2041

Imagine thirty years from now, when I am 91, or not.  It will be 2041, whether I am here to witness it, or not.  We will know more about Global Warming by then.  We will be several generations smarter.  I hope to still be going to the gym, in geriatric workout clothes. I don’t know if they make a granny panty thong; perhaps they will by then, so my panty line doesn’t show under my yoga pants. Perhaps you will be able to see the little lumps of muscles under all that skin which should be about as far South as its going.

Perhaps I’ll be competing in the You’ve Got to Be Kidding Division of some sport or other.  I don’t know why I would since I’m already far from those days when I relished setting myself against someone else(s) and pushing myself to beat them.  But if I do, in 2041, perhaps it will be something unimaginable now, like flying the furthest by meditation alone, or ripening the tomato with the greatest concentration in the shortest time.

Or healing.  Maybe all of us will have the power to heal all manner of things, transform all manner of matter into its better, more complete self. Maybe that is what we’ll be doing in 2041.

I entered this reverie this morning simply by listing all I would like to have done before guests arrive in two days time.  I started thinking of the time line while making the second-day list for the plumber.  He’ll be back this morning with more faucets and renewed determination to make the hot water heat work in the guest house.

I started imagining this list as stretching far into the future, sitting on the shoulder of all the lists, or at least all my lists, stretching backwards.  I think I came into this world with a list;  suckle, poop, pee, nap, suckle poop pee, nap. I probably didn’t put on that list wide-open-wonder-at-this-world-I-have-landed-in, just as I don’t now.

Yesterday was one of those days.

The sky!  God, the sky, opening and closing in pure technicolor. One moment nothing but a gray backdrop, the next, an arc of primary colors against a dark background, a brilliant sun on the other side.  Then!  Slashes of brilliant crimson crossed through with black. It seemed impossible this color.  Two women employees took pictures just outside the doors at Lowe’s, pulled outdoors by the spectacle.  Then!  Moments later, it had all disappeared, as though it never happened.

That was not on my list.  The faucet was.  Which turned out to be the wrong one.

Again.

Instead of going on the list, again, John, the one of us who knows about faucets, went back to the store last night and got the right one. Maybe.

Did you see the sky? I had said to him earlier.  No, he said, puzzled. It was all gray when I looked, all gray.

This was just before he pointed out that I had gotten the wrong faucet.  And out of my mouth came I don’t give a s- - -.

Smart man that he is, he took a step backwards. I’m not sure what I just stepped in, said John.

I didn’t either.  I was making dinner I was too tired to make, after a day which on the surface of it didn’t look very stressful.  Who knew that one’s good nature could drown in a list, even when flooding that list was a rainbow and moments of tearful astonishment?

Days and days and days of working the list, accommodating accommodating, accommodating, as each item seemed to require more of me than I anticipated.  And everything on it seemed to have a mousetrap at the end, something that just refused to be easily resolved.  Over and over.  I was growing weary and I didn’t even know it.  It was time for a movie about a dog with a happy ending. And some breathing.

It is all working out, maybe.  The plumber is coming back today, maybe, and maybe one of the faucets will work, the one we got, or the one he’s bringing.  The house guests will come, maybe, and will have hot water in the new shower, maybe or maybe not.

I do know this.  There will be a whole other set of astonishments today.  Like right now, the stubble of emerging trees against the dawn sky.   Maybe or maybe not I’ll notice.  Maybe or maybe not more things will get crossed off The List.  But if I’m here in 2041, I’ll hope for more astonishments than accomplishments.

I think I’ll put that on my list. . .