WRITERS' BLOCK

This post is a result of sad news. A man in the next building died. I had spoken to him briefly over the years and seen him often resting on planters or at the bus stop. I nicknamed him, "The Donald of East 64th" because he was the living opposite of, "The Donald (Palace) Trump." Neighbor Donald was a portly, scruffy, kindly mathematician with a daughter in Greece. I would see him slowly puffing his way to the library where he worked for a couple of hours on a laptop. I always meant to ask what he was doing. And there it is--the guilt. I always meant to. The last time I chatted with him, he told me about a book he and his daughter were writing, Interrogation Chaos. He described it in a heartfelt storyteller's rush of facts and drew me in with the plotlines. He hoped it would be published at the end of the month. About two weeks later, I had started out for an appointment when I saw him sitting on his front steps. I had the choice of taking a few minutes to exchange a friendly word and inquire after the book. I chose, instead, to hurry off. I always meant to tell him about my blobs. He would have enjoyed the brevity and his friends in Greece could have had glimpses of his 'hood. He never knew I was a writer, a different sort of writer but still...a writer. We could have had a Writers Conference. I have been thinking of the other writers in this very building: a poet, a translator, a playwright, a researcher pulling all nighters, a contributor to peer-reviewed journals. Are there more? Probably. The lesson I've learned from The Donald of East 64th is one I learned as a child when war deaths were a daily topic at dinner. If you have something to say, say it now. Don't let any words fall into the I always meant to category. I had forgotten that lesson; it had been overlaid by optimism and, "There's plenty of time" thinking.

I have Deborah Ruddell's Today at the Bluebird Cafe standing next to my Dell. The cover has an exuberant tree full of exotic birds which reflects my calling this place, "The Treehouse." The book will be a memorial and a reminder that today may be all we have. Say it now.