A plan comes together

I’ve been writing something for a few days, and I’m stuck, and I have to write something, so why don’t I just write about how I’m stuck? Just as good a topic as any other, and it’s all I have right now. 

When I write about something, as opposed to writing about nothing, or nothing in particular as I often do, I sometimes have to circle around my target for a bit. It’s hard to explain. I write sentences that approach but don’t actually touch the point that I’m trying to make. But I get closer and closer as I keep writing random sentences and short disjointed paragraphs. Then I rearrange stuff, and the essay starts to take shape, but then I need some sort of transition, something that connects the paragraphs and sentences that I shifted around. It’s usually that transition (actually, usually more than one) that gets me to the moment of clarity when I can figure out and then precisely express what I have to say. 

*****

I’m still circling. It’s Monday morning, the official Federal holiday in observance of Independence Day, which was yesterday. I do love a free day off. But I’m too busy this summer, and it will be anything but a relaxing day for me. I am trying to figure out if this summer is truly too busy, or if it’s just normal but normal is busy compared to the enforced languor of summer 2020. It’s the former, I’m pretty sure. I have too many things to do, and too little time to think. Maybe that’s why I can’t seem to write anything. 

I’ll make a list for today. I feel overwhelmed and writing a list will help me to cut through the fog and panic and confusion. I’ll prioritize and clarify and get things down in black and white and I’ll feel much better. I love it when a plan comes together and a person has to make a plan if she wants it to come together. It’s the only way. 

*****

It’s Tuesday now. It turns out that I had already made a list, so now I just have to do all of the stuff that’s on the list so that I can cross everything off. Is that any way to live? I don’t know. I don’t know. Right now, it’s 7:22 PM and I’m waiting for a Zoom meeting to begin. I’m eight minutes early. No Zoom, I’m not a robot, and I’m sure that my ability to enter a check mark in a box should prove this beyond any doubt, because certainly no robot could ever click on the enter key to check a box. 

Zoom wants to know if it can send me notifications, or if I’d like to block. Block is my default response to such requests, but sometimes I am passive aggressive, and I simply close out of the dialog without selecting either the allow or block option. Let Zoom wonder, is what I’m thinking. Let it stew for a while. Maybe I’ll have an answer for it tomorrow. 

I’m going to do my best to stay focused and engaged in the meeting that starts in two minutes, but I can’t promise that I will succeed. I’m Zoomed right out, just like everyone else, and I’m also very easily distracted in any circumstances. But I have the agenda in front of me, along with a notebook and pen, and I’m going to keep my camera on, just to keep myself honest. 

*****

So I stayed focused, although of course I ended up wishing I hadn’t. Sometimes you give a challenging person the benefit of the doubt, assuring yourself that despite how contentious and unpleasant and difficult this person is, that they at least have good intentions, that they are acting in good faith. But then you see clear evidence that this person is not at all acting in good faith and that their disingenuous complaints about how others are disrespecting or ignoring them are really no more than attention-seeking attempts to derail the agenda and turn an entire meeting on its head, and you become a little bit cynical about the whole idea of volunteer community service. Or maybe that’s just me. One thing I know about myself, and that is that if I am promised that a meeting will end at a certain time, then I cling to that promise like a barnacle to the hull of a ship, and when that promise is broken and the meeting drags for five and then ten and then FORTY MINUTES past the appointed time, then I become blinded by rage and unable to maintain perspective on any situation. 

But really? I think that someone is just a big jerk. 

*****

It’s Thursday now and I haven’t returned to the piece of writing that started this whole thing. I was thinking about doing it now, but I couldn’t decide between writing now and swimming later or swimming now and writing later. And then Maryland summer decided for me, with a nice big crack of thunder. The pool will be closed for at least thirty minutes now and maybe more, if this is more than a passing storm, so after I finish writing about not writing and not swimming, I’ll go back and finish writing. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to swim, too. Maybe my plan will come together after all.