Planted

It's been my here-and-there custom to spend some of my New York days in Marc and Floyd's swanky Murray Hill apartment where Marco and I have established a rather lovely writing discipline:

A white porcelain tray full of tea things (including a white cow-shaped creamer...for milk, get it?) sits on the tv-stand-gone-coffee-table where we both take turns resting our feet and/or our laptops. The two of us sit languidly on the oversized red couch strewn with notebooks, scraps of paper, and reference books. We stare out the large windows overlooking the East Manhattan skyline as it stair-steps toward the river, contemplating the next line, paragraph, chapter. And we take the occasional break to brew more tea, grill a ham and cheese sandwich, or hit the John.

All in all, I'd say we're both happy as clams about the whole setup.

Just today, having dug up an old piece of somethingorother I had tucked away in a forgotten notepad, I began transcribing some of my hurried scrawl, editing along the way, and my eventual product was something unlike anything I had crafted before. It was concise without a hint of terseness, imaginative without losing a strong descriptive foothold, and had a literary risk to it that I normally reserve for love letters.

Marco was wonderfully supportive and showered me with accolades (which was a much-needed bit of affirmation) and now I have the pleasure of going about the rest of my day with a delightful sense of new possibility. I only hope that in continuing in this piece I'll maintain the gravity of the beginning.