The known; the unknown & the doors :)

[...there are things known and things unknown.

In between there are doors...] Jim Morrison 

The whole of last week, I spent contemplating this week…

The list has been all drawn up: Things to do, recipes to try out, friends to meet up with, topping up my pantry, bills etc. Neat, meticulous and almost fool proof! My old leather planner (some 12 years old) survives, despite overuse. Almost second skin. And yes, my custom (self) designed planner sheet has this little blank section for all the un-planned pop up. It’s a habit, and a rigorous one at that: planning for the routine, the expected as well as the unexpected.  

Monday spent (nothing substantial); and then comes Tuesday. Sitting with a mug of coffee… I run through a mind-map of things that needs doing ahead into the day.

Filter coffee; that’s what I was sipping at (something potentially stimulating). Just a thought: What if I just basked away this week pretending I don’t have plans. The prospects were tempting. Today seems just too real for me to carry out yesterday’s plans. That decisive instance, I was 99% sorted: I was going to do nothing today; except what I felt like doing … no plans! Almost, by instinct, I reached out for my black leathery companion (my planner). STOP. That’s it, I though… ‘was I reaching to plan how I was going to un-plan my week?’ Obsessive, compulsive habits die hard.

At that instance ‘K’ emerged into the kitchen… all set to leave for work. ‘I need a break’, I announced.

‘On a Tuesday?’ he winked. But then, perhaps he realised: my mind was made up on this one. I needed a break on a Tuesday. Why not?

‘You called people at work?’ he quipped.

Huh, I’d never think about it. Taking leave from work (I have turned a Robot; the way I visualised my ‘break’ was: job-can’t bunk; but rest of the plans I could). It’s next to natural that human beings wake up to report to classes, lectures, appointments and work. It dawned upon me at that time that, indeed, I should call up my workplace and tell them that I was taking an ‘unplanned’ leave. (Can’t remember the last time I took one).

‘Will not feign illness’, I said to K. Picking up the phone, I had no idea how I was going to explain this Tuesday madness. But then, J’s voice on the other end is like a soothing balm (be it a Monday, Friday or a Tuesday)… Thinking about the little conversation we had and it’s outcome, I I did well. I said nothing, I shouldn’t be saying. This short leave (from my routine life) was indeed as I put it to ‘J’: urgent personal affair that needed my immediate attention.

………………………

Thursday 8^th March:

…. The black leather beast recons… and it wins J

Looking back at the past two days- I did what I wanted to do. Just hung out there… a little bit of reading, some nice walks along the Down’s, watched a couple of dvd’s and yes, ‘K’ did a dinner for me last night. Tuna Spaghetti, it was. Slurped it!