--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > This is just so sweet, Marek. And reminiscent of a former TM > girlfriend of mine, who was for a time an L.A. stockbroker. > That meant that she had to "start work" at some gawdawful hour > of the early morning (7:00 AM) to be there at their desks to > catch the "morning bell" on the East coast markets. So did > many of her friends at the trading desk. > > They all went surfing first. > > That just blew my mind then, and continues to now. Such > dedication to catching the wave of one's personal buzz as a > preface to catching the wave of one's career buzz. > > You're a fortunate dude, to be able to incorporate your personal > buzz into your career buzz. But I guess you know that.
I'm going to continue to riff on your excellent post, Marek, because it got me to thinking about what my morning routine involves. It is far more sedentary, and thus far less healthful, than yours. :-) But it also involves trying to catch the wave. I am a fortunate frood -- especially in this economy -- in that my Day Job can be performed at home, and to my own schedule. Hell, in this economy I'm fortunate even to *have* a Day Job. This allows me some luxury in terms of my lifestyle. Because I alternate periods of writing for those who currently pay me to do it (my Day Job) with periods of writing just for the fuck of it, I occasionally find myself in need of a "jumpstart" to the writing process whichever mode I find myself in. I could sit at the desk in my room and "try" to get into the writing mindset (in either mode), and -- given enough time -- that would work. But I'm a lazyass American at heart, and I'm just not all that willing to sit back and allow inspiration to come on its own. Sometimes I want to just goose the sucker in the butt with a cattle prod and get the show on the road. What I do when I feel like that is bundle up my laptop (my counterpart, I would guess, to your wetsuit and board), and walk out of my house in search of The Perfect Cafe. The choice is not always an easy one. There are any number of neat cafes within a five-minute walk from my house. Each is unique, and each has its own "writing environment." Are your favorite surf spots *unique*, in that they have qualities that no other surf spot has, and thus draw out different things from you when you surf them? Duh. So are my cafes. I choose them based on pure intuition. Which cafe "feels right" for me this morning? And that intuition is rarely wrong. Some cafes are good for sitting and writing fiery shit. Other cafes are good for sitting and writing more laid-back spiritual shit. The only question in choosing the cafe du jour is what kind of shit feels like it should come out of me that particular morning. But it always does. I sit down at the cafe table, often completely devoid of ideas about what to write about. I order a coffee, wait for it to arrive, sip it, and ideas of what to write about begin to appear. It's magic. It's like sitting out there on your board, hoping but not really expecting, just "in place" in case a cool wave comes by. When one does, it's magic. You paddle like crazy and climb right up on that wave's ass and try your best to ride it, whether you're using a board, or a keyboard.
