The time in me

Win­ter final­ly took its right­ful place, even if it seemed to drag its feet this year before announc­ing its frigid colours. Dur­ing my longer-than-usu­al vaca­tion – I had not tak­en any time off dur­ing the year ‑the weath­er was rather rainy, and the tem­per­a­tures were between autumn and gusts.

The cold was not a joke this morn­ing when I returned to work, and it was lit­er­al­ly pierc­ing the bones because nobody had real­ly been con­front­ed with it since Novem­ber, at least in this humid area that is the island of Montreal.

A sparkling sun, a straight­for­ward wind, looked you right in the eyes to make you under­stand that you had no choice but to shiver.

This did not stop me from walk­ing to the office. After all, it’s the only exer­cise I do besides some yog­ic stretching.

That was sev­en days ago. This is my sec­ond Mon­day at work, and my three weeks of vaca­tion have been ben­e­fi­cial. I took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to fin­ish once and for all some ren­o­va­tion work that had been going on for sev­er­al years, a win­dow sur­round, a ceil­ing that had been ripped open by pre­vi­ous emer­gency work on the roof, and even a home­made TV stand.

Those man­u­al tasks we wel­come, away from the acidic and pre­oc­cu­py­ing clat­ter of the brain, and imbued my body with a bliss­ful sense of an end in itself.

I jok­ing­ly told my entourage that I could now sell the house, hav­ing reached a mile­stone and some­how reached a goal.

The farce may have hid­den an uneasi­ness, and I can attest to the work accom­plished and the well-being that the apart­ment now gives me. By chance and luck, I was able to buy a beau­ti­ful table and chairs to replace some old, mis­matched furniture.

How­ev­er, instead of real­ly enjoy­ing this final­i­ty, a bare­ly con­tained fever­ish­ness anguish­es me, reminds me that I should not give up so quick­ly, that I should con­tin­ue, move on to some­thing else, as if fin­ish­ing was not part of my vocab­u­lary, as if death could not be the log­i­cal con­tin­u­a­tion of existence.

This is me, con­fronting my suc­cess with the Great Dark­ness, admir­ing the light and the Shad­ow it produces.

Instead of sit­ting down, I stand with a will to throw away this and that, wipe the slate clean, emp­ty dusty and pre­his­toric draw­ers, get rid of pho­tos of a past and use­less, and give, pass them on to a younger person.

Too many objects in this com­fort­able apartment.

Oh, there is still work to be done, espe­cial­ly since the house will need new bal­conies and a new roof. When you own some­thing, you must sub­mit to the main­te­nance dic­tates. Things are more eter­nal than we are, and they have in that their revenge.

There is a sense of fore­bod­ing around me, prob­a­bly root­ed in the six­ty-four years I will soon be.

For many peo­ple, this is the time to retire. I don’t know what that means for me, not hav­ing the wealth to main­tain my cur­rent com­fort lev­el, which I know is rel­a­tive to what you do with your present and your money.

Some signs do not deceive me at work and in my per­son­al life. They her­ald a slow tec­ton­ic shift creep­ing under­neath the hum­ble, earthy tan­gle of my life.

Win­ter has tak­en its place in the city, and yet my skin wants to shed its old plumage, the bark of my body is open­ing up to attempt some ulti­mate and hasty new branch­es. Is it vain or nec­es­sary ? I have so much to say about what has been writ­ten many times. I am not orig­i­nal in my aging.

It is 9:30 pm, and I fall asleep. I dream a lot these nights, and my uncon­scious dic­tates its will with all the clum­sy wis­dom of its sym­bols and images.

If the win­ter claims its rights, the time in me requires my cyclothymic attention.

The time in me…

Soli­tary sand in a frag­ile glass funnel.

I return to my dreams because tomor­row, the clock of the oth­ers will also take back its rights in the gears of my destiny.