Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Daily footsteps on water (or I ticked my bullet journal today)

I have a pile of New Yorkers

haphazardly splayed on the table

that I have yet to clean

still in their plastic covers.


Some are from last December

It's already this October

and they broadcast a failure

to keep up.

I read what I can

an article a day, maybe two

no small feat when they can run

to 30 closely-written pages.


I have not renewed my subscription

It is too much, too much!

and I have other things to tick off

in my trusty bullet journal

which I cling to

in spite of everything

to let me know that 

I have not allowed the days to pass

like footsteps on water.


Did I read a chapter of the book-du-jour?

Hadot's Spiritual Exercises,

or that biography of Van Gogh 

written in the 1950s?


Have I meditated? 

Learnt a few French words and phrases

on Duolingo?


Listened to Deacon Keith Fournier

recite the Bible readings for the day?

With his distinctive panache

on Catholic Online?


Have I cleaned the kitty litter?


Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.


The one thing 

I don't record

is the hours spent

in front of Netflix 

as my mind atrophies

and I become drooling

and sub-verbal.

(and suddenly it's four in the morning

and I'm working tomorrow!)


Pick myself up

Dust myself up

get back to that list.

start again.


I refuse to be

just another

pandemic casualty.


It's time for Calm 

and Tamara  Levitt's

short meditation of the day.

10 minutes.


I can do 10 minutes

What's so hard about 10 minutes?

Maybe it will rein in

this slow disintegration

and reverse my attrition.


Later for you.

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