Introspection

My alarm clock had yet to ring. The shades on my window had yet to pass a ray of morning light. I brushed them aside to see the back alley’s streetlights through the 5:00 AM darkness. Then I saw it – the cause of the morning’s rude awakening. The sedan’s headlights were shining their white beams across the narrow road; the brake lights were flashing red and the high-pitched horn blaring like a reveille bugle.

I couldn’t see the driver as bushes obstructed my view but I could see his hat as he opened the door and stood beside the vehicle bellowing in his gruff Queens tone like a bully in a schoolyard, “Goddamn somebody… somebody parked their car and blocked me in. In my own driveway for Christ sake!”

From the thirty or forty apartments that look down into the alley came the sliding woosh of half-a-dozen opening windows then the moan of tired voices calling angrily from their bedrooms on the frigid morning.

“Make some more noise out there, jackass,” I heard one of them say.

“Ring some bells while you’re at it,” came another.

If the driver heard anything, he ignored it and went back to beeping the horn, then held it down for thirty or forty seconds at a time.

Minutes past. More honking. More yelling from the windows, exhaust rising from the sedan’s rear pipes as the morning became more and more gray. The man was getting angrier and angrier. 5:00 AM had become 5:05 then 5:15 and quickly 5:30, the driver’s honks were only punctuated by his fits of door slamming and shouts to the absent owner of the vehicle that blocked his path.

“Blocked in! Goddamn. And in my own driveway!” he said. Then he repeated, “In my own driveway!” He said the phrase over and over at different volumes, saying it as he inhaled, exhaled, huffing and puffing on the words like the expression was a cigarette. He went on honking.

Finally, I threw my own remarks into the alley, opening my third story bedroom window just as the others had, shouting my thoughts down to the man and his vehicle.

“Keep making that noise out there” I bellowed, “and I’m gonna put a baseball bat through your windshield… right in your own driveway!”

I don’t know why I said that. I wasn’t actually mad. I couldn’t even imagine committing such an act. The expression just seemed humorous to me… at least it did for a moment. But as continued with my words, yelling to the driver from the anonymity of my dark window, announcing that honking anymore might result in “four flat tires on your car tomorrow morning… right in your own driveway…” I realized that I wasn’t being as humorous as I’d thought.

Before I could finish what I was saying, the driver bolted from his vehicle to the center of the alley, spinning in circles as he looked up at the windows, frantically searching for his tormentor.

I felt as if I’d just spit on the head of an ant, and now I was watching him steam with anger, disoriented and looking to fight the first person to look at him crossways.

It was a mean and torturous to do to someone who was so obviously already having a horrible morning, a horrible start to the week, a horrible start to 2010, a horrible start to the decade.

I shut the window, the man outside now shouting randomly to all tenants in audible distance of our alley, looking to take on all comers, still waiting for whoever it was who had blocked the driveway. It was a quarter to six and I had to get ready for work, regardless of any horn honking and fist waving.

The early morning excitement now seems only symbolic of the complex emotions I’ve been struggling with at times, especially when waking. Peppered with humor, anger, frustration, loss and loneliness, my emotions have at times been dominating my consciousness, filling my brain like a cloud that obstructs clear vision.

Pulled apart, this ball of emotions is nothing but a compilation of minor nuisances – a little bit of frustration at the slow process en route to my current travel and writing plans, a little bit of anger at myself for suffering needlessly in unhappiness, a tinge of loss from the relationships I can’t keep up, and a streak of loneliness that no amount of sex can cure (why would I assume sex is an antidote for loneliness?).

Life is treating me well. First the first time since 2006, I have my own place to live – a comfortable apartment that I was able to furnish nicely. I have people helping me get my writing published, people helping me plan my new storytelling show, people helping me plan the show to coordinate it with a book tour. I have strangers that email me having seen my website. I have old friends that call me on the phone or send me gifts in the mail. I have steady employment that I can quit at any time, no hard feelings and no questions asked. I have a little bit of money in the bank, and I have no one telling me what to do, no one forcing me to any standards or rules or traditions… none except those which I choose to follow.

Women and friends come in and out of my life. As a traveler and as an itinerant worker, I take on the role of the perpetual stranger – always taken in by the group, sometimes guarded by the wing of another, but never fully accepted; always among them, but upon close inspection, never of them.

