The Endless Day

Lately I’ve been trying to figure out what it is I want out of life. I’ve had a little extra time to think, and realized that I would have a better chance of getting what I wanted if I only knew what “it” was, so I’ve been asking myself, “What do I WANT?”

And I’ve come to the conclusion that what I really want is the Endless Day. Not the Never-Ending Day, that’s different. The Never-Ending Day, even for a Lady of Leisure like myself, is full of making breakfast, lunch and dinner for four people, shopping, planning, cleaning the bathroom, writing (but somehow that doesn’t count because then I don’t have time to sell anything), coaching voice students, listening to and learning music (that doesn’t count, either, if I don’t then perform it), paying bills, checking e-mail, working out, doing laundry, raking leaves, pulling weeds from between little rocks, planting garlic, manipulating my son into doing his homework and then remembering to turn it in.

In contrast, the Endless Day goes like this: Wake up. Drink coffee while writing with a fountain pen in a large hardcover journal. Read until starvation forces me out of the bedroom. Eat breakfast. Read some more and think about taking a nap, maybe really taking a little one but probably not. Get dressed. Take a walk, maybe to a place that has more coffee and probably a newspaper. Listen to music on the stereo.

The whole day goes like that – read, write, eat, nap, walk, read some more. It would be even more perfect if I didn’t have to waste time sleeping at night. I suppose it would be okay to start talking to people, nice people, people I like, after the first day and a half or so.

I was looking at this description of The Endless Day and realizing just how out of it I apparently am. This isn’t how life is lived any more. There’s too much interaction with the real world in my Day. We’re talking about writing with a pen that you hold in your hand, books that have weight and are held in the lap, feet hitting pavement, not a treadmill.

More and more lately, I’ll arrange to spend time with a friend and we will sit or walk while my friend bends their face close to … a small electronic device that has everything interesting in the entire world in it. We’ll be in Disneyland or a restaurant and the most interesting thing is to check the weather on the iPhone, or find a review of a record or a restaurant, or check e-mail, or take a picture and post it on Facebook so their seventy-two friends can share this moment. Another friend has got a game room with a ping-pong table – but it’s covered with laundry, because the kids are playing ping pong on the Wii. The nearby used book store doesn’t purchase children’s books anymore. There’s not very much call for them. Kids either don’t read or they want a Kindle.

I like to sit and listen to records with friends – remember that? Sounds like something you’d do after the taffy pull. But there’s something about having the same sound waves washing over skin, drumming into hearts, and your eyes meeting.

So they can keep their little fifteen-inch back-lit world. I’ll keep the rest of it, the impact of my feet on pavement or trail, the long views, the hand holding the chopping knife, Pete Seeger’s voice vibrating the length of the living room, the warmth of my husband’s hand, the weight of the book in my lap. Especially if I can have it all for an Endless Day.