Category: Smelling the roses

Made it to the mountain this week.

There’s a ton of stuff I should have done, but none of it really pressing.

I looked at the stack of paperwork on my desk and think, “I really should scan this stuff and shred the paper…” but I’m unmotivated. I have no desire to give any time to bureaucracy and documentation that serves other people’s purposes.

I’m tired but at peace. 

No sounds except the wind in the trees, birds and scurrying of small critters in some of the plants, those sounds are probably just lizards going about their lizardy day.

No traffic sounds, car alarms, sirens, or loud people. In short, bliss!

It’s a cooler morning, the sun has just crested the hills to the East and I’m sitting on the deck in a pair of ratty shorts with bed head and a cup of coffee.  The dog is checking out his yard making sure that nothing is amiss.

In just a few hours, it will be down the mountain to the heat, brightness, and chaos of the modern world. Ironic, since I’m participating to some extent in the modern insanity writing his blog. 

The neighbor’s dog is surveying his world from his outpost in his yard. He looks my way, recognizes me and focuses on something else, the king of his domain.

I used to be king, now I’m a slave to a time clock and petty, reactionary managers & supervisors. I don’t know why some people aren’t happy unless everyone else is miserable. For some reason, where I work has concentrated a substantial number of really petty, nasty, people in supervisory positions.

These people seem to go out of their way to make others unhappy and then delight in the ensuing discord.  Ahh, thinking about those people, and their insanity will wait until tomorrow. In its due time.

My phone is upstairs on my desk, having just shown me “Memories”. It was trying to be helpful but it failed. The “Memories” it chose were of my faithful pup who passed last year. It’s a bittersweet series of photos and feels a bit like having a wound reopened. I know in time, it won’t be as jarring at it is today, but I felt a little betrayed by my phone. So it’s sitting face down in a “Time-Out” lest it remind me of something else I don’t want to think about.

I’m just going to sit here a while, letting the cool breeze blow gently across my exposed skin and enjoy the fact that I don’t care too much what the neighbors may think of my sun starved pasty body. My pallor is a function of living life like a vampire.

As white as I am, they’d be blinded if they looked at me anyway. They should thank whatever deities they worship that I’m not completely nude.

This time is mine!

It’s the only time for the next week where there’s not something or someone demanding my immediate, urgent, or mandatory, attention. 

Either I’m getting old, or I’m becoming more antisocial like Riddick. Perhaps it’s just getting old, but so much of what people think is important… Just isn’t. 

Humm, I guess I’ll go get my phone and take a couple of pictures for this post. My phone has been punished enough.  The dog wants his treat and my coffee is empty anyway.

Make some time in your life to just be, it will do you a world of good.

I have to admit that I do like getting to work at O’dark thirty.

I wake up and it’s dark, I lay here listening to the quiet, (Which in a city is actually just a quieter drone of activity. You don’t realize how much noise there really is unless you’ve lived someplace that is absolutely silent at night.)

I’ll stretch and count my bones then finally the desire for coffee will drag my old carcass out of bed.

While standing in front of the gurgling, sighing coffee pot, I’ll finish waking up.

The cool of the early morning on my skin and cold floor beneath my feet steels me against the day.

I’ll have my first cup of coffee in front of the computer scanning the exploits of various people from the world news.

(Wow, there is a lot of weird stuff going on in the world and I’m grateful that my awareness of it is limited.) 

About the time I confirm not much has changed and the world is a totally crazy place, I shower, shave and get dressed then I’m out the door.

Then I have one more really nice thing to deal with. 

The roads are pretty much mine. 

Most mornings I catch green lights all the way to the freeway, and then I’m cruising at 80 on an empty road to work. 4AM seems to be the only time anymore that the freeways live up to their name. 

I make it to work, after catching green lights all the way from the freeway exit. 

Most mornings when I get to work, I’ll park next to a large open field and usually there is enough time to kill the engine of the car and just sit, listening to the rustling of various creatures ending their nocturnal foraging. I’ll catch sight of some of the denizens of the night  and for a little while be reconnected to the “real” world, the world of life and simple needs.

Then it’s time to return to the world of man. The complexities, artificially generated problems, and anxieties that come with civilization.

I’ve come to realize that I look forward to my morning solitude. I like not dealing with throngs of people. My morning “quiet” helps me get through my workday. When I leave in the afternoon, I’m often stuck in traffic but even that traffic is nothing like the insanity of the 5 o’clock rush hour.

The term “Rush hour” itself has little meaning. I think it should be called parking hours. In the “O’Dark” hours it takes me 20 minutes to get to work. In the afternoon, it often takes me over an hour to cover the same distance.

By the time I get home, I’m not terribly interested in doing much of anything. I’m tired and drug out from talking to anxious people all day long, topped off by avoiding the inattentive clueless people who are supposed to be paying attention while they’re driving.

I’ll try to recapture the silence and solitude of the morning.

I’m in transition here. It’s generally healthy and I think I’m laying the foundation to be able to decide what I really want and what I don’t.

I’m calling it progress.

Take some time to smell the roses, look up from your toils and ask yourself; “What am I doing? Is this what I really want, and if not, what can I do to change it?”

You might be surprised at the answer.