Tag: 099

099 // One Small Task at a Time

I woke up this morning and remembered. I remembered I needed to check on the cat, feed her and give her her medication, and I remembered I won’t need to do any of that anymore, ever. I remembered I will have to learn how to wake up, live, and go on a little bit differently now.

It’s amazing the impact such a small creature had on my day-to-day existence. It’s awesome to know that even this smallest presence can compound year after year. There is hope for me too.

The sun is bright and warm today and that is keeping me from falling into a proper funk. That doesn’t mean that motivation is coming easy, only that I have been given a fighting chance at productivity.

It helps to take the day one small task at a time. Start the laundry. Go to the home improvement store to pick up the benches we bought yesterday. Come home. Clean up the backyard. Eat lunch. Wash up the dishes. Move the cat’s old carrier and the heating pad. Acknowledge your grief. Write some words. Call your mom. Open a bottle of wine. Cook dinner.

The clouds are rolling in now. Beginning this evening, the warmth of Spring is forecasted to give way to Spring snow by Wednesday. I’m glad I got out in the sun today even if it was only to do yard work. It felt good to move, to sweat, to make something ready for new growth—the Earth, my life, myself.

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A friend called me today, and it meant the world. The hardest part about being away from people is how hard it is to feel cared about, loved, or wanted, but she made the effort to call, not just text, but call. The conversation was short, but it cheered me up and I have a feeling the good it did will last a long while. I think I’ll try calling people this week too. It isn’t the conversation so much as the thought that counts and I would like to spread the joy.

It’s been a while since I’ve written any poetry but today the words were coming easier so I thought I would give it a try. I’m pretty proud of the outcome and encouraged by the enthusiasm I was able to muster. Some days are going to be easier than others it seems, and maybe that’s okay as long as I make sure it’s a bad writing day by actually trying first by actually trying and I still do something productive with the day like reading or working on an older piece.

I finished book 11 of my Penguin Little Black Classics, A Cup Of Sake Beneath The Cherry Trees by Yoshida Kenkō, and started book 12, How to Use Your Enemies by Baltasar Gracián, which, it turns out, is also a book about how to use your friends. The premise may be shrewd, but I’m finding a lot of insight about the human psyche in here and I’ve realized that the way things should be and the way things are each a kind of truth.