Sunday night I set my alarm for 5:20. 5:20. Usually any alarm set before 6 means I get to do something exciting, such as going to the airport. But today it meant I was going to the gym. Black- deep, dark, thick- was the first thing I saw. The next thing was Malcolm’s face telling me he was going back to bed instead of suffering along with me at the gym. Just as a little background: I've never been to a gym before. Most the stuff in there looks pretty similar to what I imagine the Spanish Inquisition may have used- and all I’ve ever seen of treadmills are the YouTube videos of people falling off of them. At 5:30 in the morning, I was pretty sure that was destined to be me. I got through it without incident, however, and 2 hours later I was in the car arguing with Malcolm over whether or not it was a viable option to listen to Pink before 8 am. I (barely) made it through U.S. History, escaped to Sweetie Pies for café au lait, and made it back in time to find a spot in the madhouse known as the NVC parking lot before Theatre 100. Lunch break. Homework. Read. Email. Class. Home. Breathe.
Bright- not the soft buttery light bright, but a hot, white blaze- rivaled with my alarm this morning. Today I don’t have to go to class. Today is an everything day. Homework-clean-errands-read-write-everything day.
Wednesday: Monday’s twin.
Thursday: another Everything day.
Friday: Happy-Weekend(!) day.
In the great scheme of things, most of my time is filled with pretty normal stuff: classes, homework, essays, conversations, losing paperwork, driving, novels, writing. Mundane.
Is it really, though- mundane? I’m not so sure I want to confine life under the constrains of those powerful 7 letters. As soon as any day-in-day-out becomes labeled ‘mundane’ it tends to remain there. And before I know it, whole slices of time are lost in the whirlpool of ‘everyday life’ and forgotten. Gone, with only the thrilling left to occupy. And when the thrilling becomes dull? Time is rushed- rushed for the next big thing, rushed to finish what doesn’t seem to count anymore, rushed and gone. Never to be seen again.
I haven't decided if then I should seek the extraordinary in the ordinary, or merely take joy in the mundane things. Maybe both. Either way, I never want today- or any day for that matter- to remain just another day.
Mondays, then- instead of treadmills and driving to school and wasting away in History class- hold the beauty of a black sky and the stillness before the world wakes up; bring the laughter that comes when Malcolm gives me his logic for driving around with a dead black rose on our dash; inspire thankfulness for the means to go to school.
" 'You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other' " (Perelandra)
* http://hannah-tomorrowisamondaymorning.blogspot.com/p/1000.html *
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