THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE ICEBOX
Every now and then, six a.m. announces itself as A Beer For Breakfast Morning. It happened today. It’s not that something grievous kept me up all night. I could live with that. It’s not that the news suddenly knocked me sideways, I get knocked sideways by the news every morning.
It’s a rare moment because it’s almost the only choice I have to make. I know what I want and what I don’t, what I’m comfortable doing and what I’m not. Those choices have been evolving over the past 84 years and are now solid ground. But drink a beer, or don’t drink a beer is still a decision. Especially for breakfast.
I’m not a teetotaler, but I don’t drink the way I used to. I didn’t decide to stop, but one day I just stopped. Had I thought about it, facing the way I was imbibing, it might have frightened me into drinking more. Luckily I quit behind my own back. If I am invited out for dinner, and get a ride, I will have a Manhattan. Sometimes two. But I have no hard liquor at home and promised myself never to buy another bottle of Amaro. I keep a couple of beers around, just in case. There’s an ice cold Rochefort 10 on the top shelf of the icebox. But just in case of what?
I will explain icebox briefly. Icebox is a hangover from Baltimore where I was a kid. Once a week the iceman came, which was always exciting. He knocked on our door, holding tongs that contained an enormous block of ice destined for the cabinet where we kept food cold. The structure was made of metal, it had shelves. A separate compartment on the top is where the ice went. Obviously, it was called an icebox, and the name has stuck with me for almost eighty years. Refrigerator is too long, and I won’t use its nickname “fridge.” There are cokes in my icebox. And one beer.
Back to the subject at hand. I usually wake up once in the middle of the night. I get up and I draw something or write something and find out why I’ve been given this precious gift of timelessness and energy. Not last night. I sat in my chair to wait more than once. Lots of color in a box, a pad of drawing paper, but no shapes showed up, and the only words at my disposal were cuss words aimed at the present administration. I waited for the why, but there was no why. I can deal with too much everything, but am laid bare by nothing at all.
I don’t know why anything right now.
I open the icebox.
Cheers, you guys. Happy Days. Slainte.
I can deal with too much everything, but am laid bare by nothing at all." What a line, worthy of Samuel Becket himself. But of course he had no sense of humor, and you do! Bravo! Thanks for brightening a very rainy Sunday morning!
The best part of the photograph of the ice box is its crumpled top surface. Unrepentant about a usefulness too constant and necessary to interrupt with shallow concerns about appearance. Like old ladies with essential energies and purpose ( looking a bit worn) preserving useful content for the nourishment of those heeding and needing such. Rock on, Abby.