Somehow, when I’m writing down these dates – March 24, March 23, and March 22… and possibly earlier, possibly every date in the calendar year – I get this strong, pulling sensation that they’re supposed to mean something, and I have no idea what. I suppose, were I completely future-oriented, writing down a date would mean not much, insofar as I’d be eager to hurtle myself into the future and today’s date would be merely a statistic. Were I completely past-oriented, my mind might flood with memories of what happened on that date in a previous year. Neither of these feelings is especially strong. Instead, each time I write today’s date at the top of that day’s entry, I’m flooded with a feeling that it, this day, is supposed to mean something. And I generally don’t have a fucking clue what. Perhaps it’s my creeping sense of mortality muscling its way in. Perhaps it’s all that meditation, making me more focused on the present moment.
It’s not an unpleasant feeling, but it is a heightened sense of something I would like to connect to something else – I desperately want to connect it to something else, I suspect; except there’s no clearly defined “what” in view. At the same time, I’m becoming more comfortable with it, as a kind of excitement. Maybe a secret joy. I am, I suppose, happy to be alive. My daily activities: where I live, what I do – all these things don’t (don’t yet?) align with my happiness. I’m not thrilled that, late in March (on the 24th day, to be precise), I’m still looking out over completely bare trees, not a bud or a leaf in sight, nothing green except the ivy that has overgrown a blasted tree trunk and the distant green of three evergreen trees partially visible amid the rooftops. I am thrilled, though, that I have a perch on a hill which lets me overlook those roofs, those houses, and which gives me what often seems like the entire scope of the sky to contemplate. And which lets me see a strip of ocean, daily a different color depending on the light it reflects. I’m not happy about the state of my social life here, nor am I thrilled with how I spend my days. in a suburb/ small city with a limited downtown (but all North American downtowns have become, over the last decades, limited and limiting: just go to Copley Square and try to find a non-corporate, non-national chain, non-brand-name eatery for a quick lunch or coffee). The “malling” of the cities creates a kind of isolation I’m not thrilled about.
I was thinking about about how I should perhaps take another look at writing my “Gigster’s Guide” book / booklet (an idea from way back, 2010 or 2011). But one thing that stops me – has stopped me – is the problem of writing about how you need to create a “board” for yourself. My impoverished social life seems to preclude writing this bit with any kind of conviction or authority. I suppose I could encourage a kind of virtual-based board. But this morning I started to read (in Quartz) a damning article about Lyft, Uber, et al., exploiting the gig economy in a series of frankly revolting ads and stories, and I thought, Okay, the time to associate “gigging” with anything positive is OVER. Corporate culture totally owns the unprotected, cast-into-a-nonunion / non-solidarity-wilderness worker. So, even if I did ever write this little book, I would have to let go of the cute alliteration in my original title. Guh-guh must give way to something else. Maybe it’s a bad idea anyway. Or maybe it should just be for artists.
Had a brief email exchange with B. yesterday. I do wish I could hop on a plane and visit her.
The sky right now looks like fish scales. A gigantic trout gliding past, overhead.