There are Days

There are days…and we’ve had plenty of them.

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There are days to be sure.  Another one just showed up. We didn’t ask for it, but here it is.   Only one way to escape it. You ready for that?

Days have been coming so regularly we take them for granted. We greet them with a ho hum shrug.  And there’s really not much of a way to prepare for what’s coming. Days come wrapped in a surprise package. Mysteries without many if any clues. 

All days are different. Some are bombs, looking for a place to explode. You might be the target today. Others come dressed as misers, casting a few coins your way like you were a beggar in Calcutta. But no day shows up empty-handed. Just breathing counts for something. 

There’re days that seem to fly right by

And days that seem to crawl.

We take them as they come our way,

The blessings and curses all.

I’ll bet you’re having a day right now. Maybe you get up today, saying, “Tough day ahead. I’ll get ready, eat some nails for breakfast.” Only to find out that you forget the hammer, and before the day ends, it’s you who gets nailed.   

Some days I rob Peter to pay Paul. A brilliant idea pops into my head. I’ll call the government. No answer. I try alchemy, it’s worked before. I rub two nickels together, hoping to get a dime. Sparks fly, a penny pops out.  Like life, sometimes just enough is a windfall.  

But it’s a better outcome than yesterday’s experience. This fellow is boasting about his religion, his integrity, a nebulous concept subjectively applicable to the moment at hand. We shake hands. I get only four fingers back, missing the one with my gold family crest ring.

There are days when I like to dream of nothing but nonsense. It wakes up my brain cells, fantasy takes over. Strange, but with just a cursory view of today’s news, I realize that my dream puts me on par with everybody else.

You might decide to read the news today. So much controversy, everything so confusing. You read about the woke pot boiling over, academics running wild in the streets, rewriting history and the dictionary with confusing definitions, like sex and gender.

In high school you were considered an expert on sex and gender. Grow up. You were young then, things were simple. But concepts change. Now you discover that everyone is confused about who they are. You thought it was either this way or that, no confusion. Birth decided it. Wrong. Now you’re no longer quite certain.  

There were days when four genders ruled—masculine, feminine, neuter and common. You never did know what common was.  Now you are shocked to find there are eleven genders, and non-binary is total Greek to you.  You question if you’ve been wrong about yourself all these years. You take a peek. Nothing has changed. You relax. 

There are days you don’t need the news to confound your feeble brain. Other things do as good a job. I had one of those days recently.

“What are you doing?” she asks, slight emphasis on ‘what.’

“Having a lemonade,”   

“Out of that?” Emphasis on ‘that.’

“These new water glasses are cool.”

“That’s a flower vase, you idiot.” Heavy emphasis on ‘idiot.’

The supremacy of male ego is a fragile thing indeed.

Then there are days when nothing goes wrong and others when nothing goes right. Days when you find yourself in a thicket of thorns and later become a thorn in a thicket of people. Some days you feel all alone, others when even your solitude is too crowded. 

There are days we envy the household dog, and some days we are the dog, fleas and all. Some days we’re squeezed in the financial furnace of affliction, a beggar amidst great riches.

There are days when ambition’s ravenous appetite runs stark naked wild. It feasts upon itself, appeased only in debauchery with like-minded companions. It’s a hungry tide, gobbling up the shore’s sands. Common sense is its doormat. 

There are days when we wake up needing a nap, days when our yawns are caverns, capable of swallowing us whole. Some days, Covid notwithstanding, we mask up, when false face must hide what false heart doth know.

There are days when we cast long shadows,

And days when we cast none at all.

Days of futility as we chase them.

And days when behind us they fall.

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Whatever your day might hold, may your shadow always be long.

 

 Bud Hearn

May 21, 2021