After fourteen hours of work and social obligations, I am done with the day.
I can be active at work, interacting with customers and associates and management, ever with a smile on my face. I can enjoy being on my feet for eight hours and putting in almost ten thousand steps in the process (a low number; I was standing in place doing tasks for several hours today). I can head straight from work to a friend’s house for several hours, and then drive home in the dark of night, stopping as quickly as possible for much-needed grocery essentials. I can run as fast as I can, just to stay in place. I can spring on the treadmill. I can do all of this.
But I need to balance doing much with doing little. I need to come home after a day like this and be by myself, to have an hour or two in which I don’t have to worry about anything, or do anything important. Not that the Artist and the Engineer isn’t important. But I do this by choice, for fun, rather than out of socioeconomic obligation. At least, not yet.
I am an introvert who is very good at being extroverted when necessary. But it is very much time for me to be an introvert for a while. Or until I go to bed, at least.
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The Still and Quiet Night
And now, the still and quiet night
Around me nestles close.
I spent the day within the light,
And got a lethal dose.
It’s time to bleed the venom out
Before I grow morose.
It’s time to go, there is no doubt,
And whisper adios.
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Written while listening to Jorge Reyes’ Prehispanic (1990).
The Artist and the Engineer 