One — Morning Pages. I know, I know, I’m not supposed to be…
By: R. J. Miller
Tags: Life, Loss, Birthday, Writing, The Artists Way

© TarcherPerigee

I know, I know, I’m not supposed to be doing this on the computer, but rather in my Morning Pages Books, which I bought for just such a purpose. But since I thought this wasn’t really the Full Version of The Artist’s Way, but rather the Scott McDonald Version of The Artist’s Way, I thought I too could instill new dimensions never before considered in following The Way. The Tao, in a way. It’s hard for me not to look up at the screen and react to those squiggly red lines and just keep plugging away with all my hopes and fears tagging right along. But that’s just the way it’s going to have to be. Trying to teach myself better discipline and this might be a fine way to start. Besides, I can always go back when I finish and correct them. That way I’ll have something to look forward to when I’m finished. Yeah, what a sad bastard I am. And I’m not doing three pages either. I’m guessing that one page typed equals roughly three pages written by hand in a book with lines. It’s really hard not to stop and re-read what I’ve written. Damn, this could be a very good thing for me, to teach me how to let my creativity flow better. And it’ll all be Scott’s fault. The crazy Scottish bastard. Well, at least he’s not fat. But do I digress? Surely! Don’t I always? And isn’t this the perfect forum to do such things, giving myself the ultimate freedom to do whatever the hell I want? And it’s good for me too, because, really, if truth be told, I do find myself to be quite anal at times. I appreciate structure and abhor the common blemish of a mistake. Only bad thing about writing on the computer however is that I can’t do it outside on the balcony when the weather’s nice. But since the weather hasn’t been terribly sunny this summer, which is not necessarily to say bad, I guess it’ll all work out in the end. I turned 34 yesterday and it seems to have been the longest birthday of my life. I guess I started Friday night by purchasing myself a bottle of VS Cognac and getting through almost the entire bottle while speaking to my mother for six hours until 04:30 in the bleeding morning. I cried like a mother as well, while my real mother read me a letter she wrote to my father about how he should keep in contact with his children. Man, that really brought back all those distant feelings of abandonment and longing, which were then once again reawakened when my wife left me almost two-and-a-half years ago. I pretty much edited all day on Saturday with something very much resembling an almost debilitating hangover. But, as they, the Austrians, say: Selber schuld! Yeah, yeah, yeah…. I know. The last time I wrote my morning pages was on 28 May after deciding that it really was over for my shattered marriage. Wrote a bit about meeting Angina for the last time and the tremendous distance and emptiness and apathy in her voice and in those vacant brown eyes of hers. But, oh, well. Ce la vie, mon cherie. One day, brother, one day, I shall be happy enough to light the earth for at least a day or two. But, of course, that is not really my ultimate goal. I think it is the mere act of chasing happiness, which in a way pushes it off, as if we were both in an impenetrable bubble that can never be dissolved unless absolutely no action is taken. I think there is something to that, but I’m not exactly sure what. The Buddhist way seems to be to do nothing and everything will come to you, while the Christian way is to ask and you shall receive. But I don’t think this thing can be broken down so black and whitely. I like writing words that don’t really exist, like “whitely”. But maybe it does exist because it isn’t getting any red marking for a misspelling. Damn, I’m almost at the end of the page and feel like I have a few hours’ worth of writing still in me. But I have discipline.