Counting Days/daze

Days always had a rhythm to them; weeks beginning anew on Monday with demands of school, or work, or family, mostly all three to mark the passing time.  Calendar blocks filled, time measured by meetings or assignments due; lunch or dinner engagements recorded; special occasions noted with small icons (a smiley face or heart); and the usual entries for body tune-ups at doctors or dentists or auto shops.   With each phase of my life the patterns took shape; from work assignments due, to tests and exams; volunteer or work-based meetings and conferences and papers and lectures and agendas planned and executed.  

 

Alarm clocks set, although my inner clock rarely failed to arouse me for an early start, usually 7am.  Ben would always sleep in, preferring the quiet of the post midnight house to do his major writing or thinking.  The joy of weekends always began with no need for clocks in the morning, chores managed at my own day’s pace.  Sundays reserved for the weekly crossword puzzle, family time, laziness nurtured with rare deadlines to meet.

 

I wake up today and lie still as I try to orient myself to the present.  Is it a weekend or weekday?  Was yesterday a day of leisure, or used to run errands?  I was at a concert, I remember, but was it Saturday or Thursday? If this is Monday, the trash must be rolled to the corner, if Wednesday, the recycles put out.  But wait, Thursday was a holiday, which is why it felt like a weekend day, and the recycling is collected a day later. But did I do that, or has a new, holiday-less week begun?

 

I know in nursing homes and hospitals it becomes important to help patients and residents keep track of time’s reality, so the day, date and time is often scrawled onto a white board in each room.  Should I begin to do that?  Hang a calendar near my nightstand?  Should I really need to count the days? 

 

Some days, with their set routines, are easy to slip into; Thursdays for exercise and Tai Chi, Saturdays for Sabbath services, Sundays for the regular morning talk shows.  In Florida during the winter months, my waking mind is much more in sync with my daily routines; each weekday offers an array of programs, discussion groups, trips and entertainment, from Current Events on Monday afternoon, to Tai chi on Tuesday and Friday mornings; Foreign affairs discussion each Friday morning, visual arts on Thursday and on to Women speak on Fridays.  But here at home, for the other 8 months, I float through time unchartered, with only an occasional scheduled activity.  More often than not it will involve lunch, eating out and catching up with friends, probably adding unneeded calories to my waist line.

 

Today, I tell myself that I will begin a new pattern, up each day, and after exercises and breakfast and the daily puzzles, face the computer, work on your planned book about women, write in the newly started blog, or just mundanely check emails and pay bills.  But the room I work in cannot be suffered after noon during these hot summer days, and I soon end up, yet another day, reading or watching endless British cop shows or comedy.

 

Get, up!  Go for a walk! Yes, but its 90 plus degrees!  So go to the club!  Workout!  Yes, but maybe tomorrow in the morning.  For now, the room is stifling, and the couch and that great new novel wait.