Today I took the train to Atlantic City by myself. It took some effort to get myself up and ready and over to the train station on time, but I was glad when I did it. I'm feeling the aimlessness that comes from losing my routine. I'm supposed to be thrilled to be home for the summer with time to write. I'm not. I'm much more scared than excited.
In Atlantic City I stood under the pier for a long time. A steady breeze blew through, and the ocean was loud. I watched it crash around the pilings. Farther out the water sparkled with sunlight. This was what I'd come for. I needed to hear the ocean. Lately I've been craving earth -- I've spent several afternoons lying on my back in the grass in the park (after checking for dogshit and trash). I can never quite relax in the city, but there's something about unpavemented ground that calms me.
After the day of beach and gulls and reading and avoiding people as much as possible, I took the train home. And I accidentally sat next to a Talker.
For some reason, no matter how occupied I look -- headphones on, book or notebook in hand -- there's a certain kind of Talker that latches right on to me. This one started by asking if my book was good. I said it was. "Bestseller, huh?" Yes. (Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach). And then he talked, for about ninety minutes, all the way from Atlantic City to Philadelphia.
At a certain point I stopped being desperate for a view out the windows, for some time to think about my day, and went to Plan B. My Plan B, with Talkers, is to pretend or assume that things happen for a reason and that this Talker has something to teach me.
He looked to be in his late forties, hair graying around the temples. His parents are from Africa. He lived in Amsterdam for a while. He got a new job in Atlantic City three weeks ago, and has been commuting daily. He trained in Cape May for week. He talked about tourism in Cape May vs. Atlantic City vs. Philadelphia. He talked about crime in Philadelphia (how it's mostly people from Camden coming in for drugs and committing crimes) and about why drugs should be decriminalized. No argument from me. Few words from me at all, in fact.
He talked about quantum physics (the seat in front of us looks solid but is made up of moving molecules, etc. The observer changes the event, etc.) He was an economics major. In Jimmy Carter's time, CEOs on average made 40 times the salaries of their employees. Now it's 400 times. (Also, Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House, and W. took them off.) We have all the financial resources to fix our problems, but we don't have the right mindset. If a homeless man is given $20,000 dollars, he is most likely to quickly end up back where he started. It's because he's not ready to be prosperous. He's not ready for the opportunity he's been granted.
Finally he talked about people making things happen for themselves, a sort of determining our own destiny by manifesting what we want. We have to know for sure what we want, and we will get it. His example: he knew a couple who wanted desperately to get pregnant. They'd tried all the fertility treatments, everything. He told the woman to go out and buy some baby clothes and prepare to have a baby. She did, and she became pregnant. She also, apparently, started craving peppers. She had never liked them before, but suddenly she kept picking them up everywhere she went. She didn't know it, but these peppers were full of folic acid, which is what she needed to conceive.
I kind of swore off the new age stuff last year, but a light did turn on in my head, at least dimly. When he talked about how opportunities come around again and again, even if we don't accept them the first time, I thought about how I've been approaching this summer all wrong. I've been trying to create favorable conditions so I will be able to write and finish a book, but I haven't really believed that I could do it. I've been trying to force myself to write, and I've felt completely empty. But I've been expecting myself to fail, the way I've been "failing" all along. It's too much pressure. Better to believe that it's possible and necessary and not so painful and not such a big deal to write something.
When we are around creative people we want to be creative. We have to allow ourselves to create in non-threatening environments. That's another thing this guy talked about -- being motivated by love and not fear. Being motivated by fear doesn't work. This, of course, also applies to my situation. I used to love writing. When I was a kid I would go on endlessly telling stories to anyone who would listen. I don't remember ever worrying about getting into a story and not being able to invent an end. The more complicated, the better. I always found my way out.
So, anyway, this is an unconventional PoL entry, but I'm posting it as a sort of welcome back to myself. I knew this guy for an hour and a half tonight. Maybe there's a reason why.
