My most brilliant insights occur when I am walking my two
unruly mutts. I solve the world’s most pressing crises, make peace with our
inevitable doom, and develop compelling arguments which, if anyone would take
the time to ponder, would convince him or her think as I think, vote as I vote,
and do better than I do, thereby saving humanity from ourselves.
The minute I get home -- after unleashing the dogs, checking
Facebook and email on my iphone, making a cup of coffee, starting a load of
laundry, and trying to remember the phone calls I need to make – I go upstairs
to my little office and turn on my computer, open a blank document, and…
The hidden surface of my desk reminds me that I have unpaid
bills to review, financial statements to file, file folders to create,
overfilled file folders to clean out, documents to shred, and catalogs to look
through before tossing them. Moreover, I know that hidden underneath and in between
each envelope and piece of paper is an accumulation of dust which must be
cleaned off with a moist rag so I do not experience allergy-induced asthma.
Before doing these things, I check Facebook again, just in case someone has liked
one of my postings.
And then it is time for lunch (which I consider to be a
complete and unavoidable waste of time). By the time I have finished making a
sandwich and/or salad, eaten, and tidied up, I have no interest in returning to
my office, so off I go to the barn where my half-ton time-and-money-eater
awaits.
After taking 90 minutes to groom and tack up my pony, we are
ready to ride but then a weather system rolls in, so I decide to make lemons
out of lemonade and give him a bath because I am here and need a plausible
excuse for not writing. Toby cleans up beautifully. I stare at him full of
love and amazement that such a creature exists for
as long as I can without feeling ridiculous. The rain will continue for another
hour or two, turning the pastures into mud puddles. All evidence of his bath
will disappear overnight when he goes out to graze and I will wonder if I am
cursed, like Sisyphus, or simply nuts.
