Monday

"Monday, I'm not ready for you."

I struggle to stay awake during the first hour of my work day.  A certain point behind my left eye starts throbbing.  I take off my glasses and give myself completely to rubbing out the ache with my fingertips before I realize that I'm doing all this in public.

Exactly, what is in this spot that it should ache so?  I soon discover that the front lobe, an area of judgment, foresight and voluntary movement is in the front of my brain.  I'm pretty sure that area isn't working at full capacity this morning and doesn't have a reason to hurt just yet.  Ah,  Broca's area. . . not only does this handle the spoken word, it also handles the written word.  I feel a certain pressure to come up with something to write about.  In my mind's eye, I get a mental picture that looks kind of like this:

If that doesn't explain a headache, I don't know what does. 

This pressure to come up with a topic, something meaningful and relevant is a pain this Monday morning.  I'm trying to connect my headache with some higher meaning, some greater relevance and significance.  Maybe a headache is just a head ache (even if it looks like a brain explosion.)  No symbolism, no greater relevance just a pain in the head.

Maybe this is exactly where its relevance lies.  Maybe it's relevant because it isn't relevant.  (If you don't have a headache before reading that sentence, you might have one now.)  Not everything is pregnant with meaning.  Things happen, situations are what they are.  Life isn't always neat and tidy like a novel or a blog entry.  Things don't begin and end with me.  Not everything taunts me from the sidelines of life and dares me to unlock the mysteries of existence. Some times things just are.

Reminding myself that I'm not the center of the universe comes as a relief.  The next logical question becomes, "Am I the center of my own inner universe."
Followed by a quick, " Do I want to be?"
Addressing the pain behind my eye, I toss it these two questions.  Pain devours the question without a thought.  I stand blinking as I stare at this vacuum, I have just created.  I now longer feel a headache.  I'm not even sure I feel a head with a brain in it sitting atop my shoulders.  Blink. . . . blink. . . I stand at the edge of an abyss.

Finally, these words rise to the surface, little air bubbles escaping a black primordial ooze,  "It doesn't matter."
This is not spoke by the voice of apathy.  Instead, this voice sounds like good old-fashioned common sense. "Forgetting oneself is the beginning and the end of our being."
The voice adds these words and takes me to another region of my brain, that of old memories.  It is here that I am momentarily detained.  I sit and watch.  Apparently, the martial arts action of the Kung Fu television show does not trigger nostalgic memories in the same way that the moments of confusing contradictory "zen" dialogue do.  I begin to replay a mental episode much like this:



My headache leaves as quickly as it came.  I realize that I've found something to write about after all.  I write about nothing.  It might be Monday but I've had much worse.