“Your job isn’t who you are,” the little monkey voice inside the head kept chattering. Yeah, yeah, heard it all so many times before in a been-there-done-that kind of way. Wave after wave of images roll onto the shores of my short-term recall, trying to evoke a response or any sign of life. Only to return back to the abyss of the deep sea of memory. It’s going to be a long night, but when it’s all said and done it’ll be another Monday.
Ten years later Monday looks a lot different. On Saturday I start looking forward to Monday. I know that’s when I get my world back. It’s when folks go back to work, and the stores are less crowded. The traffic is less congested. And a day when I once felt trapped and pinned in, now fells like I just got sprung. It’s liberating.
Flora Purim sang, when she was with Chick Corea, these lines:
Look around you my people
If you look then you will see
How to love, life is paradise all together
What game shall we play today?
Monday has become the day I ask that question, what game shall we play today?
I say this because even though it sometimes seems one might be drifting, when work ends, how bad is that drifting? I see folks on the Colorado river on inner tubes and kayaks, drifting on their days off. Yeah, sure enough, nothing wrong with that. Is it just the idea of not being relevant anymore that frightens people? Folks who will never retire because they love what they do? Is that it? Or does facing the abyss seem less preferable than facing another Monday with the pressed white shirt, the long dress pants, the work shoes, the socks?
Look, I know eventually the river drifts into the great sea beyond. And it will be a lot sooner than it once was. As it is for everybody.
Ok, but what does that have to do with the wine trail in Italy?
Well, I am tasting more Italian wine than ever. I’ve done deep dives into Arneis and Nascetta. Etna wines are coming across my wine table more and more lately, new producers, some very prestigious, at least according to their own press releases. I finally found the Trebbiano and Cerasuolo from Tiberio on the retail shelves in my town, so that has been a welcome addition. I’m drinking down the reds in the cellar. Wine is flowing, while I drift off into ambiguity. It’s like becoming a Roman, again, two thousand years later. Full circle. Maybe better wine now? At least we still have plumbing. And music.
Yeah, the free-form of life after work can be frightening to folks who need the structure to keep their minds off of the last roundup.
That last Monday drive I mentioned earlier? It was to take the remains of someone who lived a full live, and to consign them to a place where the last wishes requested. It’s strange to see the remains of someone you once knew and loved, scatter in the winds, winds that define West Texas. It is final, but also freeing. Like flying a kite.
From an Eternity of Mondays to a Monday in Eternity.
Monday, my new Saturday. What game will I play tomorrow?
