“Life is what you make of it – not something that happens, but that you make happen.”

The morning started dull, my brain a blur. Not enough sleep? Something on my mind? My empty page taunted like a schoolyard bully: “What’s the problem, Buttercup? Cat got your tongue?”

“What’s wrong with you?” I quizzed myself. “Milk drying up?”

The prospect of our daily stroll shakes my mind awake. We’ve got to jaw about something while together – it’d be weird not to. (“Weird” is this week’s “it” adjective – a political dig not easy to dig out of.) “The habit of expression,” grumbled Henry Adams, “leads to the search for something to express.” I’ll say! Often my brain brims but sometimes not. Uh-oh – am I done? (I will be, one day.)

My consciousness lounges like a couch-potato, given half a chance – draw the shades, turn up the music, play online backgammon. Online backgammon is how I think not to think. It’s enthralling, infuriating, time flies! – an unconscionably guilty waste of precious hours. Why do I do it? I know better! “After such knowledge,” groans T.S. Eliot’s Gerontion, “what forgiveness?” I do it because… it’s fun. For a break (as if I needed one!). Because I’m curious – how the dice will roll, how I’ll play my position. I do it instead of… what I mean to be doing. How often have I bemoaned my paucity of time: I’ll die any day now – with so many songs unsung! And here I am frittering moments I can’t recoup. What’s wrong with me?

I stare at my empty page. “Begin!” I upbraid myself like a drill sergeant. “I don’t give a damn whether you feel like it, soldier, begin!” I note date and hour – and place, if it’s unusual. There’s a start. Now force words from fingertips: “Brain-cudgeling time. Think. Work at it.” Uncertain what we might discuss, I array possibilities. “Prompted by” my most recent reading – I list a few. (Mine will be a death by bullet points.) “Prompted by headlines” – another few. “Prompted by my quotidian.” “Prompted by pondering.”

Now I’ve a fistful of possible topics – which tempts? They parade before me like beauty contestants – choose me! Choose me! I pry my mind open like a stubborn clam – goading, jollying, hectoring. I eliminate aspirants – one’s too frivolous, another too esoteric, for another I lack standing. (How come I’ve never discussed football? asks one kindly reader. Because I can hardly spell it, I reply.)

I dread repeating myself. Not Trump again! Or, per Jane, my long-dead dad. (“Give it a rest,” she pleads.) Dog Henry relieves me now and then, with his quirky lexicon and views of mankind.  Almost four thousand of these missives I’ve published in a row, not a day missed – of course I repeat myself – but inadvertently. Each, when it’s served, feels to its maker fresh-baked.

Consciousness widens as you nudge its edges. Step one step beyond the familiar and you’re in New-Found-Land. All travel is in the mind. We’ve only been to Venice once we’ve imagined it.

Modernity’s endless smorgasbord distracts from contemplation. Jokes, gossip, the latest, have you heard, can you believe – the Internet has us drinking from a firehose, struggling to keep up. Tidbits is all we have time for. Pondering demands silence and vacant hours – good luck with that!

I write not to fill the time, but fulfill it, feel it. A minute is not a minute – a few matter, most don’t. I pant for an intensity of being, to make our moment momentous, not just pleasant.

“Life is what you make of it!” I exhort myself, ever hopeful.