ahead of schedule (pre-solstice ramblings)

we finished last night's load-out ahead of schedule, and i got home just before 3am – dirty, tired, and only mildly covered in anti-freeze.

but this is beside the point.

the point is that maintenance workers wielding weed eaters woke me around 7am this morning, and it looks as though i may make it through this day on little more than coffee, leftover pizza, and that bizarre sleep-deprived pride endemic to stagehands the world over. it will be interesting to see how it mixes with Macy's, where my yin and i are scheduled to arrive in less than two hours.

we have a wedding to plan (and pay for – thus the 65 hour work week), and part of the process includes compiling a registry. this seems like it should be a pleasant enough process, like making a Christmas list for Santa, but Saturday morning i petered out after only an hour. toasters, blenders, plates, pots, pans, utensils, onion cutters, garlic mushers, camping gear – how much virtual consumption can one man tolerate before coffee?

the registry is beside the point.

the point is that tomorrow is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, and as far as i'm concerned it is the most logical time to celebrate the New Year. so, every time it occurs, i take the opportunity to assess my life, look at the things i've accumulated and make some sort of judgment as to whether or not they're serving me well. with the wedding on the horizon this seems especially appropriate, and it was exactly one year ago that my yin and i decided to get married on just such an occasion.

the tendency in this society is to accumulate, to pack things away and plan for an imaginary future that prevents us from truly experiencing the present moment. there is no security in the future, any more than there is certainty in the past. the winter solstice reminds me of this, and in recognition and celebration, i write a list of things i hope to see transpire in the coming year. this is not a list of resolutions, merely a set of intentions, and i do not look at them in the year that follows.

when the next solstice arrives, i perform my annual ritual and look at the list from the year before. sometimes the things have happened, sometimes not. sometimes they happened in ways i could never have expected, sometimes my best intentions prove to have been far less ambitious than what the universe held in store for me.

part of this process, though, is making room for new things to enter my life, which means going through the apartment and donating clothes and books and kitchen supplies and anything else i can find that i no longer need. i try to discern the things that truly serve a purpose (like my beloved wool toboggan) from those that i'm clutching onto because of fear, insecurity or habit (like the tattered copy of Dostoevsky).

oftentimes these items are cloaked in a veil of sentimental attachment, or prefaced with an ostensibly logical reason for keeping it. these self-deceptions begin, "well, i might use it..." or "i might need it if..."

to which i respond:

how can we be ready for tomorrow if we hold on to yesterday?

how can we see today if we're looking for tomorrow?

(to be continued...)