Welcome to The Pedestrian Pundit by me, Nicole Comeau.
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If you know me at all you know I love to write about what I think. You might also know that love to think when I walk. And you probably could guess that lately I’ve been walking and thinking more than ever because, you know, COVID.
Historically I “publish” almost exclusively on Facebook, with an occasional detour into LinkedIn and a twitch here and there. But I’m trying to get my “good” thoughts away from Zuckerberg and am going to challenge myself to put a finer point on my streams of consciousness, if that’s even possible…which brings me here, to Substack…and The Pedestrian Pundit. Pedestrian because I think when I walk, thus I’m literally a pedestrian…and also because my life is fairly pedestrian, as it might be judged by some of the flashier types, in that I live a fairly standard middling existence relative to all the standard standards. And “pundit” kind of goes without saying, but I’ll be clear that I do plan to give my opinions in an authoritative manner…and I like the alliteration. Pedestrian Pundit. So there you have it.
For now, anyway, if I post something on a Monday I’m gonna call it Monday Maiku and the construct is gonna be me expressing whatever’s rattling around upstairs in the form of an elementary but original haiku, adhering to the rigid 5-7-5 guidelines I learned in grade school. Like this one, that sums up how I’ve been feeling lately.
Frozen still in time.
Time flies, uninterrupted,
Spinning fast. Yet still.
You feel me? Do you read those words and feel stuck yet frenzied in the same moment?
Here’s where the words came from:
I left the office one Friday in March, prepped for a business trip Sunday-Friday and while I was in Buellton, CA the health of world was going to hell in a hand basket. In 7.5 months I’ve been to the office twice—once at the very beginning to grab my mouse, keyboard, docking station, and notebook (the office was closed but not yet hermetically sealed) and again a few weeks ago for a flu shot (and to grab a folder because I was there). Calendars stuck in March. Dark. Quiet. Kind of like that scene in The Handmaid’s Tale when June is holed up in the abandoned Boston Globe newsroom waiting for a rescue that (spoiler alert) doesn’t come. So yes. Frozen. In time. Some days it’s like trudging through hardening cement. Moving, sometimes, but going nowhere.
But time doesn’t care about me or my pace. It doesn’t care if the office is open or closed. Whether I can have a party or not, indoors or out. Whether I do or don’t wear a mask, or whether, if I do wear one (and I do) I’m tired of wearing one (not really; I don’t want to unintentionally kill someone, yo). 7.5 months of nothing, gone by in a blink.
Spinning fast, because that’s how it works. The world spins and the days pass. Time marches on, completely oblivious to the fact that a pandemic has pushed the pause button of life. Time marches over us if we let it. How do we simultaneously embrace the stillness, tolerate the nothingness, and enjoy the passing seconds? It’s like the universe is playing tricks on us…I can’t quite figure out the rules of the game, but I am sure that I don’t want to lose.
You feel me now? Do you read these words differently now that you know where they come from?
Frozen still in time.
Time flies, uninterrupted,
Spinning fast. Yet still.
I don’t have a set publishing schedule quite yet…and while I’m on the subject of such, let me say that “cadence” is one of those business words that I absolutely loathe. How often? Frequency? Schedule? Lots of other ways to say it without playing Buzzword Bingo or risking misuse. But I digress. I’m going to eventually publish on the regular, but it may not be at regularly scheduled intervals. I’m new here, and I’ll figure it out. That said, since this is an email subscription, every time I write something, you’ll get it in email, so that takes pressure off of both of us. If you’ve gotten this far, I hope you’re motivated enough to sign up…and I really hope you might be motivated enough to encourage a friend or two to have a read, and to also sign up.
In the meantime, tell your friends!