Organizing My Self

On my virtual calendar, each month is a clearly demarcated grid of five rows of seven boxes stacked one upon the other. Each box has a number, starting at one and usually going to thirty or thirty-one. In the box that represents ‘today’, the number is held in a small circle of blue to set it apart from all the other numbers on the grid. In the boxes to the left and above, the numbers are all faded. I call this ‘the past’. The higher numbers, to the right and below, are ‘the future’. They appear in dark type and each contains more numbers marked ‘am’ and ‘pm’ as well as a few cryptic words.

When I switch to the weekly view, the grid shifts. Now larger numbers range across the top of seven columns, advancing right to left. Above each number is a three-letter name. SUN, through SAT. As in the view of the month, the number for the day I call ‘today’ is highlighted with a blue circle. To the left is all washed out but today and the rest of the week are still vivid.

I faithfully consult my virtual calendar. The weekly view is quite colorful. My various appointments and commitments indicated by bright boxes holding white type with someone’s name or the description of the activity I am supposed to be participating in. On my calendar, green represents my coaching clients, red indicates activities related my role as a Zen teacher, blue is personal and purple is everything that is tentative.

The most amazing part of my calendar is that each day when I wake up, it has already been filled in. This is the work of my past self. He is a shadowy figure who I can never quite get a hold of. I sometimes think of him my personal assistant. Mostly he makes good decisions but he does have the tendency to over schedule me. Looking ahead at some full days, I question his sanity. His enthusiasm, while admirable, does not always take into account the full complexity of things, nor the fact that life itself is nowhere near as neat as the colorful boxes he uses to order me around. But I keep him on because I can’t find anyone else to do the job.

I have tried to explain this all to my fourteen-month-old grandson, but he seems more interested in pushing small plastic objects through the appropriately shaped openings and in digging random holes in the garden beds. I suppose he’ll learn eventually.