sharpening

I had to meet my writing partner up in midtown last night around 6:00.

Took the subway up to 50th and 8th and then cut east into the Belly of the Beast, walking fast because I was late.

And I started moving like a Terminator. And I started thinking like a chess-playing computer, like Deep Blue kicking Bobby Fischer's ass all around the board.

Same thing happened coming home. As soon as I was out there doing the broken-field, cross-town, jay-walking, full-stride Rat City Hustle, my mind started whirring.

It's been a weird, fragmented fall for all of us at the Museum, with funerals and flights and long periods of sitting out in the woods camouflaged as regular Americans.

You forget, when you live in a large city, how that city conditions you and how much you give up just by living there. Lawns, quiet, stars at night, etc.

But you also forget, until you taste the rush and almost feel the blade, like I did last night, that the City is a whetstone and it sharpens you every day.

I could practically hear the snick, snick inside my head coming home from that meeting.