  But marshaling my will, at last, I made a clear path to the bathroom, the super came up, and after a titanic struggle that involved taking the immense, heavy top off the antique pedestal sink, he was able to install two shiny new faucets.  For the first time in months the sound of running water is not coming from the bathroom.  It’s almost eerie how quiet it is here, with just the computer and refrigerator purring at me.  

“Was there some point to this?” a poor soul, tried beyond silence, will ask.

Uh, only that I spent over an hour yesterday making some small progress in tidying this place.  And that if I could put in another hour today, and one more on Wednesday, and so forth, I might again have an apartment where people could feel comfortable sitting, where Sekhnet could spend time without leaping out of her skin, hopping on to the back of her skeleton and skittering out the door screaming.