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| AMAIZING path, I THINK IT’S A LIME WAVE/WAIVE
Friday, March 3, 2023
Each morning I draft this column and often begin with an outline, opening line, or subject matter I chose the day before. As days unfold, unpredictable ups/downs determine when or where I’ll finish …
On a perfect day, I conclude, tweak and polish (in this case – Friday’s column before 9 AM on Thursday) and then load for email distribution and archiving on the website when I have 15-30 minutes throughout the day.
Like I said, on a perfect day! But most days have some assortment or chaos of early meetings, calls, and tasks that mess with my schedule (mostly good things, but primarily unscripted), so they are incompatible with keeping a tight schedule. And then, sometimes, like last night, I was wrestling with this column at 7:19 and eventually finished at about 8:15. By then, I’m too bagged to set up the format for Saturday’s piece, let alone write anything to trigger my column for that day. I packed up my gear, headed for home to load it up when I get home before I curl up for the night.
As for that reason, WHY, tune in tomorrow.
In theory, that early start sets the tone for the piece – but offers no guarantee. Like so many things, that initial idea might sour on me through the day and gets discarded like a soiled paper napkin, in which case I start over – which I did, so what you are reading from here is not fresh-morning thought, but end of day weary, a blend of satisfaction and disappointment, gratitude and missing the boat something important – not knowing quite how to fix something that is like unwinding a maze/maize-path to reverse engineer some better ideal, of different paths take, with no point wishing how things might have been.
Despite the best of my intentions to put bounce in my day and writing from a stimulating writing-prompt beginning, sometimes I get derailed by the many unexpected events of the day, the day before, or in planning for the day ahead – the thought train has left the station …
What this has taught me over time, more than anything in my ADHD/anal-driven practice of ‘well-recorded procrastination’ over many years of this daily column writing practice, is that there is a time of day, together with a state of mind’ that is most conducive to sitting still, stilling my mind, and focusing on what to do, and thoughts roll onto the page. (on Wednesday the 1st of March, after a slow start morning from having worked too the night before), I wrote, polished and made the March 2nd column ready for posting the morning of the 2nd. As is my ‘not always adhered-to practice,’ I build the draft format of the next day’s column, which is what you are reading now.
This is the beginning, so I'll finish this column later in the day or evening of the 1st or the morning of the 2nd.
There are exceptions to this process from time to time – like when I read what I’ve written and can’t see it making sense as it might have when I conceived the idea …
So, then it’s a shorter timeframe from draft to publishing. Thankfully, meds have given me a better quality of focus along with the patience to sit still while creativity does its work, editing and polishing …
So why am I telling this story that must appear to readers like something similar to so many similar sounding starts they’ve read before?
I’m not too fond of redundancy, but most things that start looking the same turn out quite differently in my life – part deja-vu, part fresh exploration.
It’s like sitting across my desk from someone, as I was yesterday – someone tossing out ideas, or a name, woven between offerings of constructive critique or support for a strategy can mess with my day – or make my day far more worthwhile. The moral of this story is to have lots of meetings with clever people with different viewpoints who kick me in the ass, stab me in the chest, or link arms with me in a common pursuit … and then the day takes on new meaning I never imagined.
Like the column writing, the plan seemed so simple, and then it got derailed – or, was it today’s overly ambitious schedule that did me in? Yesterday was meeting filled – but I juggled, so only my first Zoom meeting got rescheduled. And rescheduled yet again – so what was supposed to have happened by close of business Wednesday, I didn’t complete an email to the client until 3:05 PM, just in time for our 3:15 zoom call (after two postponements), leaving the day of ‘much done, much progress made,’ none the waiting files/work in the drawer got touched, and the partial column languished day. That’s the problem with the DRAFT – it sits there like a damp, cold, wet rag; it dries out a bit, loses its snap and feels more ready for the trash heap than for sharing with the world.
But that’s this writer’s reality; saluting the task at hand is required when duty calls.
And now its now past 8:00 PM, and complete exhaustion speaks up, demands I put an end to this, so, there – the end!
But a few keystrokes telling me the end has been reached is of little consequence if it does not feel like the end yet …
Some days these fingers hitting these keys feel limber and quick, they capture a bit of magic, which is fun and pumps this writer up. Still, the converse can happen too, resulting in a slow winding malaise that feels more like I’m wading into ocean waves the consistency of well-set Jello. I think it’s lime …
Tomorrow will be another full day – brim full, but a day for advances, progress and completion of some tasks, and the wrestle with some stress lurking on my shoulders all week about something that remains insoluble for now; perhaps it, or someone, has a timetable for a resolution I’ve not got the memo about yet – so radio silence on that wedge of my life continues %@&)@%&RUO
The sun will come up tomorrow, and so will I, like always.
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