Of a Groggy Morning

Trying an experiment here. It is 5:41 a.m. and I got out of bed at 5 in response to an itching foot. I am groggy, and feel it—it’s one of those “looking out through someone else’s eyes” feelings of which I am not particularly fond. I have the distinct impression that my mind has been replaced by an oversized lump of Play-Doh,

So I thought I’d just sit down at the computer and see what came out on the screen. (It’s quite likely, given my normal “drunk leaving the bar” staggering from place to place, that you may not even have noticed had I not told you.

And I just received a sharp rebuke from Dorien, who demands (rightly) to know by just what right I am wasting your precious time with all this nonsense. Paraphrasing Thumper’s mom, he points out that “If ‘ya can’t say somethin’ intelligent, don’t say nothin’ at all.” To which Roger replies: “In that case I would become mute.”

I have always been at war with myself, and it was only since Dorien’s emergence as my creative half that it’s been somewhat easier—and considerably less confusing—to separate the wheat from the chaff. Each half of me now has someone specific to blame for whatever mistakes the other half makes.

Roger acknowledges that he is jealous, not of Dorien’s creativity, for we are both the same person after all, but for the fact that Dorien is not bound by the laws of physics. Dorien, therefore a much happier and more content soul, nonetheless is aware that he is inextricably linked to Roger by the bonds of mortality. Neither Dorien nor Roger is very big on the idea of mortality.

When I am at the computer, I have a “streaming” link to a couple of classical music stations, and one is always on. And just this minute, they are playing the Eric Coate’s Knightsbridge March, and Dorien is instantly in the rehearsal hall at the Pensacola Naval Air Station, practicing that very piece with the Naval Aviation Cadet band for an upcoming concert in Terrytown, New York. We’re going up there as part of some official Navy event, and doing a concert at Mr. Barnes’s—he’s our director and I have something of a crush on him—prep school. Dorien is filled with wonder: Roger with sadness because he can’t be there, too.

I’ll probably never understand, either in the grogginess of not enough sleep or in whatever stage of alertness I may reach fully rested, why I feel not merely obligated but driven to lay out as many bits and pieces and details of myself and my life as I can. How can I expect anyone to care? You have your own life, every bit as full and interesting and challenging and frustrating and happy and sad as my own.

Which brings me yet again to my standard answer to the question of “why.” Because I believe that whoever/whatever designed the jigsaw puzzle which is our life, while the picture on the box may be slightly different for each of us, the pieces are largely interchangeable

I take great comfort in that.

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