Have you ever had one of those days when you are riding your bike and you feel a tire go flat? And you notice that every pebble jostles your balance and you push the pedals twice as hard but go only half as fast? But then, when you get off to check the pressure of the tires and they are both tight as drums, you have that moment of realization that the flatness is in your own body?
The morning stains the western tips of the sky with a citrus glow, but above the horizon’s blush the lavender dawn is almost unblemished. The only interruptions in the entire dome of the Earth’s cap are the moon (whose unsubtle and pearly presence looks like the work of a bad Photoshop artist), a diamond gleam in the east (whether a star, planet or spacecraft is unknown), and, in the bottom inch or two of skyline, chimneys, satellite dishes, rooftops, and various other urban spires of mysterious name and function. All is still as a picture, save for the occasional aviary silhouette gliding from one spire to another.
Climbing up to the roof is to take a camera lens and crank it ninety degrees to the left so that all the things that were impossible to ignore--traffic lights, swerving mopeds, skateboarders, slamming gates, sirens, dogs yanking on leashes--suddenly blur out of focus and the silent plume of steam exhaling from a roof pipe above the Picassoesque geometry of shingles upon housetops upon balconies upon towers comes into sharp relief.
I come up here to think. After several months of chasing after my life with a butterfly net, I was due for a moment of pause. For I have learned this about myself: I am a creature of The Now. Whatever is happening in this waking moment takes precedence over all else and unless I forcibly remove myself from my daily Ferris wheel, I will follow the breadcrumb trail of buzzing phones, work emails, dinner invites, race registration alerts and free samples all the way down into a sleepless oblivion, in a comatose state of knee jerk Yes! reactions to all immediate stimuli.
Some people struggle with living in the moment. They buy books about the art of Zen and present-mindedness. For these people it is an effort, a prayer, a New Year Resolution to bury memories and anxieties and to just bask in each of life’s savory moments as they pass.
I am not one of those people. All of my cares about the future weigh less than Forrest Gump’s feather. I lose sleep over nothing (unless I am on a plane in which case I lose sleep for lack of prescription medication to make me forget that I am trapped). Most of the worries I discuss with friends are more topics of conversation than actual sentiments I mull over when I’m alone.
The go-with-the-flow lifestyle is ulcerless and lovely… to a certain point. The only problem arises when “the flow” starts drifting in an unintended direction. The problem is when there are so many things to do but, when you look closely, no real reason for doing any of them, other than the fact that the opportunities presented themselves, in sequined and sexy nowness, at the door. The problem is when getting out of bed every morning is more a result of muscle memory than will power. It’s when you find yourself moving through the days by some unnamed inertia, happenstance gusts of wind and the momentum of a busy-ness addiction, without any internally anchored drive to arrive at any particular destination. But a wheel can only roll for so long without a motor.
As I pondered this on the Rooftop of Catharsis, I decided that, in defiance of Carrie Underwood and in homage of Incubus, it was time I take the proverbial Wheel and outline something of a life plan for myself.
I dug up my faux-leather serious-thoughts-only notebook, and started thumbing for a blank page. At almost exactly the midway point, I found the end of the inked section and stretched the stiff binding open flat, like cracking vertebrae on a stiff back. Upon closer inspection, I realized the page I had opened to was not, in fact, empty. It was almost blank except the top corner was labeled 12/2/2013 and on the header there was a single scribbled word in all caps: “GOALS.”
I suppose I am nothing if not consistent.
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