I don't know about you, but I'm a creature of habit. In fact, within the last year of living in my new place, I've realized more and more just how much of a creature of habit I am and quite possibly borderline OCD. No, I'm not casually flinging that term around, I'm pretty sure it's spot on. Cushions on the couch have to be a certain way, and damn it, that sofa has to line up with the floor along that specific line. Hell, now the side table is at the wrong angle. And don't even get me started on the coffee table. I can leave it . . . I'll just go into the other room . . . no, I can't. It's like that on and on and on all over the apartment. But it's all good, I appreciate it.
I'm like that with my writing ritual too. I have a certain table at a certain Cafe Du Village down the street and I order a certain cappuccino with a certain chocolate chip cookie . . . and it's a damn good cookie (thank you strictlycookies.com). As I wait for the cappuccino and cookie on its little wooden plate of divinity, I set up my iPad, get out my writing notebook, current read, and pen. Right now, that current read is "The Artist's Journey" by Steven Pressfield. This book speaks to me. The chapters are tiny, often about half a page, and I'll read one and savor/meditate on it. This book, and two previous books of Pressfield's, "The War of Art" and "Turning Pro", have been life changing for me, but I never can read them until I'm soulfully ready for them . . . and I never fucking know when that will be. However, like many things, I know when I know.
The cappuccino and cookie arrive and it's time. I've already got my iPad set up ready to go, my document open, and with a broken off bite of cookie and sip of mind opening cappuccino, I dive in. And who knows for how long? It could be hours of glorious work or it could be a painful, slogging thirty minutes (even that's a stretch some days). The point is, Resistance has been beaten, the Voice has been heard, and work has been accomplished. Read "The War of Art", you'll get it.
That ritual has altered over time, but the bones of it are generally the same. Cafes have changed, cappuccinos come and gone, sometimes there's a salad if I'm really getting crazy, but the ritual has seen me through the completion of "The Six" and on into the next book.
Embrace the ritual.
Later.
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