I am most productive when the weather turns. A few days between parting and coming extremes feel like new beginnings. I’d much rather start something fresh than finish anything. I am falling in thrall with the fall.

I have books to write. My proposal generating system’s been busted for ages now, and my warehouse overflows with finished, or nearly finished product. Perhaps now is the time to unclog that damned thing before the leaves start falling.

By the last week of summer, I’m slinking around. I feel found out, sweated through, and almost done in. The sweet mornings lull me back to sleep and naps come easily. I’m hardly fit for public display. The Muse notices my head hanging down. Even the cats sense something’s about to change, but then the cats always know when something’s about to change.

I’ve been reveling in OrdinaryTimes for about fifty days now, and fifty nights. This has been a remarkable exploration. I have found something extraordinary within each and every ordinary day. I realize now that there are no ordinary times, only times I expect to be extraordinary and those I expect to be ordinary. It’s a cheap trick to transform any meager expectation into something far above that. Watch and you’re sure to see some little something that’s sure to qualify. But to overstay OrdinaryTimes encourages a slow pitch game. I wonder how my experience might shift should I expect extraordinary, drop the whole bundle on the dark horse, move through the world as if especially blessed.

I could be drafting a charter for disappointment by raising my passive standards. I could fail to live in extended ExtraordinaryTimes. Nearly five years into this extended exile, I have little to lose and plenty to gain. This sounds suspiciously like the first pages of some unlikely adventure novel.

My next series will be trying on the experience of ExtraordinaryTimes. I will be raising my expectations and reaping the results. I expect something remarkable to happen next.<p>

©2013 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: Working, Writing, Living