Anticipation Contemplation

"The days are just thick with anticipation."

Or at least I wish they were because then I might be living in the pages of some exciting novel. That sounds like fun right about now as I sit here on a hot July afternoon not doing much of anything. I don't think I've ever had days thick with anticipation. I can remember some days thick with dread. I don't remember what the dread was about but I definitely remember the feeling. My memory sure can be foggy at times. I was talking with a friend last weekend about days long gone by and neither of us had any clue about the order of a small sequence of events. Memory is a tricky thing. It can come and go.

I imagine if I did have days thick with anticipation they were in my youth and I have now forgotten them. Youth is when everything is new and exciting and you don't even know it because you're in the middle of it and new and exciting is the way things always have been. The norm. I wonder what age that feeling of new and exciting, that you don't even know you have, wears off. Maybe days of anticipation are not to be found after age twenty eight or so. Or maybe I just don't have them right now.

I don't even like drama in life. I'm not one of those people who has to create a crisis all the time to feel alive. Crisis is something you deal with as quickly as possible and then move on. If you can. Peace and quiet is fine with me. As long as boredom doesn't rear its ugly head. For some people peace and quiet goes had in hand with boredom. But it has been my observation that people who find peace and quiet boring don't like to think. Thinking is something I enjoy. And it takes a fair bit of peace and quiet. Boredom is when you can't think straight anymore and there is nothing to distract you from that fact. At least in my world.

I'm not even sure if I know what days thick with anticipation means. I remember a feeling of anticipation before going on a trip. There was some excitement but it came and went in the week leading up to departure. I don't remember and days being thick before a trip.

Somehow in my imagination when I think of days thick with anticipation I picture sitting on a front porch on a hot and humid day sipping on a cool drink. There are other people on the porch with me. I think that is key. You can only anticipate so much when you are by yourself but others multiply the anticipation. Somehow this all takes place in the south. I'm not sure why. Maybe that's because it's where the humidity and front porches are. Sure we got some of those up here in NY but for a shorter time. No days are thick with anticipation when there is snow on the ground. It's too cold to anticipate anything except an oncoming storm.

Maybe I need a "High Noon" situation. That movie was thick with anticipation. Y'know, Frank Miller comin' in on the noon train to kill Gary Cooper. Frank's boys waitin' for him at the station. No one in the town wanted to stick his neck out to help ol' Coop. They were all just waiting to see if he would get killed. Yeah, maybe that won't work for me. Not being a sheriff in a movie the whole thing would probably just fill me with dread. That I don't need.

No, I need something good to anticipate. Plus a front porch, a hot day, a cool drink, and others around me to help with the anticipation. Then the day will be thick with anticipation. Just a phrase that caught my attention and imagination this afternoon.