I stare at an empty screen. Some mornings it feels hard to fill. Maybe today I’ll do “something different.”

            Any inflexible routine, however desirable, occasionally chafes. I imagine Pope, President, potentate pulling up their sheet, grumbling, “Go away, let me sleep.” Yes, what they do is who they are, and they love what they do, but just this once can’t they do – and be – something else?

            Dread stiffens my resistance to donning my mufti (sleep clothes and reading glasses) and starting. What if I don’t have it in me? What if I twist the stopcock and the faucet coughs? It has happened before – and must again – unless I’m blessed with instant extinction. One word will be my last. Perhaps (this happens too), unbeknownst to myself I’ve already drained my reservoir and am running on empty, blabbing like an old gasbag. Better to exit graciously before they give me the hook.

            Making art – that is, an imaginative product nobody a priori needs – must be of all occupations the most unnerving. Calling my words “art” is not to value them, only to establish their existential status. Useless, invented, unprecedented (one hopes), they’re intended to please. They resemble conversation – silence together would feel awkward – only, any maker of art must also conjure its recipient. Your eventual actuality is, just now, wholly hypothetical. You are here as if in a dream and might as readily vanish.

            I am not, though, “talking to myself.” If I were, why bother writing? I’m directing my words to you, so you and I might be amiably together. I risk boring you – yikes! – or pissing you off. You might yawn, “Enough of him.” Any maker is more or less Scheherazade: quit telling our tales and we die (for what is life but life in the eyes of another?).

            This challenge – of beguiling – daunts. I am aerialist Philip Petit tiptoeing between the Twin Towers (remember them?), certain death if I slip. That’s the thrill – but thrill may not be welcome each dawn. Some famous actors, we read, never overcome stage-fright. With every entrance it’s do or die.

            Why do humans volunteer for such torture? We are not a few: the legion of makers is incalculable, though not many famous. Every scribbler of an uninvited poem or baker of an experimental cake is a maker.

            Humans may be the only creature that yearns to be known. We’re convinced there’s more to us than meets the eye. If only we could snag your attention and exhibit our inner enormity!

            This is absurd and hilarious. Henry scratches his head (unless it’s mites he’s after). He lives in the world of the verifiable. What you see is what you get. No inner Henry strains for release from its furry container. What is, is. Love me as I am or to hell with you.

            Humans, past a certain age, may see ourselves as separate from our kind. We may feel lonely – embraced or in a crowd. We long to be appreciated “for who we are.” This longing, however preposterous, is hard to shake. And we’re taunted by instances where this transference occurred. I’ve known Montaigne, Shakespeare, Thoreau, as I have few living persons. They live in me – through what they made. A miracle.

            But, oh, the difficulty of bridging the gap between us! Of picking topic and words which will tickle you right. Of striking an agreeable tone.

            It’s too hard. Maybe tomorrow I’ll resume. Today I declare a holiday. But what to do now with this amplitude of time? What adventure more adventurous than reaching into your silence from mine?