2002-09-19 - 10:48 p.m.
I always want to think there is something about every day that makes it different from other days. That every day has a certain flavor, a certain alchemy that comes from the mixture of weather, events, dreams, health, outlook..... I've tried to hang on to so many of my days. I suppose I do it through writing the most. But my art work also tells me something of where I was when I did it. It speaks in a language I can't translate, only feel. I am always trying to capture something about the day, create something that could bring it back to me if I saw it in years to come. I don't know why, but it makes me a little sad to think of so many of my days passing into some great oblivion.
Maybe it is an age thing, but I want to slow my days down and savor each one of them. Yet for the most part I am still living like I always have. Believing that something better is just around the corner..... as soon as I get all my debts paid, as soon as my hair grows out, as soon as I lose ten pounds, as soon as it cools off/ warms up, as soon as the semester/ holidays/ tax time/ mosquito season is over.
So I was just sitting here thinking.... what was my day like? Like most any day it was a collection of small things:
A cool and overcast, drizzly day. It was the first day I have worn a jacket to work in months. I wore a long denim skirt today, with a grey cotton sweater and a blue and grey plaid jacket, with clogs. Hair in a ponytail.
I had a good day at work. My boss complimented me in the staff meeting on some work I did. A department that is notoriously hard to work with called me and asked for my assistance on a big project, which can become a good opportunity if I handle it right. I had a lot of work to do, and got a lot done.
I kept thinking I heard Mindy's voice, subconsciously, before I remembered she is gone now. She always came in and turned on all the lights, while the rest of us were sleepily content to have only half of them on. But this morning I noticed that someone had turned on all the lights.
I ate my lunch sitting in the car. It was still cool and drizzly and everything outside looked like an impressionist painting through the foggy windows. I ate my turkey sandwich and drank my orange juice while reading "Trust the Process." And then I gave in and let myself fall asleep for a few minutes. I have a good internal timer that never lets me oversleep. For some reason I love to sit in the car, especially when it is raining. It seems like a little capsule, a submarine, my own little coccoon.
A coworker e-mails me with a funny name to add to my life list of bizarre names.
We have with us this year the singing work-study student. She is studying music and apparently feels right at home bursting into song whenever the mood strikes her. Today she is doing a Christmas thing: "Falllllll on your kneeees, and Heeeeear the angels' voiiiiiices...."
I am gazing into the microfilm machine when I am startled by a sudden whack on the head. I look down and see a small rubber airplane, and no on in sight. I know what to do. With the airplane concealed behind some folders, I stroll around the office until I find another unsuspecting victim and lob the plane into his cubicle.
After work, we drive to the neighborhood where we walk and do our three mile loop. We always listen to music while we walk because it is easier to keep up a good pace. Tonight I listen to "Excerpts" which is the tape that Skootie made for me when we first met, only this is a recreation of it on minidisc. She made me a minidisc because the tape was getting old and had been played a bazillion times. We walk, scuffling through a few colored leaves now, wearing long sleeve shirts and leggings.
It is nearly dark when we get back to the car. In a rare burst of foresight, I thought to bring along a towell to put down on the backseat so the dog's dirty feet wouldn't mess up the upholstery. But when we get home I realize the dog was dirtier than I thought. So I whisk him into the tub and give him a bath while Skootie makes dinner for us.
She makes the salad with pasta and tuna that she does so well. We eat on the couch upstairs since our dining table is still the notebook factory.
Skootie practices her guitar. She is further along than I am in her guitar lessons, and plays arpeggios that sound like a waterfall would sound if it were music.
Usually we do other things in the evening, but tonight Skootie goes to bed early because she has not been sleeping well. So I am sitting here in a quiet house, listening to the night sounds drift in through the open window. The chirping of crickets, and the lonely rattle and whistle of a distant train. Just thinking. Looking at all the stuff on my desk, the evidence of all I am trying to do, and never quite get done. Every day is so full and yet I am always haunted by what I am not doing, what I'm going to do just as soon as.....
No, I don't want to think about that just now. I want to savor the details and say it was a fine day, just as it was. I want to remember it. If something terrible happened that turned my life upside down, this is what I would look back and wish for: an ordinary day. It would all seem so peaceful and innocent and charmed in that light. I want to put on those glasses and see it that way now, without the calamity. Just my day, my perfectly ordinary day.
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