I awaken to a request for reference from the city of Raytown on a woman whom I know professionally and greatly admire.  At the computer keyboard, I struggle to fit my answers into their little boxes which my eyes cannot actually see.  I have not yet shaken sleep or stretched but I feel a sense of urgency.  I know this woman’s situation; her agency lost a major contract and what colleagues have not abandoned the ship will soon drown.  I give her the high marks and heavy praise that she deserves and then begin the rest of my day.

I have not excelled as a self-employed person.  But my mornings belong to me if I need them.  I can schedule coffee, tarry at home, or do a load of laundry.  Unless I have court, I usually set my first appointment no earlier than ten.  Trade-offs have plagued me.  I get no paycheck and weeks, sometimes agonizing months, can pass with barely enough revenue to survive.  But I cannot complain.  No one will ask me to clean my desk and take myself off the premises.

The radio blurts a story about art fraud and another about the discovery of an old Spanish colony.  I don’t see the connection; nor do I care about either.  An earlier interview talked about the desirability of having an African-American Supreme Court nominee.  I don’t think that should be the question of the candidate named by the President and considered by the Senate.  I want a Supreme Court justice with intelligence, knowledge of Constitutional  law and precedent, and a firm dedication to equal protection.  The idea of a deadlock on the high court disturbs me.  The gridlock in Washington haunts me.  But I control neither, so I push those worries aside and turn off the radio.  I close my eyes.  I begin to stretch, to let the tension fall from my shoulders.

It’s the seventeenth day of the twenty-sixth month of My Year Without Complaining.  The world might not be sane.  But my life continues.