June 28, 2016
I breathed into this one a great deal yesterday: Tomorrow will be a day full of challenges small and large, the largest being the lack of time to think. A day full of so much activity (appointments, work, work and work) without any time to ponder the condition of the day–and me–for a small yet centered bit of time used to be every day. And that was just fine. I rather preferred not thinking and just doing. It warded off the demons I was keeping down inside me, in that deep, deep place no one—not even I—can locate. The busier I was, the less time I had to reflect about how my life was going or not going. It suited me just fine and then, of course, delayed the inevitable revolt of the repressed, those wild demonic fears and dissatisfactions named “where am I going and where have I been?”
But today’s busy-ness did not arrive with relish. In fact, the scheduled activities brought nothing more than the challenges of practicing what I know I must do but find difficult to do: appreciate everything more. Yet there’s no question in my mind (first mistaken location to start the day) that I do not appreciate taking my father to his doctor appointment down south 30 minutes in weekday traffic, abiding his ever stream of mad rant. “Why are we going to more doctors? They don’t know anything and just want to take my money and make me miserable. I’d like to give them some of their own medicine. Why do they allow trucks on the freeway? In New York, they only allow trucks on the expressway so the shmucks don’t slow down traffic. Look at that asshole driving so slow, holding up traffic.” This is the running monologue I expect and too often get before he asks me what we’re going to eat when we get out of the good-for-shit doctor’s office.
In the gaze of the other 