My Day As Defined By a Column in my Planner

I find it apalling, really, that when I wake up in the morning and "visualize" my day ahead, what appears first thing in my mind is not a scene of my office, or the beautiful trees on my drive to work, or the women with whom I sing on Monday evenings, but this photograph of a series of lines with times next to them running down a page. I see my scribbles and circles contained within these lines. In fact, it's an exact image of a column in my day planner.

It's difficult to accept that my life has been narrowed down to this.

When I was a kid, part of what made the weekends fun was imagining playing with my friends and singing songs. I would see myself roller skating with my neighbors, or riding bikes to Vans Market for lemon heads and bubble-gum, the feeling of warm quarters and dimes in my hands. I would think of the face of a friend, the sound of a voice. I would cringe as my mom would yell for the laundry to be taken downstairs or a new roll of toilet paper to be put on the roller. I looked forward to laughing with friends at school, or seeing a cute boy in class or in the hall. I could see my dad asking what I wanted for lunch and remember this question throwing me off momentarily until I could visualize my dad's fresh baked bread with peanut butter and honey on it.

Any more however, this is what I imagine:

8:30___________________
9:00___Directors Meeting___
9:30___________________
10:00__________________
10:30__________________
11:00__Kendall and Rich____
11:30__________________
12:00___Brett___________
12:30__________________
1:00___Ph: High Rocks_____
1:30__call Susan R________
2:00_Ask Shelly WS_______
2:30__Ph: Urban AC_______
3:00 ___Fellows?_________
3:30___________________
4:00__Report____________
4:30___________________
5:00____WO____________
5:30___________________
6:00___Calliope__________
6:30___________________
7:00___________________
7:30___________________
8:00___________________
8:30___________________

What does this mean? How have I loved people well by thinking about THIS first thing in the morning? Can I truly assess the success of a day by whether or not I have done these things? Checked them off? It seems wrong.

What's even harder for me to imagine is that, as I age and my memory begins to fade, the image of my father crying at a movie that we watched on the couch of our house in Worthington, Ohio might be taken up by the image of a column in my planner on October 5, 2004? The brain, though a fascinating and complex organ with a great deal of "holding capacity," still has its limits. I even try to regulary 'exercise' my brain by doing crossword puzzles, by learning new songs, and by reading poetry to memorize. I just don't know if it is helping.

I also don't want my life to be defined by what is 'between the lines,' so to speak-at least not in this capacity. I don't want my insights into 'what I have done with my life,' to look like 8:30__Community meeting__. Frankly, it begins to seem surreal.

So maybe it's not as bad as I am making it out to be. Maybe the neurons that make the memories about the smell of a loved one are different or connect in a different way from the ones that create the image of my day planner. Maybe I should not lose all hope...yet.

I have a desparate side, however. The side of me that raises the red flags to warn of impending doom. Or at least, that something is not cool. I want to know that hiking in the woods can never be written down in a column. That the moments I spend in quiet conversation with my lover can never be 'scheduled.'

So...here is a promise to myself, and to my family, friends, loved ones, aquaintences, etc.:

Even though your name may appear in a column of my day planner, it does not reflect the time that I do or do not think of you. I promise that flashes of memories and events to come appear before me at odd moments. In fact, there are 500 million billion little moments that my day planner can't possibly capture that involve loving, seeing and being with the people that I know. There is no way that I can write them all down. But they are there. And should we talk soon, I will tell you about the wonderful things that I think about that are not in my day planner.

And this will be just one way I share my love for the world.