Busy Having a Cold

One good thing about being sick with a cold is that one has a lot more time than usual to write. Always wanting more time to devote to this, right? Well, there ya go. The Lord does provide, amen?

Of course the downside is that one feels too shitty really to apply his mind toward any sort of concentration or invention, so this kind of undercuts the aforementioned blessing.

Instead of writing, therefore, we observe, and then record the thing that is observed. A young man sitting beside me for instance, a Russian to judge by his appearance and his clothing (and also because this particular Starbucks is patronized mostly by Russians in the evening). He is waiting, without patience. He has perhaps been here for a time already, was meaning to meet someone, and someone failed to show up. He is lost in his thoughts, perhaps insulted, perhaps angry. He looks toward the window again and again, as if yet holding out a hope against hope.

And then he leaves.

Another Russian, a young woman, waits in her white dress for her coffee. It is a dress that an American would not be likely to wear unless she were a bridesmaid or a ballroom dancer. But this is the way Russians dress, even for a trip to Starbucks. She is perhaps 17, perhaps 21, and there is an elegant sort of glow about her, as if she had just taken herself out of a display case. She makes me think of Natasha in War and Peace, and of Anna Karenina. I wonder will she also be tragic some day.

Because I am sick, coughing, feverish, and unable to walk for any practical purposes, my family--the wife, the stepson, Roy the Japanese exchange student, and Abdul the Saudi student--have all gone to Cinco de Mayo without me. At Cinco de Mayo they will walk about in the rain, listen to Spanish music, and buy food that would make me even more sick than I already am.

Nonetheless I have the sense of missing out--just like I missed out yesterday when Roy and Abdul went ice skating for the first time. Seems that the older I get, the more precious things like single days and hours become. One begins to realize in a real way, and for the first time, that there are only so many ticks left on the clock.

Put me in coach! I'm ready to play.

Ask for nothing. Receive what is given.

These are the words I am determined to ride out on, when the white horse finally comes, when the rider thereof beckons. And I think that all things then will finally be crystal clear, and I shall meet myself at last.

And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it."
--Revelations 2:17