Tag: state of being

Work, work, work, work, work, work

a slice of the WWII we can do it poster.

Is it Friday yet?

Oh. It is. And ahead are three days without going to work.

Labor Day. A day of leisure. A day of anti-labor. Because we work. And we prefer not to.

The idea of work being something that requires relief, versus an integral part of being seems kind of bad.

I chose the word bad on purpose. As in opposite of good. Because work is what we do. And to make work separate from being seems like a recipe for unhappiness. Learning is work. Thinking is work. Walking is work.

Winning a gold medal in the 800 meter freestyle? Work. Feeding and diapering a baby–your own included–equals work. Negotiating at a parent/teacher conference? Definitely work.

Ask a professional dancer what they do, they’ll tell you they work. The cast of Hamilton, they go to work everyday. The Pope? Doing god’s work. Being the leader of the free world? I think President’s would call that work.

Teaching a class? Work. Taking a class? Work. Making dinner? Work. Paying bills? Work. Thinking big thoughts? That’s work, too. Being a spouse, child, parent, sibling? All include work.

You work at relationships. You work at finding compromise and solution. Struggle can be work, but work does not have to be struggle. Or maybe struggle isn’t work? I mean, this could be a better post if I worked on it.

Right now, though, I am finishing the work on this post. And then I am going to rest my head. Maybe I can say that I’m working on sleeping. Yeah. That’s it. Until I punch the clock in the morning.

I don’t mind work. It’s how we grow.

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Window Dressing

An image of the Andrew Wyeth painting, The Wind from the Sea.

It was likely still gray. Like the light when the night turns over to day, but before the sun does its shine thing. I was reluctantly awake.

That’s not really true. Reluctance is active. I was completely inactive. My state of waking was a passive occurrence. I wasn’t doing awake. I wasn’t encouraging awake. I just was. Mostly.

My eyes weren’t closed. Close is an action verb, too. I wasn’t acting. There were eyelids laying across my eyes. If I was thinking, I would have wondered about slipping back into that other state. Sleep. I could go either way, and, indeed, I was passing between these consciousnesses. I was given to repose.

The motor on the little fan whirred and then receded somewhere far away as I slipped back into sleep. The forced air rushed past my bare shoulder. I moved my hand from underneath my pillow and pulled the sheet up. It wasn’t a waking move as much as a reflex. My hand found its way back under the pillow and my mind back to a dreamscape.

My body warmed fast. Too fast, passing quickly through snug and stopping on roast. My left leg kicked off my blanket and sheet. I dangled my foot over the side of the bed. I raised my shoulder to let the sheet fall away and tucked my foot back under my covers. I cozied into the linens, wrapped with an ambient satisfaction from the thin sheet protecting me from the chilly air.

Temperature fully regulated, my mind left the room and joined a meadow or a garden or a house that I’ve never seen but I know is mine. Interrupted by a pressure drop. It’s my wakeup call. I’m roused enough to hit snooze before I lapse back to that other state. That latent state , where there is only one verb. Is.

Posted on by docthink 0