Weekends only postpone the inevitable

What lurks behind that portal?

A friend just posted something about teaching a something something workshop on Saturday. As much as I respect and have genuine affection for this friend, I do find myself questioning his sanity. See, he’s at the point where he could decline and could possibly assign the work to others. As I said, I respect this man and I respect that he wants the work done right. But Saturdays!?!

There are reasons classrooms and offices have doors – so you can close them tightly – because doors are portals that must be physically shut and mystically sealed against annoyances and nonsense which needs not have purchase in our times of rejuvenation and regeneration – in other words, don’t screw with my free time. I’ve worked a lot of Saturdays and a frightening number of Sundays; I’ve done it for money, for friendship and for escape. I’ve done it out of loyalty, out of desperation, out of necessity, and until I was out of my mind. If you can manage to avoid it: through negotiation, compromise, intimidation or guile; Saturday needs to become sacrosanct. It needs to be set aside, untouched, pure and unsullied by schedules, calendars, watches, and social media reminders.

On Friday afternoon you close what needs to be closed, hide whatever evidence that your work actually ended on Tuesday around 11:30 – and run- don’t walk. You will actually feel care slip away – like oversize footwear. As distance and time grow, 200 meters and/or 30 seconds sounds about right – you may have only a vague recollection of what lurked behind that portal.

Saturday morning you awake, a temporary resident of an alternate reality. You may be suffering from trans-dimensional ‘ jet-lag’. Saturday afternoon is spent trying to remember some of Friday night. This disconnect doesn’t require any substance other than distance and actual enjoyment.

Sunday morning finds you still dimensionally detached, and this will last through the afternoon. This disconnect may last longer if you linger over brunch with a few friends. Adult beverages are optional.  … Eventually, around 7:00 pm you feel an ominous presence – some obscure and ancient warning that may cause some to feverishly plan a duvet-day escape plan- but it will only delay the inevitable.

Monday lurks, and it will arrive, like an elephant in musth, intent on trampling your tranquil oasis and befouling the waters of your serenity. You must face Monday with calm bemusement and feigned self-assurance. Monday will smirk knowingly. Don’t take it personally, that’s just how Mondays are.

Monday greets you at the door. It accepts your sneers generously and chortles as you capitulate, broken and sobbing, to the inevitable beginning. Your mandated 100% of effort is fueled and on deck. You suit up and wait for the go signal. Maybe today you’ll have the nerve to buzz the tower. As lunch approaches, you’re not sure if you can make it. Two o’clock seems so far away, and five is a dream left for the mad and newly employed. Somehow you make it, with only a little sweat and a few tears. Careful, Mondays feed on tear-stained dreams … and coffee-soaked anguish.

Tuesday is waiting and you’re there ready to give your full 70% – after all, you’re saving yourself for Wednesday. Be warned, if you’ve managed to dodge Monday, Tuesday is quite prepared to emulate, imitate and stand-in for its much-maligned sibling. After all, that’s how weekdays are.

Wednesday is festive, zesty, and almost giddy. It’s a quiet giddiness that may occasionally titter and has been known to share a shy smile. Energy levels are neck and neck with productivity, cruising at about 50%, slowing for the occasional coughing fit or sarcastic chants of love for the company.

Thursday arrives, and your commitment to giving your full 30% is the only thing keeping your toes on the office side of the threshold. Your toehold on a fast dissolving reality isn’t really fooling anyone, but surely even a not quite halfhearted effort is appreciated.

You slip into Friday almost effortlessly. You even manage to remark,” I can’t believe it’s already Friday.” You then look around nervously just in case Thursday has overstayed its welcome. Friday, when even your shadow isn’t fully committed to being in the office, is a day both joyous and fraught with tension. You have to be light on your feet because extra work, unplanned meetings, and the dreaded question, “have you got any plans?” dwell just out of the corner of your eye. Move quietly. Don’t jingle keys, or slam doors, or linger at the copier. The clock, your watch, and the artfully inaccurate timer on your desktop all conspire to keep you at work longer than necessary. Certainly, it’s longer than the time required by human-decency and that provision of the Geneva Convention that applies to working-class heroes.

There is a sharp clang as the gates open. Your desk is done. Your bag was packed on Wednesday morning. You burn rubber leaving the parking lot – and you’re walking. The lingering beast snickers, but you don’t have time to care. You’re out.

Don’t work for the weekend. Work to stop the senseless waste of hours in the unending quest to appease the beast behind the portal.

Lost in Alternate Realities

I have spent as many hours as possible sitting in darkened movie theaters lost in alternate realities, and I have loved every moment of it. For a twelve-year-old boy, there was nothing better.

There weren’t many days spent in darkened theaters when I was that age. At age 12, I was still living in Pointe Au Baril Station, Ontario. Our village, Pointe Au Baril Station, sits along highway 69 between Parry Sound and Sudbury. It is a small community of 300 people.

It had, and likely still has, a couple of gas stations, a liquor store, two general stores and a few marinas and lodges scattered over the North and South shores. We also had two churches, a small school, a bank, a Royal Canadian Legion Hall, and a privately ran post office/bait shop and a community center that had a few purposes. Dance place, meeting hall, and tourist information center being a few.

For me, its most important purpose was the Friday night movie. Not quite a darkened theater. Enter the large hall with me. Sit down on a folding chair. There are always enough chairs. The old projector comes to life. The blank wall is filled with wonder.

This is also what comics did for me. I bought my comics at Higman’s Highway Market. Kennedy’s store, sitting along the channel leading into Georgian Bay, didn’t sell comics. I made my money for comics by cashing in beer bottles. The bottles were redeemed at Wing’s Shell station. No, We didn’t drink the beer … that came later.

With a summer tourist trade estimated at about 2,000 we had a lot of empties to cash in. My brother and I also had a lucrative sideline in frogs. I delivered lunches to construction crews, cut grass, tied boats, and shoveled snow. My younger brother Troy and I sold frogs to the local pool hall owner who sold them to sport fishermen as bait.

The frogs, the bottles, the snow and such helped to fill the blank canvas of a child. A mental landscape filled with Dr. Doom, a blind attorney, a playboy millionaire, and a collection of princesses, orphans, and misunderstood do-gooders. Many of those characters, and their worlds, were given form by Gene Colan.

Gene wasn’t the first artist I admired. At first I liked the cleaner lines of Curt Swan and Dick Dillon. Kirby leaped off the page for me, and then something happened. I found art that resonated. It stayed with me. It seemed to have a depth beyond the page. It flowed. It showed me a world beyond my own, and yet was reflective of that world.

Gene’s (if I may be so familiar) art allowed me to see a bit of wonder in my own reality. I didn’t need to escape as much as search.

Thank you for that clarity.