A Few Reflections Upon My Recent Activities, Some Of Which May Provide Insight Into My Schizophrenia
Vegetables are very still. They hardly ever move. You plant them, they stay right there, and then a few months later, you go pick them.
Fish are different. They’re always moving. You have to go look for them, and you don’t always find them. Most travel more than I do. They go from the Bahamas to Gloucester and back. Some go to different oceans in different parts of the world. Always moving. As for sharks, if they don’t move, they die.
Being a purveyor of both of the above mentioned products, I find my mind must change speeds, sometimes several times a day. When vegetable production was my sole act of employment, I loaded the truck, brought the veggies to market, and stood there while people bought them. All was peaceful and still. Being a fishmonger I find myself on the go. I’m partnered up with someone who drives all the way across the state and back. He deals with people who have boats that go way out in the ocean. Like, where it’s over your head. I need to roundevouz with him once or twice a week, which means, of course, both of us being in the same place at the same time. I bring some of the fish to different markets. This is usually late on a Wednesday evening. I go to one place, double park or try to get the truck up onto the sidewalk, rush in with a heavy cooler full of fish, and rush out. On to the next restaurant, where it’s the same thing. Rush past the kitchen staff and make room in the walk-in. Rush out to the truck, argue with the meter maid, and keep going.
This constant changing of pace wears on me a bit. It confuses me. I think I was meant to rush around frantically all the time, or stay still all the time, but not do both. The challenge I face, I suppose, is learning how to do both at the same time, but it seems daunting.
I often wish I was a fish, swimming around with nothing but the scales on my back and an attitude. I could go where-ever I wanted, then go to sleep in a coral reef or an old shipwreck or something. I could swim over to the Azores, or go around the Horn, and talk to exotic fish from all over the world.
Other times I wish I was a vegetable. I’d keep my roots firmly in the soil and get to know the vegetables around me and we’d all grow together. We’d drop our little leaves down and feed the soil around us and raise up little baby vegetables.
It may be these two different poles constantly tugging at me that has brought me to my present occupations. But then again, it might not have.
Perhaps I should just remain what I am and be content with that. Whatever I may wish to become, I’d end up in somebody’s skillet, anyway.
Fish are different. They’re always moving. You have to go look for them, and you don’t always find them. Most travel more than I do. They go from the Bahamas to Gloucester and back. Some go to different oceans in different parts of the world. Always moving. As for sharks, if they don’t move, they die.
Being a purveyor of both of the above mentioned products, I find my mind must change speeds, sometimes several times a day. When vegetable production was my sole act of employment, I loaded the truck, brought the veggies to market, and stood there while people bought them. All was peaceful and still. Being a fishmonger I find myself on the go. I’m partnered up with someone who drives all the way across the state and back. He deals with people who have boats that go way out in the ocean. Like, where it’s over your head. I need to roundevouz with him once or twice a week, which means, of course, both of us being in the same place at the same time. I bring some of the fish to different markets. This is usually late on a Wednesday evening. I go to one place, double park or try to get the truck up onto the sidewalk, rush in with a heavy cooler full of fish, and rush out. On to the next restaurant, where it’s the same thing. Rush past the kitchen staff and make room in the walk-in. Rush out to the truck, argue with the meter maid, and keep going.
This constant changing of pace wears on me a bit. It confuses me. I think I was meant to rush around frantically all the time, or stay still all the time, but not do both. The challenge I face, I suppose, is learning how to do both at the same time, but it seems daunting.
I often wish I was a fish, swimming around with nothing but the scales on my back and an attitude. I could go where-ever I wanted, then go to sleep in a coral reef or an old shipwreck or something. I could swim over to the Azores, or go around the Horn, and talk to exotic fish from all over the world.
Other times I wish I was a vegetable. I’d keep my roots firmly in the soil and get to know the vegetables around me and we’d all grow together. We’d drop our little leaves down and feed the soil around us and raise up little baby vegetables.
It may be these two different poles constantly tugging at me that has brought me to my present occupations. But then again, it might not have.
Perhaps I should just remain what I am and be content with that. Whatever I may wish to become, I’d end up in somebody’s skillet, anyway.
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