I’ve been watching a lot of movies these days.
This morning, I considered the fact that if my life were a movie, I might nod off to it.
There’s not much of a compelling plot to this flick.

Let’s say I titled my movie The Last Day. If you’re reading this on December 31, 2020, then there’s some context to the title; any other day and the title could make you wonder if there’s going to be a murder in this story or if it’s one of those end-of-the-world scenarios. Maybe it’s the re-telling of the last day on the job for this guy that’s retiring after 30 years working at a job he was ready to leave 10 years ago. What might he do?

Or if I was to disappear one day, the police may think this title could offer clues as to my whereabouts. I happen to be reading a new book called Anxious People that is a compelling, though rambling, detective mystery. It’s much more interesting than the movie I’m living. It involves a bank robbery of a cashless bank, an unintended hostage situation, and tremendous amount of backstory (interrogations, solitary people on bridges, messed up family dynamics)…some of which is informative and amusing, though some seems like filler. I’m not saying I’d prefer its plot to mine. It is, though, more of a page turner.

In my movie, most every day seems like the previous day. Dialogue would include the pivotal scene where the main character asks “Why is everyone putting out their trash today? Isn’t it Tuesday?” When in fact, we learn that it was Wednesday, trash day. Wow.

Then, there’s a scene where the main character texts his son about his day. Soon after, for no apparent reason, a poem appears in his head that he jots down quickly.

I will never know
the labor of pregnancy

the way it makes one crave
odd combinations of foods
or how it feels to have
a second heartbeat

winter in Michigan
must be similar though

almost nine months of hunkering down
moving more slowly
as its weight can be seen
its heaviness felt daily

all the reading in the world
doesn’t help one cope
as we keep layering on

at the end, however,
I don’t have anything positive
to show for my effort

He reads it to his wife who offers encouraging comments, so he saves the poem.

Much of the movie is spent watching the main character twirl his hair. He is unaccustomed to having hair to twirl and it passes the time. He wonders if his twirling comes off as a lack of confidence. He seems to be worrying about something. He isn’t. Though he is wondering when the plot will thicken.