Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

Last week was trying. The day-job seriously got in the way of my life. A big project I have been building for six weeks went into production. I was up late, shepherding it through deployment, and then I was up early, converting six years of historical data. Pretty standard stuff, except that it all went in flawlessly, performed much better than expected, applied all the edits, and successfully moved everything to where it needed to be.

Then the users showed up and said, “Oh, that’s not what we wanted.” Typical example of a rookie mistake: I gave them what they asked for, not what they wanted.

So, today is a stress management day. It’s early, and the day has yet to grow warm. I’m out on the deck, sipping coffee, listening to the birds call through the trees. Moisture glistens on the leaves, and the slanting rays of morning sun give everything a pristine, contre-jour brilliance. The shadows are long, but welcoming, and even the street sounds are gentled, muffled, as if the modern world has yet to fully awaken.

Here, in my bower of leaves, I dream of distant days where this becomes my every-morning, where spiders spin their nighttime webs to catch the sunrise light, and flowers lift their sleepy, dew-spangled heads in preparation of the day.

In cool sunlight, I dream. And I am refreshed.

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