mmmccxi

What’s Your Hurry?

I wake up anxious and spring
quickly from my mattress to
upright, my feet barely on the
floor. I’m nervous, I am pacing
the tiny path that fits within
the confines of the little box
I call my home. Back and
forth I go at this for a few
minutes, wondering about
coffee only enough to send
me into even more of a
panic. There is no time
for me to put on a pot, I
don’t even think, as I’m
immediately all down
on my laptop keyboard
checking messages.

There are none, of course,
and that, for whatever
reason, has me feeling at
least an inkling of calm,
as if I have the time to
poke around for just a
little bit, check the head-
lines, check my social media.

Nothing seems amiss, every-
thing is perfectly normal, no
instant message, nothing at all,
in fact, direct, nothing even
slightly personal. The closest
thing to anything is that
someone, for whom I used
to have no small amount of
respect and even admiration,
is going about making every-
body furious on the internet.
And it would be me included,
but my default is to ignore
such blips; in fact it’s second
nature: I deflect before such
nonsense comes even close to
grabbing distance of a neuron.
It’s the the rational thing to do,
of course. And besides, today
I’m in a hurry. Except –

I pause a moment, wonder what’s
the rush, really. I don’t have a
plane to catch, an interview, a
medical appointment, I certainly
don’t have a dinner date or any
thing the slightest bit romantic or
social or domestic on the horizon –
and try as I might (and I do) I can-
not begin to pinpoint what it is that
I’m in such a magnificent rush to do,
can’t figure out whatever it is that I
know I must, within the confines of
a calendar’s parameter, accomplish.

I check my little electronic book
of outstanding appointments,
even though I know already
that it’s April, it’s a Thursday,
and I’ve got bupkis ’til at least
September. And yet,

before you know it, here I am,
I’ve shot back up, and I am
pacing the miniature path that
fits between my bookshelf and
my sink and my little chest-of-
drawers atop which sits my
compact microwave oven,
like a teeny-tiny canyon
that leads from my desk
(that sits just beneath
the window that overlooks
a courtyard and of which it
could rightly be described the
very template of minimalism)

to the door that leads out to
the hallway, which will lead, 

in turn, down the stairs (or 

down the cranky elevator),

through the lobby and out the
door into a somewhat metro-
politan environ. But rather than
escape I pace as if an animal
fresh from the savannah upon
awakening and finding itself the
victim of captivity: back and
forth, and back, and forth,
and back, until I’m anxiously
trying to remember, once
again, the task I know I
absolutely must complete
by deadline. It’s due today
at some impending hyper-
critical time, and I’m most
insanely certain of it.