March 19, 2021
It is Monday and the things I wait for have not arrived. I will crank the rocking chair up to 5 on the scale and will wait again Tuesday. In the time between, there is much needs doing and this day is not proving productive yet. I have already sent the best part of a brilliant morning spinning down the pipe, flushed by a silver handle. I did have a lovely conversation, looked at someone’s art (very nice, I am envious of that ability), drove to get a tea and bagel then consumed said tea and bagel by the water’s edge…It’s been busy and I have been avoiding the writing that needs doing.
A therapist once mentioned to me that I am actually not ‘bad at everything’, not ‘less than everyone’. He said, “You are remarkably skilled at procrastination, you are an artist in the field of conflict avoidance…some people try to please everyone but you succeed at it most of the time.” Hm. Yes, I guess. I was just imagining a scene where I (with my arm dangling by a thread of skin) say, “Sure, I will reach the top shelf for you!” So. I suppose it is true.
The person I cannot please is typing in his kitchen at the moment. That guy is a real hard case. Grumpy as all get out, right from the first light of day! He avoids, yes. He criticizes, finds fault, measures, compares, always comes up short. Always. I suppose, on the day Mr. Grump let a smile crack open the inner countenance, there might be a movement. The escarpment would notice…Guelph would rise even higher…Niagara wouldn’t be ‘on the lake’, it would be ‘in the lake’. Haha So, for the benefit of our world…keep the status quo, Mr. Grump. Don’t change, who knows what might happen.
The interesting point about the unknown future result of change is, in my example: While fat is not necessarily an aim, or that sloppy poetry is not necessarily an aim, It is also possible that a person who is fat anyway or writes sloppy poems starts to change. It is possible to relax instead of tense up when the extra helping of pie rises to it’s final destination. Said fat, writer person may hear the ridicule, the clucking of tongues and in the moment – forget them. “Mmmmm….pie. Mmmmm…poem.” What would be the cost to fitness or the world of literature? What would happen? 1)a fat person would remain fat, 2) a bad poem would be written, 3)the judging world would judge, 4)the person at the centre of controversy would enjoy his pie, lick his lips, lick the fork, smile….and write more poems about it! It will be under-developed poems that blur the rules of English grammar in literature, written by a fat person who is smiling. A fat person who is smiling with traces of blueberry at the corners of his mouth. Ah, life….
Yes. No need for agonization, regret, recrimination. Just do, just get it done, just enjoy. Sure, try harder sometimes but be a pussycat about it, snooze when the mood strikes you…the world goes on, it struggles through without your agony, without your perfection. You are happier, you spread more happiness. Sigh. Gosh darnnit, you little ol’ pie-smeared fool!
Robert On The Air 