Just give me 30 seconds, and I’ll be fine.  However, in this precise instant, I feel anything but fine.  I am doubled over, hands braced on my knees, gasping for air.  My t-shirt is soaking wet.  I stink.  Sweat is trickling down my arms and face, and I see drops of it falling to the pavement.  I have just conquered another 75-minute run. The final 150 metres is a steep climb, and I like to finish triumphantly by racing at a full-out sprint up that last hill.  This is what brings me to my present state, feeling like I am going to die.  But I’m not about to die.  Give me 30 seconds, and I will begin to feel as alive as I’ve ever known.

It is Sunday morning, early spring.  The sun is out, and it’s warm enough to run in short sleeves. These days, I run along an idyllic creekside trail, which serves as a hidden natural sanctuary in the midst of the suburbs. This makes for a beautiful and invigorating start to my day.

Or, it might be a Wednesday morning in January, shortly after 6:00 am.  It’s quiet. It’s dark. Almost no one in my neighbourhood is even awake yet. The temperature is minus fifteen (5°F).  The air sends a startling chill through my nasal passages as I breathe in, and naturally, I can see my breath when I exhale.  Although I’m wearing several layers, I still need to run for five or six minutes until I work up enough body heat to combat the invasive bite of the cold.  Running in the dark on a sub-zero winter morning sounds depressing, but I have learned to embrace it.  In those moments, it’s like I have the world to myself, and it’s magical.

My favourite time and place to run is in August, while on holidays at the family cottage, where I run the long, secluded road that circles the lake. For miles, I am surrounded by nothing but forest, sunny sky, and fresh air.  When I finish, I head down to the shore of the lake to stretch, then strip down to my athletic shorts and dive off the dock into the water. As I plunge in, I am instantly rejuvenated. Then I’ll linger in a deck chair and dry off in the warmth of the morning sun, while sipping my coffee. Can it get any better than this?

Running is an addiction that requires effort. Talk to any runner and they’ll tell you what a rush it is.  Running isn’t just a means to become fit and healthy. You run for the pure joy of it. The night before a run, there is the thrill of anticipation.  During a run, you feel like a machine, fuelled by determination. It is so gratifying to be in the zone, when your breathing and physical movements merge together, and you almost relax into the rhythm. After a run, you are both exhausted and strangely energized, and you’re rewarded with a sense of elation that lasts all day.

I don’t listen to music when I run — or anything at all.  I prefer to hear what’s happening in the world around me: the sound of wind in my ears, the gurgling creek, and the pattern of each footfall marking my progress.  But mostly, I don’t want to allow manufactured noise to drown out this precious opportunity to be completely focused and alone with my thoughts.  This is a time for introspection, to clear my head, refresh my mind. I don’t just run; I contemplate, I ruminate, I meditate. 

I don’t live to run, but running makes my life better. Running has forced me to get my entire schedule organized.  I work more productively. I get good sleep.  Playing other sports is easier. It has led to eating well. Now I prepare all my food at home, which actually saves me time as well as money. My blood pressure is excellent.  I rarely catch a cold, and I can’t remember the last time I had heartburn or a headache. I feel great, and I’m happier.

Of course, I’m not thinking about any of that during those last few hundred metres.  Instead, I am thinking about the slight pain in my leg muscles, or I’m concentrating on my breathing.  Sometimes I have to convince myself that I can make it to the next tree, and then the next park bench.  And just beyond that, I’ll summon every ounce of will I have to storm my way up that final incline, at full speed.

Because I know I can.  And I do.

“Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.”
– Charles Maurice de Talleyland

We met in high school.  It was autumn in my grade twelve year.  The bus would bring students to school early, a good half hour before the first bell rang.  I spent that time hanging out in the cafeteria with my fellow bus-mate and acquaintance, John.  We would chat and finish our homework.  I don’t recall exactly when, or even why, but at some point I began buying a cup of coffee as part of that daily morning routine.

That’s how it started.

It was new then.  It was casual.  And because it was new, and because I was still very young, there was nothing to suggest commitment.  I could go days or weeks without and not even notice; we weren’t even a thing yet.  I had no expectations, beyond enjoying the occasional caffeine fix, and it made me feel just slightly more like an adult.  And yet, my senses had been unmistakably awakened to the lure of the bean.

Things continued that way for a while.  It wasn’t until a few years later that drinking coffee would develop into something more serious.  During my first two years of undergraduate studies, while living on campus, my consumption increased significantly, since it was readily available with my all-inclusive meal plan.  Also, coffee had become somewhat of a necessity during those days, when my dubious time-management skills put me in a near-constant state of sleep-deprivation.

