If I Lived Here, I Would Be Home By Now

If I were a writer, a full-time writer without a boss or a 'direct report,' if I were an author, the likes of whom Annie Dillard so lovingly characterizes in The Writing Life, I might find myself, just now, sitting outside my favorite Bloomfield cafe in a sweater and a light jacket, laptop open before me, a book of poetry close to hand atop a legal pad crowded with ideas I jotted down in the prior day or two, instead of hovering over the city in my tiny glassed-in chamber, my acquarium, swimming in infuriating circles, bumping against the glass, looking for a speck of food, and wondering when the world might open up to vindicate my pioneer's spirit.