The outside world feels further away than ever. Leaving the house now is like interplanetary travel. I’ve never truly felt part of anything but it’s now as if I’m looking at everything but what I’m working on through a telescope. I don’t know whether this is good or bad. Maybe it was always this way and I didn’t notice.

I’m not jealous of people whose lives revolve around others. I tried that a few times and failed often enough to know that I needed to find a different way. When I sit at bars and coffeeshops, I eavesdrop on conversations. I get a lot out of what people say to one another but it’s rare that I’m envious of the talkers or want to participate. More times than not, I feel relief that I’m not a player rather than someone in the stands.

Aside from chores and the occasional trip to this or that part-time gig, I only leave the house for a movie, a meal, or for music. Extricating myself from a project—Babbitt, in the case of the latest—serves as a necessary pause to gain perspective, to let elements settle into their proper places. In other words, not working on a thing is still a part of working on it. In a narrower sense, putting down a brush and sitting back is as much painting as mixing colors and making marks is.

Last week I went to the Hungry Brain to see a new band featuring a couple people I’m very familiar with. I was the first paying customer through the door so I got my pick of tables. I chose one closest to the stage, with the best light. The band was running through their soundcheck. I read Satantango and listened.

The room filled up. I invited a musician I know to share my table. The opening band was a couple I used to deliver Thai food to in the 90s. Would the 90s me driving around Humboldt Park in a Honda Civic, ringing doorbells, see much difference in the current me sitting in a club a couple miles and twenty-five-plus years away?

I rode my bike home after, as I so often do, looking forward to going back inside and closing the door, but grateful also to’ve forced myself to leave for a few hours.

First thing after getting my coat and hat off and taking a leak, I look through the latest saved PDF iteration of Babbitt to reconnect myself to the place I stopped in the afternoon. In no time, I’m back the world of pencil drawings of the 1910s, of Janson and Futura type, of closeups of this or that detail needing attention. Wherever I was minutes before may as well be another galaxy.

I wonder why I ever left.