Work Day

BC... before children, I was not known to be functional until 10:00 am. I was a nighttime guy. Working clubs at night and allowing for a few hours of decompression after the performance meant that my normal work day ended about three in the morning.  In fact there was a business rule at my house that no one should call before 10:00 if they expected to talk to me about anything of substance. That rule changed at the birth of our first son. He was too young to understand.  In fact when I started taking him to school I was shocked and amazed at how many people were up and about their day by 8:00am. 

I woke up very early this morning and immediately went to see if the daily paper had arrived.  There was no hint the sun might show up and perhaps it was too early even for paper boys.  But there it was, the Los Angeles Times  neatly wrapped in a plastic bag on my drive way. It was 4:30 am.

In the stillness of the morning I thought to myself, "How early did the paper boy get up to have my paper here for me at this hour?" 

I some how connected with this unseen messenger in my mind and realized, he or she adjusted their day to their job just as I had adjusted my nights to my job. As I write it now is does not seem so insightful but in that moment I realized how life in 2013 is not a matter fitting our work into daylight hours. The sun no longer dictates when we can work.

It's one of the things that excites me most about New York City. It is a 24 hour town. As Frank Sintara sings in the iconic anthem New York, New York... "I want to wake up in the city that doesn't sleep."At any time of day you can be on the streets and see hundreds of people going about their jobs and their lives. 

No one has ever come up to me and said, "Thank you for adjusting your day so you would be ready to entertain us tonight." That is just part of the job.  So perhaps my paper boy is not expecting me to say "Thank you" for getting the paper to me at the moment I wake up... even if I wake up way earlier than usual, that is just part of his job.

Perhaps it is age and maturity but recently I have been aware of the jobs around me that, although invisible most of the time, make my day go so much better. There are people who work all night so that I can have a good day, I never meet them I never see them, but without them life would not be the same.

It is easy for me to believe in alternate universes when I stop to comprehend that I live in a world of alternate universes.  There is so much going that I am totally unaware of here on earth, how could I not think there might be other worlds going on right here as well. I wouldn't be aware of those worlds either.

No point to this blog other than to say, this is an amazing place this universe, this thing we call life. A day is what you make of it, so have a good one and don't take it for granted.

As  you were,

Jay