Tag Archives: day

Day

Day: (n) the time between sunrise and sunset

I certainly would not want to be so presumptuous as to suggest that I have found some pearl of great price or fragment of wisdom that is life-changing for every human soul.

But it works for me.

And honestly, it’s difficult for me to care about you if I feel maladjusted.

I’m not nearly as likely to sense empathy for your modicum when I’m toiling with my “bottom of the barrel.”

And I do want to feel for you—somewhat. Enough to be helpful, but not so much that I’m taking phone calls in the middle of the night.

So I will tell you, the best thing I do—the happiest discovery, the most intelligent endeavor and the “eternal” that seems to bring me life—is taking every single day and breaking it down into as many pieces of possibility as I can.

When I make out a “Things to Do Today List,” I include waking up, putting my feet on the floor, morning pee and brushing my teeth.

That’s four things right there.

For instance, by the time God did four things in Genesis, there were birds in the sky.

I don’t say this because I want to be silly or make meaningless things possess significance.

I just think if something I do is unique, it deserves a moment of celebration.

For bluntly, there is nothing like waking up.

No moment in my day will be quite like that first splash of awareness that enters my mind, when I translate from sleep to reality.

Likewise, throwing my legs out of the bed and onto the floor may be the greatest exertion ever undertaken—I mean, in comparison to other times when I exercise and already warmed up.

Must I defend the beauty and the glory of the first morning pee? I love to hear it as it hits the porcelain and splashes into the tide. I love the power I feel when I change the color of a toilet full of clear water.

Brushing the teeth—it is the symbol of salvation. Dirty incisors and crusty molars being immediately transformed into shining stars in my mouth simply by a minute-and-a-half cleansing.

And that’s just to begin my day.

Don’t forget dressing.

Breakfast.

A little reading.

Catching up on some emails.

Stepping outside to see what the day has to offer.

There are so many highlights in one day that are set apart and precious. How dare we ever discuss a week? A month? Or a year?

Take no thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow has its own problems.

Consider the day.

Pack it full.

Rally around its possibilities.

Regale its offerings.

Giggle at its missteps.

And tenaciously survive its grumbles and complaints.

 

Abattuta

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAbattuta: (adv.) a musical term meaning to return to strict tempo.

Sometimes I think life should be more musical–not in the sense of bursting into song while you’re waiting for your meatball sandwich at Subway, but musical in the sense of flourishes in timing, with exciting melodies and enhancing harmonies. Music grants you the ability to suddenly play very fast. And then … you can abattuta! Return back to your strict timeframe.

Life is not that way. It takes sixty seconds to make a minute, an equal number of minutes to make an hour, and twenty-four of them eventually make a day. Wouldn’t it be great if you had some sort of control–like a conductor’s baton–to make certain portions of your daily composition go quicker?

In other words, when you go to the dentist and he’s drilling on your teeth, you could increase the tempo–get out of the chair with a flourish. And then, as you were allowing the Novocaine to wear off and you stop at that Steak and Shake to reward yourself with a delicious chocolate-marshmallow milkshake, you could slow the tempo w-a-a-y down, allowing the ooey-gooey to eek its way down your throat.

You could speed up church services and slow down romance.

You could accelerate the interchanges you have with your children to confirm that you’re a good parent, and slow down the ending of the game, which finally, for a change, is actually close and interesting.

Maybe that’s the whole problem–life is too abattuta. Because when we try to relish moments, the clock frowns at us and continues its steady pursuit of strict formality.

Yes, clocks are like that. Still, I will search for a way to freeze moments so I can enjoy them even more as they thaw out. And I will hum songs and think happy thoughts to speed through those activities that are truly grueling and boring. Yet I know there will always be the abattuta to taunt me back to the mature notion of remaining in strict time.

I guess I never saw God as the conductor of an orchestra. To me, He’s more like the guy who plays the triangle. He lets the symphony ensue, but every once in a while, inserts his two-note passage that seems to make all the difference in the world.