Monday in America

I stand at the beginning of the week, in the middle of the world, breathing the air we all breathe. And if your Monday looks more ambitious than mine, if it kickstarts your heart with a bell and a bull or a rabbit chase or a run, I may stare at the blur of your back while I stretch my sights toward some other reason to get out of bed, but still, when I wake my feet will land on August 1st, just like yours.

Maybe you stand outside the grocery store with a sign that says “2 kids: will work for food”. Maybe you’re in line at Starbucks, maybe packing for vacation, maybe scrolling through your phone wondering why the hell you are so stuck to this habit. Maybe you are sitting in a jail cell or grieving alone or dying in a hospital bed or a city street or a hot air balloon.

And if it is your last breath, let me take my first in your honor. Because on Mondays I have to remember that even the grasses aren’t free but sewn together at the roots and bent by the will of the wind and left to the mercy of the goats and the skies. On Mondays I have to remember that one cannot be free when others aren’t. On Mondays I have to rise to join you where we all live, or go back to sleep, soundly, curled up in a trump at the bottom of humanity. Because without the rest, Monday’s stay forever the morning you avoid; beheaded, dreaded, cleaved from the wisdom of what we welcome in.

Rise, now. Even though Monday has you in its clutches it’s held by all the others that come before and after and always. Live, now. Even though August begins for all of us, it ends too soon for too many. Wake, now. This is the only real way to be free.