I try to put myself into it, at a philosophical level at first. Ultimately, what I do, it's all a state of mind, and I've not yet spent enough time with this particular endeavor that I can find my way back in easily. There is not yet a word I can mouth to drop myself back into it, no way to suggest it to myself.

It's just another job - duration from weeks until forever, as all of them are. It's hard to be properly impressed anymore, hard to light up right as this gig's earnest voice speaks the words that doom the future of the thing: "this could lead to something even bigger." So tempting to pat a wrist and say "of course it will."

Just before the holiday it was given to me, a lovely story, with chapters written - as yet without a plot. I heard the details of it, seeing problems I did not say, because my crystal ball is darker than the earnest voices prefer. I made notes of the absurdities, with the poker face of an auto mechanic who knows just what that funny noise is. There's time enough to break the news - find out first what the whole dream is.

I remember the earnest words, as I try to fit myself to them, remembering also the peculiar sense of bilocation as I heard them first, the other day. I was there, but again I wasn't, reserving myself away from what was needed until I determined whether the shape quite fit me. (As if I had not sold away the right to remain aloof. I had better get myself bent right... and soon...)

I think about the landscape I'd been given, to place myself within. Miracles of creation are quietly expected here, as if I could throw the lightning from whatever shabby mountain I found myself atop. (The earnest man had not seen me in a number of years, and was surprised to find me without the beard. Perhaps, to ease his mind, I should return in flowing robes.)

I find myself getting comfortable with this, working the philosophical dirt of this mountain with philosophical spikes upon my feet, as the ace reliever would work a pitching mound when called into the game. Tactical situation impressing itself upon me, shaping what I will do first and then next and then after, as I convince myself I know what's riding on the strength of my philosophical arm, and how best to proceed along the paths I see.

It's all a state of mind, and in my mind there is terrain. Lines and curves, girders and conduits, springing from the barren pile of rock. The art I pursue cannot withstand ambiguity, and the science cannot succeed without some grace in its form... I stand atop the mountain in my mind, bridging chasms, shoring up where it might slide. I begin to see what might be first, and then next, and then after.

I always wonder what I'll do, on the day when that doesn't happen, and I am always pleased to leave that thought behind.

Rubbing tip of thumb across my fingertips, atop this mountain in my mind, I quietly exult in the tiny sparks I envision there. I hear, with mind's eye, the rumbles that will roll across the terrain, the synesthesia of it, so that the earnest might believe along with me. The smile I smile for myself, at the thought of the texture of the deeds, is one reserved for special occasions - you would note it if you saw it sprawled across my face.

This time, I think, I'll choose the word Olympus. It will be the one to return me to this place, and oh, the lightnings I shall throw about from here. Indulge me in my fanciful analogy - I promise to never speak of it aloud. (It sometimes disturbs the earnest to know from whence the power flows, when it doesn't want to, but it must.)

Enough of the preliminaries - time to get cracking.