What day it is?

How old would you be if you don’t know how old you are? Satchel Paige

What day would it be if you don’t know what day it is? Adrian Fogelin

I’ve come unpinned from the clock, the days of the week, even the seasons.

Oh, I know we are adrift somewhere in the dog days of summer, somewhere in the long, long stretch of hurricane season—and I know we’re in the season of Covid, and that it has droned on and on and on, but time as a measurable commodity has turned to a handful of confetti. It scatters. It blows away on the wind.

Sometimes, with deliberate thought, I can pin down what day it is. Sometimes I get it wrong, but in the ah-hah moment, with the name of the day firmly in hand, I feel triumphant, as if I have caught something elusive in a clever trap.

Yup. It’s a Tuesday all right. But when I look more closely at that trapped Tuesday I see it bears no particular markings. It looks an awful lot like…a Monday… or maybe a Thursday. This day I am struggling to identify has not bothered to dress for the occasion.

The days of the week used to arrive clad for the purpose of the day ahead. You could tell which ones were going to work, which were getting together with friends. Each day made clear that it had a goal, an activity planned, an obligation to fulfill—or not. Like Saturdays.

Saturday used to slouch in, all casual, but now it is every day that saunters in, sloppy and comfortably dressed, and all, oh, whatever. It’s not like those formerly busy days have anywhere important to go during the pandemic.

Time markers have become as fragile as old post-it notes, the glue barely tacky.

Guess time markers were mostly there for me to coordinate my Tuesday with your Tuesday.

I miss that. I miss agreeing that, a.) it is Tuesday, and b.) since it is Tuesday you and I are getting together (even if it is just at adjacent desks in a windowless office).  

I liked knowing we would get together because we always do. Every Tuesday. Or did before Covid.

So, what day it is?

I am looking at the current day closely…it looks a lot like the last one, which I can safely call “yesterday.”

Oh heck, it is some day or other. Does it really matter which?

Maybe I’ll just call it “today.” And after that comes, I believe, a day called “tomorrow.”

For now, that’s the best I got.

So, have a nice “today” and may “tomorrow” dress for the occasion and strut on in, making it obvious what day of the week it is.

May the wheel of time begin to turn again, with purpose.