In my third year I was living in a house, off-campus.  During the previous summer I had acquired a taste for higher-end gourmet coffee, which meant that I tended to avoid the ubiquitous donut-shop schlock favoured by the masses.  So now that I was buying my own groceries, I determined that if I was going to buy coffee to brew at home, it sure as hell wasn’t going to come in a can.  Instead, I bought whole beans, ground to my specifications.  This was starting to become something special.  My roommate Jim and I drank coffee together often.  We would bask in this simple yet exquisite pleasure, and dreamed of a life in which we could spend our days just reading books and drinking coffee.  A noble aspiration, indeed.

Things took a dramatic and rather decisive turn in the mid-nineties when I was introduced to the “french press” coffee maker.  Coarsely ground beans are steeped for precisely four minutes in a beaker filled with boiling water, straight from the kettle.  Then the grounds are pressed to the bottom with a stainless steel mesh filter.  This produces an intense brew, infused with natural oils, rich flavour, and just a hint of grit.  I also started using filtered water, dark roast beans, and — most crucially — I used a coffee grinder at home to prepare the beans fresh for each brew.  I have continued making it this way since then and it remains a daily ritual, bordering on the sacred.  My morning coffee is exhilarating, yet strangely calming; it is both an injection of vigour into my veins, and a warm blanket around me.  And it never gets old.

Until that point, my relationship with coffee was like a traditional courtship.  Metaphorically speaking, we’d take long walks, engage in polite conversation, and then I’d make sure she was home by 8:00 pm.  It was perfectly pleasant, and chaste.  After discovering the french press, however, it was as if we had suddenly abandoned all restraint, and things got downright carnal.

Every relationship has its rough patches.  In the season of Lent, in the year 2002, I made a commitment to give up coffee for forty days.  (It’s actually forty-six days when you include Sundays, just so you know.)  This was not a minor inconvenience, nor was it a mere token sacrifice.  This was akin to being separated from my lover and sent out into the wilderness.

Apart from being able to say that I actually survived, I’m not sure that there is anything to celebrate about that experience.  I did not discover that I was better off without coffee, or that the experience made me stronger.  There were no epiphanies, and no self-discovery.  I hated it.  It made me miserable.  I pined for coffee every day, while I grudgingly drank tea.

After nearly seven weeks of that, Easter Sunday morning finally arrived.  When I raised that mug of coffee to my lips, I paused for a moment.  I inhaled deeply, savouring the aroma, then I closed my eyes, and smiled.  I was home.

My place needs a lot of work.  I love my condo, but it desperately needs to be organized, and repaired, and renovated.  For that reason, I am currently on a mission to thoroughly clean and purge my entire apartment, room by room.

This project started last October, and I’ve made significant progress.  Among several accomplishments to date, I am especially proud of having banished the pigeons from the balcony; I have also managed to sort through a cache of storage bins that had been conspicuously squatting in my son’s bedroom while he was away at university.  The next big job will be to slog my way through a mammoth stockpile of boxes.  Each of these boxes is packed with forgotten and mostly useless miscellanea, and they’re crammed in and stacked to the ceiling of my so-called “walk-in” closet.

So far, the most arduous challenge has not been the work itself.  The work is enjoyable and satisfying, provided I can dedicate my Sundays to it.  But it is difficult to free up an entire Sunday, even once or twice a month.  Complicating matters further, each job takes at least three times as long as I plan for.  Sometimes I wish I could just take a few weeks off and get it all done in one go.

Oh, if only I had more time.

 

Then, about six weeks ago, immediately following the declaration of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, everyone was more or less ordered to stay at home.  Businesses started to shut down.  People began to hunker down.  It was kind of intense, and bewildering.

And all of a sudden, I had all the time in the world.

At some point it must have occurred to me that I had unexpectedly gotten exactly what I’d wished for: ample time to finally complete my home-organization project.  But this idea has not become reality, and has remained little more than a noble intention.

Because, to the mild dismay of my family, and quite possibly to the displeasure of the gods of order and propriety, I have not invested my generous windfall of free time into cleaning and purging.  I haven’t exactly squandered it, either.  I have indeed spent it wisely, and profited enormously, just not in ways that I might have expected.  Here’s what I’ve been doing.

First, I spent a colossal number of hours completing a video montage as a gift for my parents’ 50th anniversary.  I increased my running routine to a 60-minute run, three times a week, and I’ve started lifting weights.  I have given myself a full-night’s sleep nearly every night, for weeks now.  I have read three novels, two short-story collections, and I’m currently reading Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie.  I have baked loaves of banana bread, multiple batches of cookies, and cooked a spectacular dinner on Easter Sunday.  I have spent time just being with my children, more than I have in years.  And of course, I have finally started to fulfill my ambition to write.  As for my day job, I have done that mostly from home, and mostly on my schedule. 

