A moment before time snaps and breaks

Let go a moment and drop everything you know about everything that isn't you, isn't your moment. This is hard to do on the metaphorical train that we follow our way along. In crowded human communities, there are others around us all of the time and moments of introspection are hard to come by.

Yet, so many of the treats of human civilization are only possible because of people who spend a lot of time thinking in isolation. When you layer all of those experiences on top of each other you end up with something else, something additive. 

I just posted a story that took over a week to write. Maybe more. I guess I say "over a week" to mean about 45 hours of production time, an assumption that can't be accurately verified but is stated on an honor code beholden to only me. 

I'm listening to Shellac to close everyone else out who is a stranger in the last hour and a half before I get back home after 11 days away. I can see them, can hear them, am aware, but the pulse of a dead man's music makes me want to be alive as best I can. I don't need to explain that to anyone, but it makes sense to me, especially after I finally put a story to bed that I decided to write five weeks ago without really knowing if I could do it. 

But I did it. I may do a podcast version, maybe sell other versions elsewhere, but I spent some of my resources to do go somewhere I wanted to go to learn about something I didn't know before.

This is a moment before time snaps and breaks and I don't know what else is on the other side of this sentence. 

First night in the decadence

I find myself in Atlantic City. I have a story I really want to finish and want to just get it done tomorrow. I do not gamble and don’t want to step in a casino. I am also not a beach person.

But I am here sitting at a place on the Boardwalk, and it is resonating to be in the place where the Monopoly board comes from. I drove on some of the familiar streets today trying to find my cheap hotel. I am here to get work done and the hotel room is adequate if the view of a concrete wall can be considered adequate.

I booked two nights and thought about abandoning tomorrow but I think I will see it through. I had a nice walk here past a lot of decadence with garish signs all over the place, and a series of display screens advertising the same thing the entire length down. Tony Danza made an appearance.

I never thought I would ever be in Atlantic City. I didn’t know what to expect. It’s about an hour and a half from where I usually stay up mid-north.

I have just been informed the beer I am drinking is $12. I ordered another one anyway. I can see the ocean and I can take the beer with me if I wanted. I think I will and walk back to the hotel where I will write up the rest of the newsletter for tomorrow morning.

I didn’t expect to be a person who traveled in America but here I am in another new place, wondering who we are, who I am, how we got here, how we get to the next place.

This is the first night I will ever spend the night in New Jersey. There is almost zero chance I will run into anyone I know but it’s a quiet night here. I am the only person sitting at the bar facing the Boardwalk as a band plays to entice people in. Flies keep nipping at my knees. I have a sense I don’t want to talk to strangers here.

So many humans pass by. Too many to capture details. All I want to do is write the story that sits in my head waiting for the time I give myself over to completing it, with so many other stories needing to be told as well.

Where to start? Maybe I take more of this place in for a moment with all the weird angles working themselves out all of the time, everyone betting, everyone chancing.

I am proud of my risk aversion. The flies risk the slap. The seagulls follow close to the humans in the hopes something will get dropped. Then a swarm will descend.

The band does a great rendition of a Fleetwood Mac song. A father and son share ice cream while walking north. A couple of couples walk south with a bag of what might be salt water taffy. I wish I could relax and just take it all in but the story I need to write needs to be written.

A shuttle tram running up the Boardwalk stops for a moment to let someone off before proceeding to the next spot. The sunlight is hidden behind a dark cloud that may contain smoke or pollution. A fly goes for the beer I am drinking but flies away when I go to pick it up.

I will buy a third and take it with me and then I will walk and get back to work and try to stick around another day.

After all, this is probably the only time I will ever be in Atlantic City. I already placed my bet. No need to roll the dice again.

*

Literally as soon as I hit send, the band began singing 99 Red Balloons and it occurs me to the world might end up now.

*

Now they are doing a cover of Heroes and this is an important moment. Those of who spend all of our time alone can weave so many narratives and I think it turns out this is just how I managed to cope with a ridiculously lonely and isolated childhood. I became a writer to entertain myself.

*

Now I am having a Bitburger in a very gigantic glass while watching the Phillies try to avoid extra innings. This place is what keeps me here tomorrow as well as I feel I can definitely finish this story while eating schnitzel.