The Day Gets Away
I had plans for today to get up, write Morning Pages, then see what I could accomplish. I especially wanted to clean the mess on and around my desk. Typing this now, at nearly four in the afternoon, a book, phone, planner, portfolio, and pack of post-it notes still litter my desk. I don't want to even describe the stacks on the windowsill and shelf or the footstool atop which I've piled papers that surely I'll get to later. (Probably not. And stop calling me Shirley.)
After sleeping past eight, I came down for coffee and Morning Pages but made the mistake of checking email. A notice from Google said some accounts of an organization I used to help manage are sending spam. Those addresses are abandoned by all but a few people. Even the program director and I stopped using them.
Okay, I thought, before I start Morning Pages, I'll just log in and fix things quickly. But I couldn't remember or find my password. I tried one thing, another, and some others. Ten minutes turned to thirty and then an hour. I requested help from Google, closed the computer, and went back to making coffee. Google, a leader in technology and efficiency, won't get back to me for at least a week.
I made coffee but the filter ripped and filled the cup with grounds. I started writing, but only the top half of the cup was drinkable after which I was easily sidetracked from the half page of writing I'd done by a possible way to get into the account. A minute turned into forty-five, but I recalled (lucked into) the correct password then lost another three-quarters of an hour monkeying with settings, reading and deleting old mail, alerting the few users that I'm shutting things down when the domain runs out.
Back to writing. I filled page one and was midway through page two when I remembered that the domain renews and charges my card automatically. I logged into the account again, drilled through menus, and fifteen minutes turned to forty.
Done with that, I made another cup of coffee thinking, I need to order a new chamber for my Aeropress. But I resisted that urge. Focus, I told myself, setting the kettle on the burner, placing a new filter, filling the chamber (which I really do need to replace), rinsing the mug, pressing the coffee. The whole time thinking, there's something I'm forgetting.
The clocked ticked just past noon. I sipped coffee and wrote into the first lines of page three. I finished the coffee and (maybe it was written in the bottom of the cup) remembered my one o'clock therapy appointment. The clock read 12:20. I still had two-thirds of a page to go.
I went up and dressed, told my daughter I was off to therapy, gathered the unfinished pages, and drove to the office. There I finished the last page and breathed a literal sigh of relief. I looked at my watch: 12:57 PM.
Where, I wondered, had the morning gone?