So, almost by accident, and with very little conscious deliberation, I have found myself investing in what I love to do.  On the one hand I have neglected to clean and purge my apartment; on the other I have immersed myself in many of the things that give me joy and make me happy to be alive.

 

I have contemplated the irony that limitations are often necessary to foster motivation and productivity.  When time is precious and I’m able to free up a Sunday, for example, I ensure that it is put to good use, and I make great strides organizing my home.  But now that I have free time in abundance, my motivation to purge, clean, sort, and organize seems to have evaporated.

As true as that may be, these exceptional times have offered many of us a rare privilege.  Since the limitations on our time have been minimized or removed entirely, we should take hold of this moment and welcome the chance to become reacquainted with our deepest yearnings; to discover what we are still capable of; to clean up our priorities; to purge our minds of unimaginative thinking; to re-organize our selves.

For me, in the back of my mind, I know that there will always be time to complete my cleaning project.  Those boxes aren’t going anywhere.  I’ll get to them, soon enough.

Perhaps it’s because I have significantly more time on my hands these days.  Perhaps it’s because I might have a distinct perspective to offer.  Perhaps it’s because the impulse to write on a regular basis has been stirring within me for far too long, and the urge to consummate this desire can no longer be relegated to some vague point in the future.

Actually, it’s all of those reasons.

Before I elaborate, allow me a necessary aside.  I must acknowledge the extraordinary circumstances in which we currently find ourselves.  As I write this, we are in the throes of a world-wide COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit its full stride in North America over the last month.  We are effectively living in “lockdown” mode, to inhibit the spread of the virus.

Consequently, the vast majority of us are spending most of our time at home, with an abundance of free time on our hands.  For me, in addition to reading more books and expanding my exercise regimen, the time is ripe to pursue writing.

 

Why am I writing?  I’m doing it for myself.  I need to write, to satisfy a creative longing, regardless of how many people actually read my work.  I know that other artists and creative people will sympathize.  This need to create is something I’ve also experienced as an amateur songwriter.

For me, songwriting is an immensely gratifying experience.  I can recall spending entire days totally enraptured by writing a song.  I become obsessed with tediously constructing a melody, experimenting endlessly with chords and progressions, labouring over lyrics.  I often sense that I am no longer a creator, but a conduit for something which has grown to possess a will of its own.  The process of creating soon evolves into one of discovering, of solving a mystery.  My job is then to find the right chord, note, or transition.  And when I find it, it is exhilarating.

The same is true of writing.  Often I don’t even realize what I want to say until it’s written.  I agonize over word choices, commas, and sentence structure.  When I edit I am ruthless, meticulous, relentless.  And I love it.  Creative expression is its own reward.

I know that if I’m going to do this — not just to write, but to begin by publishing a blog — there will be risks.  First, there is the risk of self-indulgence.  Isn’t a blog just a slightly more sophisticated version of posting selfies and rants on social media?  Maybe.

Another risk is that I simply don’t have the chops.  I’m afraid that one day some smug literary vigilante will reply in the comments section of a piece I’ve written and eviscerate my work, destroying my confidence forever.  My fear is genuine.  To work up enough courage to start this blog, I had to think of all the times in my life that someone has complimented me on my writing, and I made a list.  Yes, I really did that.

Next, there is the risk of self-disclosure.  What I enjoy about songwriting is the freedom.  I can write a love song, for example, which may or may not have any correspondence to my actual life.  The narrator in a song is a character; not necessarily me.  In the format of a song (or poetry, or fiction) the risk of self-exposure is mitigated.  I can bare my soul while protected by a “narrative veil.”

However, this is a blog.  I will write non-fiction prose about my life, my experiences, my thoughts, my strange dreams.  I’m wary of saying too much, whether deliberately or inadvertently.  Many bloggers willingly parade the tantalizing details of their personal lives.  I have no interest in that, and yet there remains the risk of over-sharing, with no narrative veil to hide behind.

Finally, there is the risk that I’ll do all this work, and very few people will even read it.    While it is true that my primary goal is to write for myself, I’m also reminded of the adage to “find your audience”.  No matter how good (or bad) my work is, there will always be people who won’t like it, or care.  But there will be some who do.  I suppose I’m writing for them, too.

And so, readers, despite the risks, and now that you have a little more time, I invite you to take 3 minutes once or twice a month to read my blog.  Knowing that others are reading along will make the experience all the more gratifying.