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LIFE, ACTUALLY
FEELING GOOD ALL UNDER
Every Tuesday morning, the laundry freshly done and most things in their place, I pick out the newest pair of undershorts in the drawer and slide them on. As the week progresses or regresses, I put on a fresh pair each day (yes, I do take off the used pair before doing so) and try to face the world with strong and white undergirdings bolstering a flagging confidence.
You know what happens next, of course. By the end of the week and through the weekend, I run out of the newest pairs and start digging down into the drawer for older, slightly ragged shorts until, at last, by Monday I am starting the week off with underwear that is holy but not righteous, as Ma used to say.
The pair I am wearing now is the most tattered I own, since the laundry is a day late.
Now just suppose that this is all metaphoric, and just suppose that the state of my underwear is roughly equivalent to my state of mind and level of energy?
What would happen if one Tuesday morning I began the week wearing the raggedest underwear and progressively turned to newer pairs as the week waned? Would my attitude be thus affected, would I be saving my high-self-esteem underwear for the most worn-down and wearisome part of the week—thus giving me an extra boost to make it crawling through Saturday night toward the Day of Rest on Sunday?
Maybe, if this works, I will no longer find myself sitting in my ragged underwear on my favorite equally ragged easy-chair on Sunday afternoon, staring into space and dozing, trying to rev up my juices for the week ahead.
The secret of life-energy may be in here somewhere.
I mean, don’t we all still believe in magic, and isn’t that why we keep getting up in the morning and trying to tackle each day anew with the idea that there’s just got to be something better about this dawn?
Without this magic-potion kind of thinking, we’re just another bunch of trembling primitives waiting to be eaten or run over, and taken to the emergency room with—horror of horrors—ragged underwear
(an entry from Jim’s Red Clay Diary, first published in his 1998 book, DAD’S TWEED COAT Small Wisdoms, Hidden Comforts, Unexpected Joys)
© 2020 A.D. by Jim Reed
The daily journey from sunrise to sunrise is filled with