Category Archives: In The Moment

Laundry Day

In The Moment, ,

15 more minutes of this. Can I make it with a straight face, or without watching my mood swing dangerously down the slope to utter irritability.

The music was nice enough, in an odd way. When I arrived, around 7 am, one of the usual  Saturday characters sat outside with a mini speaker blasting a Bluegrass violin tune. It was nice. Reminded me of the yearly New World Fest, in Randolph, which had been on my mind that very morning. I had missed the event two years in a row now. I smiled.

Now, in he came to fold, speaker blasting at his side, some old style country western voice barking a musical tale. It was pleasant, I thought, but I also felt I had suddenly entered a slapstick humor show. The man sang along. He was happy, allowing his weekend chore to wash over him musically. No harm in that. And I smiled again.

I smiled because this nudged me out of my comfort zone. It nudged me out of the quiet, reserved, suburban girl persona. Something in me wanted this girl to crank out her neck like a turtle coming out of its shell with a big, satisfied, knowing grin on its face.

What I knew, in that instant, was that I had misplaced my playfulness; traded it for the daily dramas at work, and for blind adherence to routine and personal rules of etiquette. 

And now, I drive straight to work with this country soul ear worm stuck in my head. I have no reason to frown today. I have reason to be thankful to the man who brought his easy-going Sunday morning self along for the laundry chore.

Hangman

In The Moment, ,

Stopped for lunch by the bike path. I was drawn to this table because of the blue chair lift, secured to a post that suddenly reminds me of a hangman game. 

No one hangs here, thankfully, not even the beginnings of a stick figure. 

The phrase, “hang in there” comes to mind as I contemplate the out of place chair lift that goes nowhere, so that “in there” truly invites one to go within. 

What word prompted this game, this invitation to skip the violence of a proper hanging in favor of releasing the soul to swing on a chair? Was it a four-letter word gone astray, but for good instead of ill? 

“F this!” She thought. But instead of calling it all quits, she sat and reflected, because the gallows suddenly revealed themselves to be a resurrected chairlift bench. Surely, if this otherwise inanimate object could have a second chance, why not any human at the end of their rope. After all, the chairlift never reaches the end of the cable. It just goes round and round for a fresh perspective. And one is free to hop on or off. Though one must wait to do so at the proper beginning or end. There’s another obvious metaphor for life right there.

No. It must have been a ten-letter word: Continuity. That’s a much harder one to decipher. Thank goodness for this place to sit and ponder.