I am negotiating some slippery roads on this cold and crisp December morning, having completed a weight session and a spin class. It is not yet ten and I now have the day to my creative self. I am at once pleased with the quality of the pair of morning workouts and eager to transfer the video images in my head to the physical time-line. I catch myself thinking ‘I feel good.’ There is enthusiasm, gumption and endorphin flow and James Brown.
I get to the cabin, start the coffee and log on to check the polling of the American people as we prepare to impeach another loser crook. I am amazed that after all the credible testimony of the last few weeks itemizing high crimes and misdemeanors, the needle rests at 50%. I feel my mood take a dive for the pathetic end of the political pool as it appears almost half of us are either too stupid, too racist or too gas lit to recognize the signs of guilt. I hear my stomach growl and feel my shoulders constrict with tension as I accept the reality of our plight. That I find it pathetic and criminal to put party over country, personal gain over public service and covered-up corruption over truth and transparency notwithstanding, I feel like I am going to puke.
My response to this has brought me to the brink of despair, sinking deeper into an ivory bowl of disgust and anger. To counter I exit from the political and enter the wonderful world of my last remaining spots vice, college football, and news on the ONE team that I follow. Where I find out that our head coach has resigned. This after Friday night’s seventh Apple Cup victory over the cross-state feline rivals. I am frozen with disbelief. WTAF?
My day has now, officially, taken a turn for the worst and is headed at break-neck speed towards utter disaster. I rationalize the situation and recall a similar occurrence that took place in 1993, when our head coach at that time chose the higher moral ground of walking away from a power-play quid pro quo involving league sanctions stemming from a loan to our star quarterback. I felt as alone, abandoned, orphaned those twenty-seven years ago as I do now. I want to scream to no-one (and everyone) “Is there no innocence remaining anywhere?’
I walk outside to process all this where my nose immediately frosts and coffee quickly chills. What has happened to my day?
Once back in the editing saddle I lay out the open, connecting images (2001 A Space Odyssey) with music (Also Spake Zarathustra), tied together semi-elegantly and quasi-thematically. I am digging the mash-up between Kubrick, Strauss and Phish. I get a notice that an e-mail has arrived. I decide to let it be and focus on the video. If there is anything that forces a return to the present it is this. With precision and patience I get through the opening two minutes without incident, and take a replay peek. Nice, I like it. From here it will flow naturally, establishing the visual engagement I hope to create.
Remembering the notification, I log on to learn that my morning 0530 class on Wednesdays has been cancelled effective in January. There are some weak excuses provided and insincere encouragement designed to keep me from jumping off the bridge. Switching sports metaphors, after the proverbial three pitches I have now gone down looking. Julie was right.
Knee-jerk reaction is to quit. How, after all my sacrifices, tenure (coming on seventeen years) dedication and innovation could they, she actually, do this to me? It is personal I decide, another petty power-play. Whatever. I am better than this. I will walk away before I submit to the type of treatment that puts ego ahead of commitment. That’ll show them!!!
I decide to go downtown to do the day’s chores, a pragmatic substitute for counting to ten. I first stop at the Library where the book that I want to finish is out with three holds and two reserves already logged. Fine. I negotiate the treacherous round-about at the time when school has just dismissed and legions of teen-aged pedestrians cross, distracted, from four directions at once as cars circle like sharks in a bloody sea.
I buy peanut-butter, honey, yogurt, on-sale french roast coffee, a box of beer and set sail for home. Completely bereft of flow, I decide to counter the clubs offer and ask for the third Thursday of each month as a regular Cardio Cinema night. This is the movie. The one I have been working on since the credit’s rolled in the last event just two weeks ago. That’s fair, I rationalize, cognizant that one doesn’t get what’s fair, one gets what one negotiates. So I lose four Wednesdays a month, I get my movie night. That somehow looks like a good deal after the earlier events of the day, despite the fact that I must now clean the blades of the fan that had taken a direct hit from the toxic excrement.
I have yet to hear their response. Whatever it is, the world will continue to spin and since I don’t buy lottery tickets, my happiness will not be predicated upon instant and unexpected financial windfalls.
It is up to me. Back to work. Choose happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment