Plans
I think I need to add a nice thermometer to supplement my nice new rain gauge. I want to know, when I walk outside in the morning, what it is I’m feeling, outside of my emotions, which is another subject entirely. Because the temperature my phone shows is down by the river and I’m not down by the river. I need to know the temperature of the air where I’m standing. And it’s doable. I just need to do it. I think I’ll put that plan in motion.
It will now join the other plans I have in motion, a veritable maelstrom of plans. Plans to do all sorts of things. I even have plans to plan, because otherwise they get out of hand and end up in dead ends. Then the plan has gone to waste or proven that it wasn’t much of a plan in the first place. Or, worse yet, something goes unplanned, and you forget to do it. That happens a lot actually. Although, in some cases, I do have plans for things I’m not going to do, which basically consists of deciding, I’m not going to do that. Figure that out.
And now you might ask, when did you get a new rain gauge? I’d say several weeks back. It’s just like the one I saw at the house in Marathon where I stayed for a recent music festival. It’s a nice cylinder that measures to the tenth of an inch. It’s made of sun resistant plastic, and you can order replacement parts. And now I remember that I was gone during the recent rain and need to check how much rain fell in my new gauge. I will do that this morning when the sun comes up. A short-term plan, and that’s how we do it.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale