A Writing Life (Part 3)

From this stool seat, I have a view of a street thick with snow, a Japanese restaurant on the corner with two wreaths hung under two banners proclaiming offers of SUSHI and NOUILLES. The rest of this and some other buildings are in red brick (quite beautiful in the bright sunlight, silhouetted against the untouched blue sky). There are four bare grey trees, a wired pole (telephone line, perhaps), black traffic light poles, a fire hydrant, a few bicycles, no cars (on this section of the street) and the light blue shade of the building I am sitting in just cutting across the road at an angle and touching the opposite curb. These things matter. I cannot see most of the other patrons here as I write and I have brought my portable music player with me. All I can see in front of me is the pen, the notebook, a cup of coffee and the outdoors.
Where I write is also quite important. Coffee shops are always easy to work in. Coffee – the best kind – is full of caffeine and bitterness. The best way for me to get any work done is to have a hit with no sugar (just a little cream or milk) and then write. I have completed more letters and assignments in rough this way. Where I cannot work is in any environment where the idea of writing is an established part of the scenery (e.g. a library). You should never try to write anything too creative in a library. There is a reason why painters do not work in galleries, or why butchers do not take their pets with them to work. Writing in a library, to me, is like painting in a museum. The environment is a too-powerful reminder of what you are trying to achieve. It can intimidate you out of the work you are trying to complete. At best, the library, like any site of human traffic, should be a source of inspiration. I have had experiences in a library that I have never had anywhere else. I have been hit on indirectly as I sat studying (a friend of the girl who spoke to me said that she thought I was cute). I have read notes left behind or in books that were intimate and embarrassing. I have overheard conversations that I never expected to hear. The worst and most vivid of these moments came when I worked one summer at the central branch of the library in my hometown. There was an old man in glasses and a hat who used to sit at a large table by himself with various magazines and newspapers. As he read, he would mutter something quietly to himself in a language that I could not place. When I asked a security guard about him, she told me that he was there almost every day. She could also understand what he was saying (they were both Polish): it was something about putting baby heads on spikes. That was all he repeated to himself, day after day.