LOL(L)

I'll be frank: October kicked my ass.

Starting with the run-up, those last few days of September, there's been not a single day during which I did not work at one job or another or sometimes all three.  Eighteen of those days I spent on the road.  I gave six concerts of three complete programs, taught a masterclass, attended innumerable rehearsals, boarded four airplanes, drove 700 miles, practiced, endured two photo shoots, wrote two concert reviews, and logged 91 speech therapy hours.  Oh, and I did bridesmaid duty somewhere in there, too.

Finally, today, I staggered out the other end.  It's my first day off in well over a month.  I've lost four pounds.  I've got a cold, a gargantuan sleep deficit, and a lengthy to-do list.  First, though: lolling.

There's nothing sweeter than the loll.  I don't mean exhausted stupor.  That's what comes first, immediately after you return from imitating a decapitated chicken.  Nor do I mean the kind of entrenched idling that comes after days of inadequate employment, the sloth you have to be careful, if you're unemployed or retired, not to fall prey to.

No, I mean the conscious, deliberate nothing you do when you carve out time -with precision- to do nothing.   I mean sitting in the sun wondering what you're going to do next.  I mean standing at the edge of your mind and watching, like a fisherman, to see what swims up.  I mean kicking back.  Skimming.  Lawn chair, windowseat, or stoop?  That is the question.  And it's urgent.