nedful things

I have hated Mondays my whole life.  I have cursed them and dreaded them and wished them away.  I have heard the songs and sung them: "Monday, Monday, can't trust that day".  But Mondays are a cakewalk compared to a Wednesday following a four-day weekend.

I looked forward to that four-day Fourth of July weekend for months.   I planned for weeks, all the things I could accomplish in four days off from work.  Of course, none of them actually were accomplished.

Two day weekends, although technically time off, are fairly tightly scheduled. Saturdays are for madly running errands, Sundays are for laundry and housework and if you are lucky, a spare moment to sit in front of your computer with a cup of coffee and a blank stare and try to remember why you are there.  Then Monday arrives and you re-adjust quickly to that schedule, after all, you haven't really altered it that much.

A Wednesday that follows a four day weekend is a grim thing. A four day weekend looms as a great expanse of time in which to do everything.  So you do nothing, because there is always tomorrow to do that chore if you don't do it today.  You begin to fall into natural patterns of sleeping and waking, your body's natural rhythms start to take over.  You become used to deciding what to do or not to do or to do nothing at all.  Four days is all it takes for you to revert to a human being from a corporate robot.

As I drove the long road to work, it was like the death march of the weekend, for this is where it truly ends.  The car is still full of sandy towels and beach toys and other evidence of its occupation by children on holiday.  The four days are conveniently stored in the back seat as I determinedly drive towards the office, where the weekend must go to hand me over to the work week. And so I drove.

I noticed that the corn in the fields had grown appreciably.  I mean, it grew when I wasn't there.  For some reason this disturbed me.  I had been away from this road long enough for corn to grow and yet I knew it was only the blink of an eye, a few brilliant moments - how had I been gone long enough to miss inches of corn?

The parking lot was riddled with empty spaces although I arrived at nearly the last minute.  Ah ha!. I thought,  some furloughed workers have not returned or perhaps they would be in at the very last minute.  Certainly it was not an army arriving en masse as usual; rather the work force arrived in numbers of a few stragglers at a time.  No morning banter was heard, there may have been a nod or two exchanged.  They all looked straight forward at the doors or down at the ground as they walked, measuring out the last of their self-determination by paces.

I rode the elevator with two co-workers instead of being on the usual overcrowded lift.  We rode in grim silence.  No one spoke.  I wanted to say something to break the silence, to cut through all the unexpressed laments that hung in the air, but all I could think of was "The corn has grown".

When we arrived at our floor, someone waved a card at the door and it opened.  Words that may have been "thank you" escaped my lips finally as I pushed the door open and returned to our reality.  Someone may have said "you're welcome".  Maybe not.  It didn't matter, I understood the great burden of speaking on such a morning.

I understood that time bends itself and shapes itself and follows us.  Here, in a world where we succumb to sameness, each minute resembles its brother that came before and the one that comes after.  Each hour is a twin of the last but older and slower, creaking unwillingly through each movement of its hands.  Watch the hands, they play tricks and when you aren't looking they go back and start again.  

And when we are free, when we are carefree it moves on quickly, our spirits jump and sing and time dances on with its own sprightly step.  Every minute calls to its brother to come quickly and play with us and the hours run on ahead until they are spent.

But out in a field, under a sun that moves predictably east to west, even when we are not there to see it, there is only the true measure of days. The corn has grown.

I sat on the railing
just under the porch edge
A silver sheet
streamed
like a shimmering curtain
to my stage.
And I, behind it,
awaited my cue.
In the distance grew
a growling tympany,
stirring the audience
with a drumroll,
throwing its voice
east
to west.
I accepted the introduction and
stepped forth.
The shuttered sky
opened into light,
as I stood
soaking in
the thunderous ovation.