It never fails. Every time I think about St. Augustine I start vacuuming. And that’s not a metaphor or anything. I actually get out my vacuum and clean. Or sometimes it’s dusting and windex-ing. Whatever the actual form of cleaning isn’t the point. I clean. Don’t mistake me for a long-hair or anything. I don’t always think of St. Augustine. Often I think about cupcakes. And shoes. (Again, not a metaphor). Several years back I wrote a play called A Piece of White Bread–a tragedy in one act. The main character vacuumed when she felt anxious. There was a lot of vacuuming going on. There was also a fair amount of laughing, too. By the audience. It was funny on the surface.
I heard someone explain depression is a condition of the past and anxiety is a condition of the future. And that peace of mind comes with staying in the today. And you hear a lot about that, these days, being present. It’s banded about so frequently that it’s cliched. But it’s not a new concept, the present. I agree with it and all that but when people say it I struggle not to reply with something smart-assy. It really gets on my nerves. But it shouldn’t. I don’t want to be judgmental.
So about The Present. What the hell is it, exactly? And the past. Does the past exist? In our memory it does. Does the future exist? In our imaginings it does. So, if we live with the past and the future simultaneously in our minds, today, then is that, combined with what is happening right now, the summation of the present? Past present future simultaneously animated in our heads?
Sometimes I fall into the folds of a time-wrinkle longer than I anticipate and one may begin to wonder about me, during those times. What the hell any of this has to do with the price of tea in China? Well, I’ll tell you. If you aren’t shaped by yesterday then you can’t learn a lesson. If you don’t think of tomorrow then you can’t make a goal. And if you feel as though you won’t fall into the 6-foot-deep yawn of this Earth then you are in denial.
And then what? You tell me.
Until next time. But for now I see some dust I missed, earlier.
A
Notes From A Spare Mind 