An aging homosexual becomes set in their ways
an interlude on discipline
I love my weekdays because they’re almost always the same. Just thinking about this sameness provides a satisfaction that’s almost better than pleasure. Having laid out this morning itinerary, I return to it over and over again, like a penitent to her rosary:
7:30 am: Wake up without an alarm.
7:30-8:00 am: Stretching, yoga, or light calisthenics. Tidy room.
8:00-8:15 am: Shower and dress.
8:15-9:00 am: Make pour-over and eat breakfast (lately it’s been oatmeal with peanut butter and a few dates to balance the coffee’s heavenly bitterness). If there’s time, read or listen to the news1.
9:00 am: After saying goodbye to Jade, begin the day’s work at the desk a few feet from my bed.
Weekends I love less. Unless I’ve been out until dawn the night prior (an increasing rarity), I don’t sleep in anymore. I wish I could, if only for the indulgence of it, but I don’t need to like I did in my twenties, when I was always stringing together three jobs working swing shifts, graveyards, and overnights. What’s more, every lost morning hour feels like two, especially if the rest of the day isn’t spoken for. For someone like me, anything could happen is not promising, but a threat. It’s not that I’m itching to be busy all the time—I’m actually quite lazy. But for anything to feel either productive or restful, it has to be on my terms, which are, invariably, that I have decided to do it in as far in advance as possible.
“Aging homosexual becomes set in their ways,” is a cliche that I’m beginning to see in a different light. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to recognize which “ways” serve me—order and consistency—and which don’t—spontaneity and surprise—and have adjusted accordingly. I still welcome variety but only in specific contexts, if you can even use variety to describe the punctuated chaos I occasionally, almost dutifully, permit myself. I’m reminded of Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Lottery of Babylon,” about a society in which a game of chance has been imposed upon all citizens, creating a “monstrous variety” in which both luck and misfortune are constantly at play. The story begins: Like all men of Babylon, I have been proconsul; like all I have been a slave.
As an artist, I’ve found that the most effective discipline is not imposed, but embraced with a desire bordering on desperation. Discipline is not a box within which the work is found, but a scaffold upon which it is accomplished. (As I’ve said before, I think of art as disciplined play. Not far off from what you were doing as a kid, only now you’re the one deciding that it’s time for recess.) I guess what I’m trying to say is that discipline makes your life easier, so if your version of it isn’t doing that, it might be worth giving it some more thought.
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Democracy Now! or Heather Cox Richardson’s daily “Letters from an American.”
I find myself increasingly moved by + interested in people's morning routines. My big goal for the year is to get better at waking up earlier... during my grad school years into early pandemic, I could wake up between 5:30 and 6am with no problem, and these days I really struggle to get out of bed any time before 8am. 5:30 seems a bit wacko for my lifestyle rn but there is something kind of perfect about being up at 6:30... anyway: loved this!
The routine has really hit the past few months and I suppose the discipline comes with the doing of things almost rote? Weights, morning writing, walking, the same meal. I'm sure some of it has to do with the failed society but it's been a wild newish almost drug for my middle age. Will have to try the dates w coffee, thanks for the tip!