Deadlines ...
Monday, November 16, 2009 at 08:38AM … this is not what I want to be writing about.
I want to write about “no-mance” … I want to write about romance … I want to write about transitions … I want to write about discovery … I want to write more about remembering … I want to daydream endlessly.
But there is this lump in my chest.
I want to deny that it’s there.
I only feel it at night … when I lay there … drifting … thinking happy thoughts about my day … happy thoughts about great moments with Z … great conversations … the interesting stuff that I have read … how it inspires me to write … and my eyelids drift closed … gently … … gently
gently …
Toss.
Turn.
Leg cramp.
Deep breath.
Toss. Turn. Leg cramp. Deep breath. Visualize five … … four … … … threeeee …
THAT’s when I can no longer avoid the pit in my chest. There, all wrapped up in a duvet of nighttime quiet, I can no longer be distracted from it. It’s dull ache and heaviness press down on me.
Dead.
Lines.
Why do they cause me panic? Why do they call them deadlines? Is it because the effort … the sprinting … the creating … the assembling … the cramming … the printing … the typing … the everything just ends when you reach that line? It dies. But isn’t the whole point of all that energy to get to a new place? A place where I’m … I don’t know … smarter … where I’m more alive?
Historically the word deadline derives its meaning from the boundary line in a prison yard. I imagine the prisoner after careful contemplation, plotting, preparation, deciding, and submission to his plan. I imagine him running towards that line. The deadline. Fear of the inside overwhelms fear of the other side … no longer worried about what waits across that line. Sentries watch … guns trained … ever-ready to reward him for his efforts.
Dead.
Lines.
They loom. They hover. If I sprint at them, I will surely feel like death. So I won’t.
Soft and slow, I will tip toe and creep.
And I will cheer when I’ve crossed the line.
Live.
Line.
Smarter and more alive.
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