Normally, I have a pretty active guilt-goad when it comes to going to work. One time I ended up in the hospital because of intense abdominal pain, and the next day, at home, I knew I couldn’t actually make it to work, but I sure did feel guilty about staying home. Nevertheless, yesterday, instead of going to work, I got in my car, took my books and notebook, went to the coffee shop, sat outside in the light and air and read.

At one point in the morning, I finished a chapter in my current (really light-weight) novel, looked up at the trees that line the edge of the road, felt a small cool breeze move along the skin of my arms, and just smiled contentedly. I sipped at my hot soy milk, watched the people on the street and didn’t think much at all. I spent the morning like that. My kids would be proud of me.

I did go into work later. I ended up working late, of course. (There’s only so much character revision that is possible in a day.) Not so late as to make up all my missing time, but still the rather injurious work ethic of most of my life remains essentially unabated. But I had a good morning, so much so that I can still feel a shadow of the minute stirring of air-eddies along my lower arm a day later.

For me it’s not a matter of whether I should feel guilt or not, but rather it is a matter of interest that I do feel it and interesting to think about what my life would be like without it. These questions feed into the idea of whether I can change at my age into something else, some idea of a person that could live off someone else’s work, and still sit at the café table feeling contentment. Because somehow I still need to be able to pay for the soy milk, get the books I want to read, pay for the gas or bus tickets that make me mobile. Right now that person is me, but who else would do it?

It’s an old question for those of us who like to create. Writing, like good reading, takes time. In my case it takes long, quiet, peaceful time. The last two years of my last degree were like that. My children were adults and gone, I moved off the Reservation into a tiny (cheap) apartment in town, and lived off my stipend from the university. I got up every morning and wrote. I read every afternoon. It was…well, like yesterday morning but stretched out over two years.

I could do that for the rest of my life without demur. But who is going to pay for it? Sorry guy, but that’s the real question.

So for now, I guess, I just steal a little time for myself and then stay late to make up the work, and then lie when I get to work about why I am turning up half the way through the day. About that, at least, I remain blissfully unrepentant.