Non-Fiction Vignette by Paige

I have been reading a book my whole life. No, not the same book. That would get old. It might be titled, “Go Dog Go.” Yes, ever since I could identify letters on a page, I have been reading one book after another for some-38 years or so.

I do not recall the moment letters became words to me.
I do not remember when the words became sentences.
No clue when sentences became paragraphs which became stories from which I began to decipher meaning. Nonetheless, all those things did happen somewhere on the road, and I have been forever since smitten with stories.

Still, my book list, that is to say, the books I want to read once I finish the 3 novels on my nightstand, the 2 non-fiction works in the living room and the book of poetry in my office; my book list is 30-miles long and growing like a tape worm but book worm sounds much nicer. What is one to do? All given the same 24-hours in a day, why are some left wanting more... needing more time?

I must beat dawn to do it but, I do it...some solitary writing, reading and time permitting, a lil’ a’rithmaticing (playing guitar)…every day. I will finish 1/10th of the books on my list only if I live long enough. If medical science deciphers a way for me to read while I am dead, bump the book list numbers up to half-done at best.

Reading is not all I do of course.

I have a husband, a child, pets, plants, family, friends; I built a home and a business and a grocery list and a get-done* list and a crick in my neck, and well, it just makes one of socks fall down thinking of it. The abundance of my blessings!
The abundance of all the things there are to do. [*get-done list is Randolph-speak for to-do list; pretty clever methinks].

Those mentioned are but a thimble-full of what a day provides time for doing, doing, doing, so I make lists of my lists sometimes. Some days they seem to grow, as if just shy of the 30-mile long and lengthening book list.

And that, my friends, is when the lists get chucked in the bin!

Yet what is one to do then? Keep reading? Keep doing?

Why yeeees...but especially important is to remember each day to do NOTHING.

At least one opportunity should present itself? Or are you too important for that?

Rare are the moments indeed, for all of us. But pray thee, get thyself some nada-time, if just 10 minutes, daily please. I meeeeeeean...

shut that reeling mind OFF and watch-the-clouds-from-your-back-on-the-grass-do-nothing nada.

Nike says: Just Do It! I learned the hard way that is the easy part.

Well, try this: Just Don’t Do It!

Did not happen, did it?

Pose that suggestion to someone you know; observe the response. Do you think ‘do-nothing’ was on their list? Did they add it to the-ever-prevailing-list that is our lives? Or, have they moved 2 towns away and you have not heard from them since?

Do you think the planets stopped spinning on their axes when I chucked my list of lists? No. I am just not all that important, not enough to stop the planets. A huge relief really.
Given that, think I will read Rumpelstiltskin again. Wait! Better yet, I could take 10 minutes [who cares I am wearing a dress] to lie on my back in the grass and do nada.
I do not know much about anything (besides how to find out what I want to know) but I do know that now, I do not know, after all this mono-tribe, whether doing nothing is doing something then? Ahhhhhhhhhhhg. !!!! The chicken or the egg? Who cares!!!!!!!!

To quote a character from the late, great A. A. Milne:

"It is a long story, even longer when I tell it," says Pooh.