The City of L'Estate

Summer has begun in earnest: not just the span, but also the midst. Yesterday found me shirtless, lifting boxes up and down stairs. And today, the stacatto of city blocks to the river, my arms and legs a set of pistons in the sun. I rise and do my French, write lines like: Une femme quitte la chambre and Monsieur Pacquet vient des grands magasins. The reading chair and reading; the writing chair and writing.

And today I start a new routine: I walk, each day, a city block. Sketchpad/notebook. Camera round neck or in hand. I am mapping the course of my novel. The first chapter, the first day, being the chapter (the day) of maps. And so I go to plan the route of Stephen and Square. The city itself is their unconscious that day, the names of stores and cracks in pavement prompting each and every mis-speak. If there's such a thing as mis-speak. A derive.

With this in place, at length, the novel's writing can begin in earnest.