Quotidian
April 29 2009


It’s how the world turns upside-down
in an instant.
How you’re suddenly outside
looking in,
at impatient people
going about their business,
all busily thinking
two steps ahead.

Maybe the diagnosis, sitting across the desk,
that made your ears burn
the rest freeze,
whatever else he said
incomprehensible.
Or that moment of inattention
when the bike appeared
the old lady stepped-off the curb.

Shaking your head
at all the petty concerns
you let own you
once.

The well, in the country of the sick
sit on the edge of their chairs,
afraid to appear too comfortable
eyeing the exit nervously
anxiously feeling for passports.
They don’t belong here.
They mumble awkwardly.
They worry
the hospital smell
might stick.

They feel immunized
by today,
its relentless normalcy.
But they know deep inside
they too
will go to bed at night,
roll to one side,
then open their eyes
in another dawn’s pale wash,
in that moment of confusion
that feels like forever.
Laid bare
to the random event.
To bad luck.
To contingency.

To the sudden beginning
of some unknowable end.




This is a theme I’ve re-visited more than once: the idea of contingency, of taking nothing for granted.

But it’s not as black as it appears. Because this is a healthy perspective for living mindfully, and for living with gratitude; for making the small things of quotidian life seem extraordinary. And -- at the risk of descending into cliché -- how intimations of mortality can restore perspective and priorities; make things suddenly so much clearer.

There is another theme, as well: how we, who inhabit the country of the well, protect ourselves psychologically from the country of the sick. How we keep our distance; how good we are at denial; how we relegate such unpleasantness to the category of “other”. But also how, eventually and inevitably, we will all be unceremoniously and unexpectedly ushered over the border.

A stylistic note. The quality of morning light is one of my recurring tropes -- a relatively minor one, but one that keeps coming up. So I'm a little concerned that in trying to find something fresh and different, "dawn's pale wash" may seem self-consciously "poetical". What I was trying to get at with this image was the diluted translucent watered-down feeling you can get from well-executed watercolours. So far, I'm happy with the result.