After a busy week I have awoken to a morning somehow designed to encourage malingering. The sun rose but could not dispel the thick fog which had descended as darkness lightened.
My day off, planned to a fullness decidedly not dedicated to relaxation – planned to begin early – has begun with my rising hours later than usual.
The sound of the cars passing by comes through the open windows as a shushing noise, as if telling the world to hush, to not disturb the sleeping neighborhood.
And then I hear them. The geese have returned. Every so often they clamor at each other with a honking and a flapping of wings. How long they will remain, I don’t know. Maybe they are making a circuit of favorite places to gather and feed before moving out to their winter home. One week here, two weeks in another neighborhood miles away, only to return this week, their numbers increasing. This morning it seems as if their noise is my alarm clock clamoring for my attention, telling me to get moving.
And yet here I sit. Malingering. That is the only word for it. Well, yes procrastinating would also fit, but that is such a modern hard word. Malingering is an older word, a softer word that also refers to the fact that I am sitting here, writing. Avoiding doing some planned work, some things I should be doing.
Malingering fits this misty, dreary morning.
Today I am a malingerer.
