Maybe not today.

Having slept deep I’m happy, for a change. While the Nameless One hovers over our future, I seldom feel happy – rather, threatened, frustrated, glum. It’s how one feels immersed in a personal tragedy – a loved one dying, a divorce. The end must come, but when? And when it does, will I survive?

This morning, I am zesty like the old days. The Nameless One hasn’t gone anywhere but he’s left my mind. True, he occupies the preceding paragraph, but as a bird might, pecking suet, or a cool gust: as fact not fate. “Nothing’s either good or bad but thinking makes it so” and this morning my dread has shriveled like a popped balloon. Does my imagination know something I don’t?

I feel so happy I want to do something different to celebrate. I love my routine – I cling to it like flotsam not to drown in the infinite sea of not-knowing. Vigilantly, I repeat my daily movements, as does dog-pal Henry, who is likewise pacified by patterns. This may be OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) or it may be wisdom: I’m too old to let definitions define me. My ways soothe me like my tattered slippers. I’d miss them.

This morning, though, let’s rejoice. Do I repeat my routine exactly on Christmas or Jane’s birthday? I do not. Those holy days mandate special treatment. To ignore a holy day is sacrilege, punishable by regret. This morning I am blessed with happiness, so let’s mark the occasion with something different. Why not skip composing a missive? Since I’ve published missives daily for almost four thousand consecutive days, that would be very different. Shocking. Scary. Am I brave enough? Mightn’t that constitute a different sort of sacrilege?

I stare at my blank computer screen almost giddy with daring. No, I am not a slave! I can go a day without you guys. I can! But then what? This continuity is my vanity. Others must judge the quality of my words, but I can congratulate myself for my peculiar industry. This daily discourse may not have been worth doing, but how remarkable it’s been done. I’m reminded of Philippe Petit tiptoeing between the two World Trade Center towers (Rest in Peace) or Dr. Johnson’s hilarious and outrageously sexist snark that “a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” (Recall, friends, the good doctor was trying to get our goat.)

I write ahead. At first I didn’t but gradually the pressure got to me. Breaking a string of fifty is no big deal; breaking a string of a thousand matters more, for a thousand are harder to replace. Replacing four thousand is inconceivable at my age. With my present stock, I can sicken for a month or two and my missives will keep appearing as if nothing’s amiss. My mordant humor smiles at the prospect of my missives outlasting me. “I thought that guy was dead!”

To assure the string’s continuance I must add one a day. To skip feels like anticipating my own extinction. It’d be like telling God, hey, I’m feeling fine so I won’t pray today. One needs God in all weathers, fair or foul.

Jane and I rise at different hours. One of our mundane pleasures is to greet one another as we breakfast. “How did you sleep?” each asks. One day, I fear, one of us won’t be there to ask.

But maybe not today.