A Daily moment

The Daily is the most tremendously relaxing place in my life. No matter what “angst, nausee, and all the bag of tricks” (as Iris Murdoch put it so eloquently) I’ve suffered in my day, I walk into this big, open hall and it all falls away.

Here, I work and worry and struggle over my articles, yet somehow, as I while away the hours, I feel more and more energized rather than more dejected and frustrated. Sometimes I leave exhausted, with a headache, yet I invariably leave content.

I listen to the chatter of the reporters around me; someone’s hip-hop or jazz always seems to be tinkling away in the background. There’s no such thing as “quiet” here. Why doesn’t it annoy me? I can’t say. I just know that the sounds float up toward the big ceiling and seem both small and important simultaneously; multiple and organic and busy and fitting.

Sometimes the television’s on, with a small knot of people gathered round it to watch a sports event or take notes on a presidential speech. I detest televisions. But here, its blaring tones just make me feel connected to the big, wide world. The reporters make acerbic comments and dirty jokes and I always feel part of it all.

Tomorrow I’ll spend the day here, tangle with the complex organization of a difficult article. I feel like I’m wrestling an octopus; it’s got multiple unwieldy tentacles, only wants to get away, and keeps squirting ink in my face to keep me in a great big fog. Am I not octopus enough to out-octopus you? I think wryly, trying yet another organizational scheme for its barrage of information. I’ll tame it tomorrow.

The light will pour in through the huge windows; an editor or two will bustle past and say hello.

I love this place.