I have unlimited freedom. I could leave the country tomorrow and return whenever I want. I could stay away forever. I could write a dozen novels. I could do nothing or sit in front of the television until I get evicted. I am responsible to no one, accountable to only my conscious… and sometimes I dislike myself more than any employee has ever disliked his boss.

Sometimes it’s as if the life of freedom I have created for myself is, in reality, just a prison devoid of any other inmates. The constant travel, the ever-differing odd jobs – both constantly pull me away from meaningful friendships. I have thousands of acquaintances, only a handful that I know well. Worse, the constant alone time necessary for writing and contemplative thought leaves little time to quench my social and emotional thirsts. Compared side-by-side, my time spent alone is rich with fast inner-dialogue while my time with others seems increasingly slow with awkwardness and dulled by common interest in a mundane pop-culture. As much as I feel that I need it, spending time with others has become as much of a chore as taking a vitamin or caring for a pet. Most of my time around others, I slide into a private mental space in which I can observe people as if from afar, even while standing so closely I can smell their breath. This is a trick I use to study people so I can understand their lives for my purposes as I writer. It’s a tool I enjoy using but it forces me to keep myself at an arm’s length, never close enough for most people to get to know.

This is the life that I’ve built for myself, a life I consciously designed in order to travel and gain new experiences, in order to build a career for myself as a novelist, in order to earn an honest living along the way. The travel has worked-out, as have the new experiences, as has my early career, as have my finances. But within this life I’ve designed, and perhaps within me (and maybe within us all), something is broken.

It was by trial and error that I created this lifestyle. I meditated on what I would want in an ideal life and I experimented with actions and thoughts until I found ways to bring my visualizations into existence. It was more than just traveling, odd jobs and writing. I wrote down the way I wanted to live, the emotions I wanted to have, the activities I wanted in my life, the places, the material possessions even. I’ve been able to shift consciousness, allowing me to be more empathetic, more compassionate, more friendly, more present, more likely for me to live the life I want and to have the experiences and the means I desire. I’ve started smiling at strangers. I’ve started helping the homeless, started getting in touch with strangers just by looking into their eyes. I’ve started picking up litter whenever it’s near me, keeping the ground around me sparkling. I’ve started taking better care of my self and my possessions. I started to see this life and this world as mine, one that I share with my fellow humans. I realized that, in my view of the world, all people – the bank president, the attorney, the homeless man, the Marine Corps officer, the criminal, the jailer – deserve the same respect. As does the earth – whether it’s a multi-million dollar piece of property or a warehouse district in the slums.

I also learned to teach myself things, to be patient, to unlock my mental powers. I still meditate on the life I want to create for myself and I still write my ideas down but now when I make my lists, I focus on how to eliminate the gaping hole of emptiness that swells in my stomach.

I was married once. It lasted about six months. The relationship was getting in the way of my writing. The couple’s lifestyle was getting in the way of my traveling. My other relationships have ended similarly; almost all of them. I know better now than to expect a romance to solve my problems.

As is, I wake on weekdays, I work out, I go to work for 7-9 hours, driving the truck or working with the carpenters and electricians at the theater. I like the work. I respect it, enjoy my co-workers, know they do a great job, like that they treat me well. I wouldn’t choose to do any other type of labor right now, especially since I make a decent amount of money and get a good bit of writing done during my shift. But the job doesn’t fulfill me. It doesn’t challenge me. It doesn’t stimulate me. I leave feeling empty at the end of each day.

In the darkness of the cold Manhattan evening, I walk to the subway. I watch the faces of the other riders. I go home. I write. Some nights I go to a play or watch a friend perform. I eat dinner. I write some more. I read. I watch television. I sit alone waiting for my roommate/ best buddy to return from his shifts managing a liquor store. I ponder my strange life.

I can do anything I want at all times. I can quit my job and go hit balls at the batting cage if I want. I can eat chocolate cake all day. I can move halfway around the world. Maybe I could even write more books, sell them for millions of dollars. Maybe I can sell my first book for millions of dollars. Maybe I could call a harem of out-of-work models, bang them all while stoned on every substance under the sun. Nothing would fulfill me though. The big ball of complex emotions I described earlier, the one mixed with humor and full of anger, frustration, loss and loneliness – only by taming this beast will I ever achieve peace of mind; or perhaps it’s vice versa.

As is, it bothers me like an incessantly beeping car horn. I’ll have to find a way to beat it. If only I could do it with a Louisville Slugger.