Waking on Vacation

There is no routine in wakening
No automatic pilot
No rolling out of bed
To well timed schedules of bathing and coffee.
I've stumbled out to pee
And returned, smug.
I'm on vacation!
There's excitement in anticipation of travel
But the bed is warm.
I can actually take time time to rough up the cat,
Who purrs then squeals and stalks haughtily away
Only to return for more 'attention'.
And I have time to rough her up some more.
Time seems to stretch out ahead of me,
Like rolling meadows for strolling upon.
Rather than the normal motorized mechanized uphill escalators
That as often as not plunge down
In the roller coaster of work life,
This day seems easy.
No phones, no demands, no impossibles,
No blazing hoops, no whips, no high wire acts.
Just those meadows to stroll across.
A plane in the afternoon waits.
Friendly people are all ahead with smiles and hands upturned to take the hard earned, hard saved tourist dollar.
A reprieve from saving and care
Lovely suites in another land with different architecture and art.
And all I have to do is watch
And comment, ooh, ah
And nary a person will want me to know the meaning of life
To fix the world, or cure cancer, or explain why bad things happen to good people,
Or give a pep talk, smile, or control my temper and act civilized
In the most uncivilized of circumstances,
Or help them get a job, a spouse or a life.
The money has been set aside, at great personal cost and loss.
There's no scurrying and digging and finding and struggling.
We won't be tearing bills apart in a fight to hold all.
No knives in backs and cutthroat deals and plunges into insanity.
No chasing after the all might dollar this week.
No arguing with taxmen, banks, no bosses bullying or threats of being put out on The streets, no getting the mail and looking at bills, no reading shocking emails between pornographic spam , no phone calls at dinner from telemarketters, no ever fearing you'll miss the important things like eviction notices, or spots that harbinger deadly disease.
I'll read newspapers in foreign lands translated kindly to English
So I can be amused at their scoundrels and heathens of politics and media
So far away.
I am on my first day of vacation and already feel my life slipping
Along that umbilical astro travel golden gossamer thread of long held dreams,
The fruition of promises, the light at the end of the dark daily tunnels
The reprieve, the cherry on the cake of suffering.
Oooooh. Ahhhhh. Ooooooh. Ahhhhhh.
Roll over and go back to sleep. Perhaps more breakie today.
Mmmmmmmm, I could have toast with my coffee.
Maybe sit down for tea. I'll linger in the heat of the shower.
That's for sure. Sit for a moment longer on the toilet, even.
Mmmmmmmmmm. Pleasure. Hedonism.
You've 'earned' it as if Thoreau ever thought that life must be earned.
The debts paid. The Christian Work Ethic so well honored. I feel I am the last Boy Scout in a world of sweet deals and cut corners and sly scams. I actually work for a living and what an unusual statement that is today in the mad rush for government jobs, union jobs, CEO jobs, pensions, disabilities, anything but income from labour.
(What a sad man you are, he told me from above, you actually work for a living. We don't you know. Never have. Not at all the thing to do where we come from. We collect rents, you see. Watch our investments and the tellie.)
Ah but he'd never know the value of an honest day's work or the experience of what it was to know the sweat of the brow
And neither will I for some days to come.
I'd rather have a Sommerset Maugham Steamer ride to India
In days when grand tours took months and years.
But I'm a modern man and have a week away from the Vancouver factory
Where we are all hustling and bustling as the fattest fanciest rats
On the turntables of capitalism and consumerism thankful for jobs
While fewer ultra elites get the latest shade in rocket ships, or the latest vaginal remodelling or penile enlargements or must argue with the upholsterer about what matching colour the back of the couch should have.
And the streets are clogged with junkies threatening our middle class pretension
Mmmmmm. Oooooh. Ahhhhhh. I stopped taking the morning paper years ago.
I remember when we had the time to read the Times.
Maybe a bath instead of a shower, this morning.
Toast and a boiled egg.
Here comes the cat.
I think I'll rough her up again.
Mmmmmmm. Ah......The first day of vacation.
It really is unfair that I planned a flight so I must get out of bed
Sometime before the afternoon.
Yes, a very long shower. Maybe tea instead of coffee.
Read a bit of Bible. Have a moment of gratitude. Pray with thanks
Instead of the normal foxhole prayers of 21st century living in Vancouver urban slums
And ...oh!....no negative thinking.....not allowed. Vacation. Gratitude. You've earned it.
Happy thoughts. Think spa. Think rejuvenation. Think luxury and relaxation.
Aethestics and celebration. Mmmmmm. Don't get out of bed yet. Not yet. Not just yet. No rush!
No rush! My God it's like the railway train running all day beneath the house
got shut down. It's like the sledgehammer working next door stopped.
I'm lying here in the silence of peace. Peace. Space. Time.
Oh my God. I'd better get busy. Get back to work. Human doing doing doing.
Ahhhhhh. First day of vacation. Relax. Take a deep breath. This too will pass.


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Location:W 13 Ave,Vancouver,Canada