Frozen

It’s a blindingly cold morning in New Orleans, the light through my north facing window glaringly, unflinchingly cheerful and blue. I should be showered by now with all I have to do today but I am still in the luxury phase of unemployment. I woke before my alarm, but have done nothing but squander time on the Internet. To my credit, I read one good story on TheRumpus.net. And had this thought, squinting out the window: it is snow-blind bright, but there is no snow. There is something unquantifiable about the light of cold mornings, the beckoning freshness of it and the repellant glare.

None of the clocks in my house tick. I think if I had one, even the subtle whump of a classroom clock second hand you only hear when taking standardized tests, it might help. Endless time on your hands can quickly become no-time, a distinctly un-Zen zeroness. Do something: flip a switch, make a noise, take in the garbage can and feel the cold on my toes: anything but the well-worn, work-a-day path from the keyboard to the coffee pot and back. Don’t light another cigarette. Light a fuse. Run like hell.