Sometimes things are in disarray. Sometimes the tutu, which sat so nicely on the lamp, making the room glow rosily whenever someone leaned all the way over the couch to turn on that particular lamp, falls off, landing halfway on the Buddha in the corner. Sometimes it becomes necessary to clean.
I thought, sitting on the couch, the selfsame one over which a person would have to lean to pick up the fallen tutu, remove it from the table in the corner, from the right leg of the Buddha, from its accidental resting place. I thought about all the things that need to be done and the fact that I am not doing them. Not one single solitary one. Not going to class, not doing the dishes, not even getting dressed, not really.
And on that couch, that selfsame couch, I came to the conclusion that I could give one succinct reason for not doing any of the things that I really should be doing instead of looking at my messy apartment, my ballerina Buddha and my inside-out pajama pants. I can excuse them all with one simple want, desire and fact. I do not want to be wet.
To say that dryness is my one desire would be, of course, false, and would, in fact, prove, if true, that I was completely content. Here, on this couch, I have succeeded in dryness, succeeded completely. However, this state would be compromised by any of those things that I need to do, want to do, have to do. As follows; in order to get dressed, first I would have to shower. Wet. If, say, I were to decide that I could get away with not showering for a few more hours, and wanted to go to class in the state that I am in, I would need to go outside. Into the rain. Which is wet. But without leaving this room, without wearing anything different, I could begin to clean, starting with the dishes, which need to be cleaned in the sink, with a sponge and warm faucet water, which has the tendency to splash, all over my makeshift pajamas. Leaving me, as it seems is unavoidable, wet. And that, simply can not be born. I’m sure you understand.
There is one thing, though, which it seems I can rectify without breaking any of the statutes of limitation with which I have trapped myself. And so I stand, carefully, to avoid spilling any of the cups piled so precariously on the coffee table, or any coffee on the cup table, step onto the nice white couch with my slightly dusty bare feet and return the tutu to its rightful, if accidental, home atop the lamp in the corner by the Buddha, so that, if anybody asks, I have accomplished something today, after all.