Shine

I came here for writing time, of the all-day, all-night persuasion. Not for the newness of things, which I can create at home. Wait a minute. I came here for the absence of prairie winter and the early onset of summer.

By writing time I mean staying ready, like those sailors in orange jumpsuits on that vessel I can see, to generate and respond—in my case, to language possibilities (in their case to I don’t know what, the threat of pigeons on the rooftops maybe).

By summer I mean a day like today, hot by 09:00. I took my notebook and two pages of material drafted earlier on this trip to a café and watched a craft market set up and my galão go down and my 0.9mm Pentel pencil do its thing, repeating as needed throughout the day.

Results of such a pattern over time: a tan. Ideas for books it will take time to bring about. According to this line of thought, I should quit my day job to get after them.

In fact, the day was so fine I booted down to Rossio for a shine.