Meditation on Tuesday

When my alarm went off this morning I was in a deep sleep and it took me a few seconds to get my bearings. In a dreamy haze I struggled to process the nagging thought that there must have been a reason the little red digital clock near my bed was making that horrible noise. Then it hit me like a punch in the gut: Tuesday.

In my mind there's no doubt that it's the worst day of the week. Wednesday is Hump Day (insert Beavis and Butthead-like laugh here) and Garfield hates Mondays, but neither of those days comes close to the existential emptiness that is Tuesday. On Monday there is at least still a residual feeling of leisure and relaxation from the weekend, and by Wednesday you're back into the nose-to-the-grindstone, mindless routine of the work week. But Tuesday, Tuesday is nothing but a long, dark night of the soul that feels like it will never end.

Perhaps I'm feeling a little depressed and/or anxious because here in the Sierra you can just feel the summer slipping away. The Pagan in me wants to relish the coming Equinox, but the spoiled twelve-year-old in me is just pissed off because I haven't made it to Yosemite yet this summer. The warm months are so fleeting in the mountains, and this year was especially tough because winter seemed to last until about the end of June. And even now, in late September, the night air has a chill that was not there a month ago and the days grow shorter and shorter.

And yet there is still time. The weather will be warm and sunny today. It would be a fantastic day to be fly-fishing Lake Davis, or perhaps riding the South Fork of the American River, or maybe just hiking up in the Desolation Wilderness. The possibilities are endless.

But I'm not doing any of those things. I'm going to spend today sitting in a windowless office and listening to the hum of fluorescent lights. Because today is Tuesday.