Neighbors at Work

— Daily, like me, the guy down the street labors away in solitude —

The day is young, an average Tuesday, and neighbor Carson is walking his dog. I’m finishing my raisin bran when he passes my front window. He and his Corgi have made their circuit through the neighborhood and now they’re heading back home to the house at the end of the street, four doors down from mine. Once inside, the dog probably heads to his water bowl, and Carson probably settles down to the day’s work.

This always inspires me, this tiny glimpse.

You see, Carson is a little bit famous, and I’ve been a fan since before we were neighbors. Now, don’t cry “Stalker!” just yet. I assure you I never plotted to live on Carson’s street. Actually I hadn’t a clue I’d neighbored up to this favorite graphic artist of mine till six months after moving in, attending a neighborhood potluck. Carson wasn’t present, but his next-door neighbors were.

They asked me what I did.

“Oh, a novelist,” they said. “Isn’t that funny? The fellow next to us is an artist. We’re surrounded by creative people.”

I asked the artist’s name and felt a little pitter-patter of disbelief. But sure enough, I began to spot the fellow walking his dog: none other than the Carson whose work I’d spent hours poring through.

Don’t worry. I haven’t cornered Carson on the sidewalk, waving copies of his work and pleading for an autograph. I haven’t rapped at his door to wax effusive, nor tried to weedle my way into his workspace.

In fact, I’ve never even let him know that I’m familiar with the excellent work he’s created—let alone that I’m a fan. I’m not sure why. We’ve traded Good Mornings and Hellos on many an occasion. It would be natural enough to mention my appreciation. But I feel slightly … protective of the guy. I feel a certain unspoken camaraderie. And I don’t want to adulterate this pure, inspirational connection.

Though I work with words (not pictures), I know a bit about Carson’s line. Every project he undertakes demands years of arduous labor. We both know what it’s like to confront the barren white page. To sit alone in a quiet room, drawing upon mysteries, summoning up images, striving to do justice to an ideal imaginative glimmer. It’s illogical, impractical—this process to which we devote ourselves. And meanwhile, outside around us, the workaday world earns, builds, and produces apace.

Life is lonely for the novelist, as for many artists. It’s a job requirement. And it’s weirdly, well … helpful to know that, as I sit with my manuscript, deep in my fourth year of work on my novel, Carson’s over there, hunkered in his workspace, laboring in a kind of unwitting solidarity, imagination ahum at midday.

Keep working, Carson, I say as he passes with dog at my window. I’ll do the same.

You might also enjoy:

“Thanks, Bill, for Connecting Our Connections”

“The Anchovy’s Guide to Goodwill & Good Work”

“Secrets of Creative Longevity From Steinbeck, Woody Allen, and Rilke”

“Fulfillment: A Work in Progress”