photo by Jennifer Bloom
We're Living in the Future We Forecasted
(a poem in progress)
The spring on the garage door snapped
one day.
It was pouring, which is unimportant
to this story, except it’s been so damn hot
and dry lately and it’s nice to remember
that sometimes it does rain here.
I had pulled my car into the garage
like I always do, and pressed the button
to close the overhead door as I went inside.
Though now as I write this, it seems odd
to say that I went inside because
the garage is also inside, but not as
inside as the house, I suppose.
And sometimes I think it’s odd
to have a whole room dedicated
to a car.
But I do.
A minute or so later,
I heard a crashing sound and went back
to look in the garage, but saw nothing,
no obvious sign of damage or disrepair.
Everything was is its place.
Perhaps I had imagined the noise.
Wayne knew right away.
I called him when the door wouldn’t open.
“I heard a crashing sound,” I told him over the phone.
“Must be the spring that broke,” he replied.
I hadn’t known what I was looking for.
The spring wasn’t in my schema,
so I didn't see it.
Wayne offered to help me open the door.
But it was too heavy.
So I was stuck.
“I guess the universe wanted me to stay home,”
I laughed to myself and to a friend over text.
She was recovering from surgery.
I was supposed to have brought her lunch.
“It’s a good day to be on the sofa with a blanket,”
she responded.
My dogs had the same idea.
Snowball on the gray couch.
Cookie on the orange one.
I on the blue chair.
Eyes heavy.
The air cool.
I read that most springs are designed
to open and close a garage door 10,000 times.
How many times had I gone in and out?
Maybe I should have been keeping track.
This week, the phrase "we're living in the future we forecasted" caught my attention as I listened to a local National Public Radio segment on this summer's heat in Central Texas. I've been musing on the phrase all week and sharing it in conversations which took me in so many different directions until and finally brought me to this memory from a few months ago.
The phrase also got me thinking, while now is the future we forecasted, now is also the yesterday of tomorrow. In other words, now is our chance to create the next. I'm curious what the phrase and the poem evokes for you. If you'd like to drop me a line, I'd welcome that.
As always, I wish you peace, ease, and sprinkles of joy in whatever now you are in.
With love,
Jennifer