For the past few years, it’s been a comfortable routine. Every Sunday night, I come home to the North Bronx, and climb the many many stairs to my 5th floor apartment. I settle into my cozy little warren of rooms, high above the rest of the world (or at least my part of it). I have a little supper, put on the radio, and plop myself down on my couch. I grab my laptop, decide what topic appeals to me as the subject of a short essay, and type out the draft of the blog entry I’ll post the next morning. Sometimes I’m taking time away from other projects to do this; other times, that’s the only writing I’ll get done that week. But it gets done, week after week, in my little Bronx apartment.
Well, that’s all changing.
Don’t worry, Gentle Reader, I’m not quitting the blog. But after three years, I am quitting the Bronx. Later this week, the movers will make their way up those many many stairs to my 5th floor apartment, and I’ll relocate to my new place in Brooklyn.
Did I mention my old place has many many stairs? It does, all right – and I think that’s had a significant influence on my creative life over the past few years. It’s such a hassle to come and go from this apartment – and it’s such a comfortable little nest – that I tend not to leave it at all without a reason. And so, as I sit on my couch, I write.
And not just the blog posts.
I’ve managed three full length plays in my time here, two of which were written in iambic friggin’ pentameter. Four short one acts as well, and a script for a one person show. (That last one’s for a friend of mine – I’m not completely megalomanaiacal). That’s eight significant projects, all of which had to be researched and outlined and drafted before being put to paper.
It’s been a lot of work. And, in this little nest of mine, it’s been (comparatively) easy to do this.
But it’s also been easy to only do this.
At some point, the scripts have to go out into the world. They need to make the rounds. They need to be seen by people – most of whom will reject them, or ignore them, or give them a metaphorical pat on the head before dismissing them. A few of those people, a precious few, will enjoy them enough to move the scripts to the next stages of production.
But, like me, the scripts need to get out of my living room for this to happen.
So, as helpful as it’s been to have this little retreat of mine over the past few years, I’m happy to leave this fifth floor walk-up in the North Bronx. I’ve spent enough time preparing – enough time being distracted by comfortable routine. It’s time to actually go out into the world and make things happen.
And that’s a lot easier to do from a first floor apartment, believe me.