Living With A Writer

I woke up to the glow of Jon’ ipad.  It was about 4am a sliver of a moon out the bedroom window.  I mumbled something still half asleep.  Jon’s response was,  “Last week in New York City a woman was killed by the driver of an SUV, a homeless man was killed by a car in Queens, a 63 year old woman was run over by a cement truck and lost her leg and a 9 year old boy is in a coma after being hit by a hit and run driver.”

Now I was wide awake, what the hell kind of “Good Morning” was that?  “Can you believe it”, he went on, “all those accidents and not one picture or story about them, but a horse falls down then gets up and is fine and it’s  everywhere.”  Now I understood what was happening.  Yesterday when Jon told me about the Carriage horse accident in New York he said he wasn’t going to write about it.  This is something I’ve been hearing for months, that Jon is done writing about the Carriage Horses.  I don’t even bother to respond anymore.

He closed his ipad as if to go back to sleep. But it was like laying next to a whirligig in a hurricane.  “Your brain is keeping me awake” I said, “just go write your piece.”   I didn’t have to say it twice.   When I got up at 6:30 he was still at the computer in his nightshirt.  “Have a look at this” he said.  His latest piece on the Carriage Horse.  The jewel of a sleepless night.

Jon often writes about what it’s like to live with an artist.  Well, this is just a little taste of what it’s like living with a writer.  And I have to say, it’s never boring.  Conversation and new idea do not lag in our house.  And I never know what I’m going to wake up to.