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WINTER BLUNDERLAND

Deep, deep down within the deep, deep South, I find myself wading through the leavings of one year, preparing to encounter a newly-birthed year.

I am tempted to make New Year’s resolutions but I tend to come up with safe ones that in no way challenge me. For instance, I resolve to inhale and exhale repeatedly throughout the year. Or, I plan to floss no more than once a day. And there’s always that one resolution that I make and break within minutes—-lose ten pounds and work out.

Resolution-making being a farce, I resolve not to make any. Instead, I wish to continue the practice of exploring the world through furtive glance and direct gaze.

Here are some things that astound and entertain me:

My quest to find the proper fastener for a piece of split wood takes me to the hardware store, a haven of emotion-deprived semi-conscious barely-mobile texting clerks who don’t know much about hardware but know a lot about googling. I finally locate one of those rare birds—-an old-timer who actually leads me down obscure aisles to search in real non-virtual time for just the right implement.

In this copious den of visionaries both real and imagined, I await my tiny fate.

Everywhere I go today, I find the Leaf Blower Syndrome hard at work. Leaf Blower workers are in the business of transferring trash and particulates to Somewhere Besides Here. Leaf Blower wannabes practice the fine art of referring me to Someone Else or Somewhere Else, secure in the notion that they have earned their income and done their job.

I get it. Lots of folks just transfer and delegate challenges to That Place Over Yonder.

Another New Year’s vision:

I am amused at the fact that I am often polite to robots. I say Thank You to a drive-through ordering device. I say No Thanks to a robocall request. I begin confessing sidebar information to an automated questionnaire that only wants a Yes or a No—-and tells me so. My computer requires passwords that I do not wish to provide, but I must obey in order to get anything at all done today. If I follow procedure and instruction the robotic internet will grant me permission to ply my life, live my day.

In the midst of all this mindless soulless automation, I cherish the real human contacts that occur outside the electronic cyborg world. The tiny moments of revelation or joy.

On the way to the drop-off laundry, I tune in to a jazz radio station. It Ellingtons its way through the car as I pull into the parking lot. The jolly laundry lady opens the passenger door to retrieve my cleanables and laughs quite lustily when she hears the music. She says, “Oh, Jim, you be jammin’!” As I drive away, she smiles and says, “You keep jammin’!”

This makes my morning. This is amusing, warming, symbolic, humane. This makes me smile. This erases all memory of abstract encounters with gadgets and distracted automatons and flaccid clerks.

I drive on to my other errands.

I keep on jammin’

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed