Post 23: "The novel writer"

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There’s a guy in my neighborhood who I refer to as “the novel writer.” He’s always sitting in coffee shops or on benches, always has a couple books on him (one seeming to be a notebook), and I think I’ve only ever seen him looking out into space or noticing everyone who walks by. This guy is everywhere--absolutely everywhere!--but only the everywheres that seem to provide him with the best opportunities for observation and contemplation. So I like to think. 

I have a positive feeling about this guy. And I like to assign a kind of mystique to him. I’ve mainly ever seen him alone, and as I’ve mentioned, I’ve seen him a lot--though there was this one time I saw him sitting at a coffee shop with someone else, and I overheard them complimenting each other’s sneakers.


When I caught a glimpse of him today, I felt that I needed to put him in this blog. As he walked by, I thought: “Alright, he’s going in the blog.” I had this thought in the tone of a this-was-the-last-straw kind of moment, though it hadn’t ever crossed my mind to blog about him before (I feel a little skeptical about using “blog” as a verb, but I’m giving it a try). There’s a way that seeing the novel writer reminds me of this blog. Or maybe reminds me of my relationship to it. Or actually, I think the relationship between this blog and “my life” is reminiscent of the relationship between me and the novel writer. Two very different kinds of relationships, but still, both pairs are linked mostly by an invisible thread. Each term of the pair is aware of the term at the other end, but with an awareness that is without any rhyme or reason. Much more is silent than is verbal.


I know I said this in regards to my last post, but with this one as well, it’s written with a different-than-usual impulse. I typically lean in the direction of writing about things that don’t feel particularly write-y, but here, I just had this feeling of wanting to do something about a thing I had witnessed (a thing I had witnessed in my mind? It’s hard to know how much of this to attribute to my actual sightings of the novel writer versus my conception of him). Which is often the same instinct that motivates me to make visual work--exactly this same not-very-specific level of specificity to “doing something about something else.” Here, I similarly and simply wanted to be able to include the novel writer in something--and felt that he would somehow get along well with the rest of the group. This blog seems like the best, or maybe even the only place for him to go. (What is this impulse that feels like wanting to put something somewhere else? Why take something that exists and do something else with it? Why take an idea and put it somewhere?) To me, the novel writer (which I think means my idea of this familiar guy) feels more special than whatever large pool of uncategorized, nothing-to-be-done-with thoughts exist in my mind, though also not enough of anything else to show up in a more significant tier. I’m including the concept of him here, while thinking of “here” as a sort of storage space. (What does this say about the space this idea has taken up in my head, or will take up here?) This is not at all how I’ve thought of my previous posts; I’ve never thought of them as items in the same way that I’ve never thought of this blog as a place.


Maybe I’m searching for a place to put TNW, because my concept of him feels finalized. I’d consider this a rare thing to feel. I’m content with the amount of knowledge I have of him and the amount of mystery it allows for. (Why do things that are “finished” seem to achieve a strong relationship to having a place to go? Are things that are in-progress less strongly related to a destination?)


Extra:

There was one other nice witnessing moment I had after seeing the novel writer today: Two women, each with elegantly pinned up white hair, sat together and finished off two pots of tea. When leaving, I could see that one of them had a book under her arm (presumably given to her by the other?) Together, they had a pleasant aura of scheming about elderly woman things.

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