Today
by Jean Little
Today I will not live up to my potential.
Today I will not relate well to my peer group.
Today I will not contribute in class.
I will not Volunteer one thing.
Today I will not strive to do better.
Today I will not acheive or adjust to grow enriched or get involved.
Today I might eat the eraser off my pencil.
I’ll look at the clouds,
I’ll be late,
I don’t think I’ll wash,
I need a rest.
By default (READ: I put my nose in a book and block out the sound), I “watch” this retarded survival show — retarded in that I think the guy is British Special Forces, he’s handsome and well-spoken and young and he’s got a wife and kid he obviously loves (and has spoken of them, once, in dire straits, teary-eyed) yet he’s somehow contrived to land himself with the most asinine television show ever — to strand himself in the most dangerous, cold, wet, hot, hostile and stupid places where he has to work like a Hebrew slave to get out of them alive — anyway, on this show, he’s always saying that in a survival situation you have to keep trying. You have to keep striving, keep planning. And if that plan doesn’t work, you have to try something else.
Striving. Was there ever a word so apt to bring on total exhaustion just in the hearing? Striving. Trying. Climbing. Those are the words people get fed up with in January, mainly because they’re spewed at high decible and with astonishing repetition from various television and radio sets. We’re all supposed to be shiny new — look better, think faster, do more. And yet, I’m trying to gain the courage to at least come down the bloody stairs and greet the new day. Struggling. Straining. Attempting.
It’s been such a nice vacation. A nice break from the screeching goad of working toward a goal. I could hear that screeching voice, but I keep drowning it out with pie… I have a few more days of grace, but I’ll be alone here with the worries and the paperwork mounting while everyone else goes back to punching the clock. And I’ll have another year before me of wondering if I’m wasting my time pursuing my artistic dreams.
Endeavoring. Seeking. Aiming.
Sometimes I don’t even feel like writing is especially …part of the “arts,” per se. I want to slouch around and swill bitter black coffee around in the bottom of my cracked mug and mutter about art being a bitch mistress, but really, I have a cushy office chair and am only locking myself in this little room to write. I think the bitch is that I don’t feel like anyone takes it seriously, and seriously, that’s MY problem, not art’s. This feeling of total despair at having to face another day and rip apart this novel for the umpteenmillioneth time is bogus, because hey – other people aren’t having a chance to be published, already. This I know. This attitude I will strive to adjust.
Striving. Trying. Climbing.
It’s no good. January 1, and already I need a break.
No worries. I do plan to keep trying… but tomorrow is soon enough.
“Striving” sounds like what I have to do to get out of bed in the morning, knowing that I have a huge to-do list waiting for me. Ugh.