Monday

It’s a good thing someone invented the idea of Monday. Monday forces the issue, kicking the workaday week into reality, another heave-ho, away we go. Monday. Named, it is harder to avoid, even when days march along like soldiers in identical fatigues, lock-stepped, shoulder to shoulder, with only sundown and sleep as divisions.

Hello, Monday. Here I sit, awake, wording-up like a good verbal cowgirl, waiting for the frost to melt and the clouds to lift so I can escape myself. I’m certain I’ll strain my back in the process. My thoughts drift to God, who isn’t welcome right now. I redirect my brain to my lists. Better. But not enough.

I open my favorite breakfast beer. God wants a sip. No. Not welcome. You are not bread. You are not wine. You are not beer. You are a whiny bully who won’t stand up to cancer, or evil, or aging, or even, apparently, untimely death. In fact, you pal around with Death. Yesterday wasn’t funny, God. And today promises to be all bent out of shape because of how you invited Death to stroll along the Stillwater and view the fall colors with you and me. I’ll admit, the colors are spectacular this year, and yes, Death gets some artistic credit. Don’t think that makes up for anything. The beauty is almost incidental this morning. All that matters are my lists.

Leave me alone. I have leftovers to eat, floors to mop, gates to build, boards to move, tools to organize, piles of rotten wood to burn, and burn, and burn. A newly fallen cottonwood offers me shelter, and I’m tempted. I could curl like a fox in the snarl of the uprooted base and sleep in the deep dark nest of decomposed leaves and thereby join the circle on my own terms. Oh, I know I’m being dramatic, but I need some space, God. Leave me alone, okay? Please. Just leave me alone. Your chatter and apologies, your jokes and invitations. I can’t deal with you today. Maybe later, you can help me shed some of these uncomfortable clothes, but for now, I need the layers. In my mind, they are keeping me warm.