Poetic Reflections: being off

This time of year there is much talk of Seasons and Greetings and Winter and Weather. Especially if your T.V. only gets The Weather Channel. And you leave it on day and night. You will probably dream about the weather. In which case, you should turn it off. Weather dreams can leave you soggy or windswept or baked like a loaf of bread.

Speaking of off, I see that the title of this poetic ramble (and by ramble I mean reflection) has to do with being off. This is a topic I happen to know something about. Unlike the weather, which I know nothing of until it hits me. Well, occasionally I might hear the tap of rain on the roof. Or the whistle of wind past the window. Otherwise I haven’t a clue what’s going on out there while I’m in here, submerged in my writings, isolated from the elements, lost in my own little world, bowing to the machine at my desk. I turn it off to sleep. But is it really off? Maybe it comes on again and observes me. Hence the phrase “computer monitor”. Diabolical! Perhaps I should sleep with one eye open just in case!

Or maybe when I turn it off, I switch myself off too because so much of my life is spent these days in front of its screen.

All right, I am probably not ever going to sleep again as soundly. And will lie awake questioning just how off is off. Perhaps this proves that I myself am a little off, even when I’m wide awake. But then we never completely turn off our brains. That would be suicide. It’s like trying not to breathe. We must maintain a degree of onness. Upon some level or plane, we have to remain functional. And so it goes for the machine. Unless I yank its plug, render it null and void, diminish it to a box or device. A mere object. But somewhere inside there could be a glow, a speck, a battery. A teensy one would do. So small it’s practically the thought that counts more than the energy. Yes, I doubt that it would be completely off. Only if I swung an axe a number of whacks and reduced it to bits and pieces. Plastic rubble. Only then.

But how could I be certain?

What if the shallowest slightest spark existed, a scrap of power? A hint, a glint of a surge? What if I pulverized it to powder? That should do the trick! But do not atoms hold charges? “Impossible!!!” I scream like a silent alarm.

So you see . . . I wouldn’t really do that to my computer, for what would be the point? I mean, exterminating some phantom red eye that never blinks! Crazy, right? Doesn’t matter if it watches me or not. Whether the machine is truly off or still infinitesimally on. No, that doesn’t matter at all!

Sometimes things don’t really count, it’s just the principle of it. We’re disturbed in an under-the-skin fashion. Unlike the loom of an enormous icicle hanging directly above your head on a sun-drenched day. Which could actually fall off. Yes, there’s that word again. It could plummet off the overhanging roof and, as luck would have it, plow right into your brain. Now what would be the sense to that? It would make no sense whatsoever, which is precisely my point. A point, in fact, as sharp as the tip of that stalactite. Because nothing would make much sense to you anymore, I’m afraid, with a crystalline spike lodged in your skull. Wow. Not a very cheerful thought.

Could the New Year be to blame for my mood? This standoffish or rather sit-offish (because I am seated) state? I am ordinarily extraordinarily a trifle introverted. Nonetheless, perhaps I should get off my duff, drag myself away from my desk, and go do some living again. Is that what Two Thousand Twelve is hinting to me? Maybe it’s right. Maybe I should kick off my slippers, slip on some actual shoes, and step off the beaten path to do all of those undids and undidn’ts that I never quite got around to when I had the chance.

On the verge of transition, that shimmery moment between the old and the new, we find ourselves making pledges and resolutions, reaffirming our faith in ourselves and our commitments to others. Believing we can be a step closer to the apple of our mom’s eye, the ideal image we or another holds dear of us.

I am sensing a shift. A monumental awakening and breakening of barriers, the obstacles and obstructions and burdens that have frustrated or vexed, held me back, weighed me down like a ton of stone and thwarted my progress for so long. Perhaps this will be my year to shine! The year I’ve been waiting for my entire life! Perhaps this is it!!!

Oh terrific, just before the world is about to end??? That figures! That is so typical!

Now I’m just ticked off. And yet I am always a bit off. Did I mention that? If I did, I think it bears repeating.

Still, I do feel strangely optimistic. Things are going to get better, I’m sure of it. I have seen a twinkle or two of hope. Twenty Twelve it may be, but do not despair. It’s not like it’s the end of the world!

Without further t’do, I present several poems about offness.