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 long 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 and social media.

Nothing seems amiss, every-
thing is perfectly normal, no
instant message, nothing at all,
in fact, direct, nothing even
slightly personal.  The only
thing that catches my eye is 

that someone, for whom I 

used to have no small amount 

of respect and even admiration

is going about making people
furious.  And that might include
me, 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 only 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 brunch 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 out which is a
hallway, which will lead, in

turn, down some stairs (or 

down a cranky elevator), and

through a lobby and out a 
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.