The definition of Groundhog Day: A situation in which a series of unwelcome or tedious events appear to be recurring in exactly the same way…
Sleep? I don’t sleep, it’s day and then it’s dark time. Yeah there’s small moments, brief hours where my eyes are shut and a scribbled vision of fiction flashes in my mind. Midday, early hours, tiny after dinner mints, but they rarely connect, like puzzle pieces with no nubs and only those lightbulb shaped cutouts.
My reoccurring day, my wakey wakey no eggs and bakey, no bowl of oats, my empty gut, my 1, 2, 3, 4 – my silent tick-toc. At some point I find acceptance, quickly most times. This is just how it is. Your quarantine, my existence. Your ‘when is this going to end’ was ‘my hours in the dark’. But now I’m just here, with the glow of my keys, the flickering of a tv screen, the acids in my stomach. 7 hours to go, maybe 3 hours to go, the clock no longer ticks cuz I pulled the batteries. By doing so I think I increased the speed of my minutes by half. I’ve no reference to now, I just have now.
My Groundhog Day, your quarantine, my Tuesday. Your Groundhog Day, my Friday, my Monday. In the 3 hours I got today, tonight?.. In the 3 hours I got of a scribbled dream I was warm, I was sinking into warm soft sheets, wrapped in blankets that felt like they were just out the dryer. I held tight to the pillow and I think I was in love with someone, then some type of violence brought me back, some type of anguish – my Wednesday, your quarantine. My Thursday, my Sunday. Sleeping is for fools, empty minds, cuz they have no toil, just coloring books and crayons.
Maybe it’s fear, loss of control. Always planning, figuring, adapting, running scared. Is that what it is? Being stuck with yourself, no one to hug, no one to forget yourself with, no one to steal the hours that keep you up at night. Fear that it will never change, that every day for the next day will be alone, will be stuck. “There will be no caged bird singing today, I repeat no caged bird singing” echoing over the loudspeaker that’s strapped to your soul. Instead you take that pretty little parakeet down into the mine with you and watch it die from the noxious fumes that spew forth from your mind and seep into your moments. Knowing you will be waking tomorrow to the same routine, pinned to it by a dozen plus nails. All those lovely hours, haunting you. Forgetting that all you need to do is pull the batteries and time stops watching you.
My Groundhog Day. My every day of the week. Including weekends, including holidays, including that extra day every 4 years. I resigned myself to knowing there is no sleep, even when I do connect multiple hours by 6 or 8. That’s funny, connecting 8 hours. Everyone knows only babies and alcoholics can sleep that long, those silly drunkards always passing out and snoring it off and those babies, so sweet and blissful, knees tucked to chest, butt in the air.
Remember? Remember what it was like when you lived a normal life 2 and a half weeks back. When you were warm and safe and your butt was in the air and you were in your crib and nothing could touch you. The security of repetition, the control of your next desire waiting to be fulfilled. Weren’t those the days, when cotton candy grew from willow trees and you knew god cuz the warm fuzzies of living how you wanted to kept you grounded. I remember what it was like too sleep, awe it was the best, everything shut out, all the thoughts, all the planning, all the future that rarely never came as you conjured it anyways. I remember being the stick the reed got stuck to wondering how it stayed so green, wondering how it was so light and delicate as it slipped around me and floated off.
I remember the fear of death, the next five minutes, the vulnerability, the unknown, the unforeseen. Ask a living man what he fears most and more often than not he’ll say dying, ask a dying man what he fears most and more often than not he’ll say not living to see tomorrow. Ask a Buddhist what he fears most and he’ll tell you there is no fear in the moment. I’ve never faced a slow road to death, I’ve seen it, I’ve watched others, I’ve heard the buzz of a bullet wiz by me, but I’ve yet to face death, obviously. I do not fear it, part of living is dying. Although ask me again if I’m given a timeframe for my existence and we’ll see how Buddhist I am. The next five minutes do not exist, I pulled the batteries from my clock, you should try it. Vulnerability, unknown, unforeseen – perceptions. We choose to see what we will see, we choose to be what we will be. I am here, I am gone, I am here again – I’m never truly gone, I only think I am.
My reoccurring days, my sleepless nights, my monotony. It’s not really here, it’s not happening. It has all happened, but it’s not happening. I attach myself to a moment that no longer exists, I desire an experience that might not never happen - I am not here, I am in lust, I am in fear, I am in hope, I am everywhere but here now. I will sleep when I am tired, eat when I am hungry, shower when I am dirty. All things will happen in their time and I only have to be present for them. I can be the stick stuck in the rivers floor or the reed floating down stream, it’s a choice. I will laugh, I will cry, I will live and die – life will happen as it was meant to. Only when I am connected to right now, is when everything is ok, when I am ok.
So does Groundhog Day really exist or is it my grip on to what was and not accepting what is. Once I accept how something is my monkey mind has nothing to play with, it has nothing to obsess on. It is left with me and whatever task is in front of me. Whether that be working, cooking, folding clothes, exercising – a glimmer of equanimity will appear. But keeping the hands busy will not completely tame the mind, it will not expel the fears or irrational thinking. If it’s actions that you use to find peace within it’s a false sense of peace. It is concocted and it will stop working over time, no matter how many clothes you fold, how push-ups you do, no matter how much food you eat or cars you wash, your monkey mind will find a way to bring back the crazies. So what is my solution, what is it that is going to bring peace within my scattered mind, create a lasting equanimity. The first 3 steps, not knowing them, not living them but being them, ingraining them into every fiber of my consciousness. It’s surrender, acceptance and powerlessness. It’s knowing there is nothing beyond this moment and nothing has happened before now. It a practice of walking the path, it’s sitting and watching my breath, it’s open hands, it’s left foot, right foot, it’s be here now.
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