Scrape and claw for work, whatever that may mean now. Dig your fingers into the closest surface available, and from the clay-like remnants you manage to scrape out of your fingernails, mold yourself anew. Remember to order more dish soap from that plastic-free place in order to leave your children a semblance of a livable planet. Check the grocery list to see if anything else should be ordered from there (it’s expensive, but the honey is worth it, and probably somehow saving the planet by another iota).
Go to Costco for all the other shit. Put on the songs of the dead man who makes you remember that we are all just here for a moment. That we are tumbling through this life and are lucky when our fingers brush against one another, when we can look around with gratitude. That money is an indignity we must weather without losing sight of other more important things. Remember to thank god for Costco despite the bill somehow always being at least $200. It has surely saved you some other indignity along the way, or at least that’s what the promise of Costco entails.
Research business licenses. Research home chef platforms. Research fines for operating without a business license. Shit, undo that search and do it again on incognito mode. Is it too late? Probably too late. Guess you’re getting a business license.
Meet with Hollywood producers over Zoom, who always have great things to say before they end the call and return to their mysterious lives without another word. Wipe down the dusty surface you noticed out of the corner of your eye while you were reading your pitch for the 388th time. Look one more time for those keys you lost two weeks ago. What a small and persistent and laughable headache.
Sit with your child and wonder what he will be like when he can speak. Try to remember your eldest at this stage. Could you have predicted his sense of humor? His sudden toddler fury, the look on his face when he just as quickly lets go of what has enraged him and returns fully to love, forgiving you with the ease of a Zen master. Remember the dead singer’s three year old and be willing to weather anything your child throws your way, feel the same desperation to cling to him as he does to you.
Fuck! The dish soap. Add a splash of water to your current allotment and hope that the weakened suds can still clean and keep your family safe.
Write three sentences for a new book you’ve begun, despite having four other so-far-unpaid projects in the works. Check flight prices to go see your family, then see if your agent has somehow emailed you good news that you missed. The magic of this career, the possibility of an email with a check attached to it. Or at least the promise of a check. The promise of an email with the promise of a check with the promise of…. Plan a simple dinner at home, but run around too long and feel the pangs of hunger, see the family unraveling in discomfort, so overpay for a delivered meal by $16, promising yourself frugality tomorrow.
Sign up for the free trial of Canva for the third time, and create another flyer to market the skills that you believe are marketable. The wider world might ask for more tangible evidence of these marketable skills, but it will not provide you the opportunity to prove you have them. Just answer the yes or no question, please. So you play around with a flyer, despite the fact that flyer-making is not one of your aforementioned marketable skills.
Add three events to your calendar and find yourself sighing. Roll your eyes at the sighing. Take a beat and appreciate the body’s ability to sigh. How it has designed a little valve in order to better carry the weight of a life lived. Roll your eyes at your own phrasing, at the melodrama that a life of privilege can be capabale of, then return to videos of the dead singer and remember: we are only passing through. Hang onto the gratitude of the sentiment, slippery as it may be, as if your fingers were covered in—
Fuck, fuck, fuck, the dish soap. As soon as you open your computer up that’s on your list. Do it. Do it.
Which begs the question: what is one of your book clubs that you haven’t attended in months reading next? Place a hold at the library. Gah, 12 weeks. Return to your flyer. Make another cup of coffee and, since your family will not have dinner with you today, plan the penance of a meal to make up for the other day’s $16 fiasco. Be thankful that you are the thankful kind, that you have an armory of hot sauces that can make almost any dinner palatable, if not a downright treat. Consider becoming an online gratitude influencer. Hot sauce influencer? Gratitude for hot sauce influencer? Is that a paid gig?
Indulge your guilt and take inventory of everything you have not done recently. Called your mother or reached out to old friends; spent a few hours alone with your spouse; written 1,000 words in a day; earned a paycheck; sat for a moment outside without reaching for your phone; practiced your French; communicated well; watched a good film; prioritized your sleep; hung onto gratitude.
Remember the dead singer asking if you’re carrying around guilt unworthy of being carried. Fuckin’ shed it, he said. Is it of any use to carry it now? Would he wish he felt more guilt if he were still singing today? Would he absolve himself, or merely wish he could? Surely there is guilt that you deserve to carry.
Kneel on the ground and coo back and forth with your infant for a while. Pick up your eldest from his daycare and delight at his cry of “papa!”, at his smile. There are some things in the end that the indignities of money cannot touch.
Place the order for the dish soap and feel on top of the goddamn world.