Tuesday

Tuesday is a funny kind of day. I mean, it’s a kind of nondescript day. What sort of significant thing really happens on a Tuesday? It seems to get lost in the other days of the week, and doesn’t receive much attention, except for maybe Pancake Tuesday. Even posts on social media seem to float into the ether on a Tuesday.

In the wake of American Thanksgiving last Thursday, Friday held an equal level of ‘importance’, at least in some people’s minds. It has been given the curious and disconcerting title of ‘Black Friday’. Apparently the term originated with a financial crash on the stock market on this very day in 1869. Ironically, it applies to crazy and reckless spending in 2019, exactly 150 years later.

Then there was Saturday and Sunday - days that imply ‘weekend and freedom!’

Following that, Cyber Monday where the ‘sales’ just continue.

And today is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. I’ve heard from some that it has been labelled ‘Giving Tuesday’.

Tomorrow is Wednesday— ‘Taking Back Wednesday’?

‘Total Self-Indulgence Thursday’?

Interesting this relentless need to label and give significance to the passing days. Is it an excuse for something? For the shops to sell, for the buyers to buy…. for us to appease ourselves?

It’s intriguing how we have this endless craving to fill the gaps. It speaks of a longing for satisfaction of a kind. Or of a general dissatisfaction.

Is being thankful not enough to carry us through the weekend and into the gap between turkey and Saturday?

So today. Tuesday.

It did feel a little vacant at first, and I felt as though I was plodding along with my work. But then I thought I’d make something of it and went out for my usual walk. The day was cool, but calm, and I had the pleasure of finding a few pieces of flotsam and jetsam on the beach, along with limpid shells which I’ve been collecting lately, especially the ones with holes in them.

What I’m going to do with them, I’m not sure yet, but I did paint a few of them gold, which was fun.

Nothing remarkable really happened. But I set myself to the task of paying attention, of noticing.

Soon I was seeing things everywhere, even on the windswept beach that I have walked so many times.

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However, on Thanksgiving (Thursday) I spent far too much time online and switched off thankfully.

On Black Friday I scared a bunch of ducks on the water that flew crazily into the sky.

On Saturday I saw a seal pup.

On Sunday I took a day off.

On Cyber Monday a calf was born.

On Tuesday, I found flotsam and jetsam.

Tomorrow, we'll see.

Let the wonder continue.

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"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder." - G.K. Chesterton