"Lord knows this world could use some concerted frittering today."

SnowingIn - 10:28:19, 6.18 PM
The weather reporter seems to imply that I should consider panicking. I'm not panicking, though. I know that this storm will most certainly threaten my precious mobility, but it encourages me to reconsider just where I thought I was supposed to be going from here. A lengthening list of sudden imperatives intrudes upon my serenity, but the increasing impossibility of resolving even the least of them quietly thwarts those wants. None of them fully qualified as needs and I decline a clear opportunity to become ruled by whatever I believe myself to need. What if I needed nothing more than what already possesses me in this very moment? Invulnerable to any supplemental advertising, I might revel in some temporary semi-self-sufficiency.

The snowplow plies the roadway outside, piling freshly soiled snow berms across the driveway entrance. I hold it as a first principle that I should not start to shovel out until the snow stops falling down, with exceptions granted if the projected accumulation might overwhelm my ability to shove it aside. I'm not hiding from any obligation while I watch the snow fall. I might be waiting for my moment, for one clear calling to pull me outside. My German soul feels lazy for not engaging in a pitched battle with nature, but that response might not be in my nature anymore. When I open the door, some of that snow sifts inside to leave a soggy spot behind. Who really needs another soggy spot in their lives?

My bedside table holds a pile of books still aching for my attention. The library thoughtfully reminds me that two of the titles will be due before this storm front's through. I feel a wave of responsibility work her way through me before deciding that I can most likely afford the few days' fine I'll deserve for returning those titles late. I wrestle with feeling great just as I find myself today, with no promising liberation luring me beyond my door. Before, back when I still felt irreplaceable, I would have walked the proverbial ten miles uphill both ways to guarantee that I made it out there on time. Now, my time's finally mine. I could fritter away my birthright wishing the world was any other way than simply the way it is. Today, though, I hold special dispensation to acknowledge and accept, expecting nothing world-changing to call me out of my small hibernation.

It takes concerted discipline to let my distractions be. Out of easy arm's reach, I cannot choose any differently than what I find already here. The Muse insists that we're inexplicably out of yeast, though I find a few packets hiding behind something in the door of the freezer. Of course, our lives might all be easier if we could simply zoot out to gather in whatever comes to mind. If satisfaction or salvation stood out there, easily accessible from half a dozen bus lines, I might never have to reach any sort of settlement with my own mind. I could seek without ever once finding, collecting essentially booby prizes, trophies for simply engaging without actually succeeding at anything, always on the move. These moves eternally preserve potential without delivering anything terribly substantial except another load to sort and store, a larder filled with back-up standbys very rarely used.

The weather reporter seems to imply that I should consider panicking, but I'm settling in instead. I'm a burden on the economy, purchasing nothing and praying that I'll receive nothing in return. I might invest my day in whatever just comes my way, a hunter-gatherer of nothing that I need to hunt for or to gather in. I could become my own very best friend for a spell, and it's impossible to tell where such an engagement might lead. I thank the snowfall. I praise the blessed inconvenience of it. I need no convenience to find my ease. The pursuit of the sorts of happiness shopping might bring me seems utterly unattractive today. I might fritter this time away. Lord knows this world could use some concerted frittering today.

©2019 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #GlancingKnow, #PureSchmaltz