So, the other day I stepped onto my porch to find a crackhead mouse chasing itself. Literally. A NASCAR mouse. Just running around and around in a circle unimpressed by my presence.

I call the kids.

“Oh my god. What’s wrong with it, dad?”

“I think it’s on drugs.”

“Are you serious?”

“Very.”

No one laughed and my 4G kids lost interest and retreated back to the dreamscape of their square screens.

So I stood there, alone, just watching this mouse chase itself thinking about my next move.

How was I going to get this crackhead mouse off my porch?

I stomped my foot. I bounced a basketball. Nothing.

I clapped my hands. Barked like a dog. Howled like a wolf. Nothing.

Around and around raced this NASCAR mouse–never changing its course no matter the noise I created.

I walked to the garage, grabbed a snow shovel, walked back to the porch, and loomed over the mouse. I didn’t know what else to do. My hands choked the snow shovel handle, my muscles tightened, and…

Doesn’t everyday feel the same now?

The coronavirus has whitewashed our calendars. The days and events that mark transitions, new beginnings–rites, rituals, and ceremonies have been all but canceled.

I’m writing this on Memorial Weekend– the unofficial start of summer. Always a charcoal-scented weekend of patriotism and a gleeful anticipation of future summer days. That soon there will be a break in our daily pattern.

Maybe it’s me–but those feelings are hard to find right now.

This weekend marks a chronological process. Winter has passed. Spring is fading. Ready or not–summer is coming. Memorial Day has been circled on our calendar for months. Baseball games. Swimming pools. Beaches. Warm evenings. Fireworks. Fireflies. Cookouts and campfires.

And yet I feel like this crackhead mouse on my porch chasing it’s tail. Lost in a circle. Spinning but never progressing. An unchanging pattern — such is life right now.

… I scooped up the mouse in the snow shovel and the crackhead mouse ran crackhead circles in the scoop of the shovel as I walked to the woods behind my house. As if the shovel was a spatula and I was flipping hamburgers, I flicked my wrist and the mouse popped off the shovel, landed on it’s feet, and without a dash of thought–continued running in a circle. A never-ending pattern. Around and around and around. Moving yet getting nowhere.

Oh, little mouse–if you only knew.

Such is the story of mice and men.

Be well,

Jay

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Have you been to Home Depot or Lowe’s Lately?

Make no mistake– we are born to create: children (a different type of creating but still creating) and birdhouses and tree houses and cinder block firepits and afghans and needlepoint and paintings and poems and photographs of sunsets and memories and finger turkeys for Thanksgiving and a new fireplace hearth for Christmas Eve and a dry meatloaf for dinner tonight that no one will like.

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Need some encouragement? Some perspective? This hardworking, almost-handsome, suburban soccer dad can help. Subscribe and, like a pizza, get my posts delivered to your door (your email inbox). No spam. Just posts.