Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
January, the first day of 2012

Operation Sloth ended today.
Bobby’s Time Out is over.
Here’s the final report.

ONWARD!

“So . . . just suppose . . . just suppose that . . . for whatever reason . . . you would have to eat me . . . where would you start?”

Silence . . .

My literal-minded wife looked up from her oatmeal – raised her eyebrows –
and gave me her steadiest, full-alert gaze . . .

Silence . . .

“I had a daydream about cannibalism yesterday. . . and there are lots of circumstances under which people eat other people . . . starvation, occult rituals, pathological perversions . . . lots of reasons . . . but just assume you had a compelling reason . . . just assume . . . and I was the only meat available . . . what part of me would you find most palatable?”

Silence . . .

Without the least hint of a smile, she looked me in the eye and asked,
“Raw or cooked?”

Silence . . .

I focused on my oatmeal, thinking: Raw . . . or cooked?  My sweet wife, the recovering vegetarian? She already has a plan . . . would I be. . . Fulghum tartar . . . or would she wait until I was dead to carve me up for the stewpot?

Silence . . .
One difference between night dreaming and day dreaming is that the latter has witnesses. You are on display if you are lying around during the day.
My wife noticed I was reading Man Corn, a scientific report on the incidence of violence and cannibalism among the ancient Anasazi Indians.
Not just reading, but napping-and-reading-and-napping-and-reading.
She must have seen trouble coming, and was ready for it.

“Well,” said I, stumbling on down the dark alley, “Here’s some factoids:
Seems that the peaceful, placid, nice old Indians ate people – sometimes.
The scientific name for cannibalism is anthropophagy.
And it exists in all cultures across time.
Cannibalism is not illegal in the United States.
Human flesh tastes a lot like veal – but it’s all in the sauce.
The extreme form is called autoscarphagy – eating yourself.
It’s been done . . . starting with the fingers . . .”

She looked up from her oatmeal again.
“That’s enough,” she said. “Go take another nap.”

Silence.

She didn’t say it, but she looked forward to a return to the somewhat-normal and somewhat-predictable pattern of life.
As, actually, did I.

_______________________________

It is not true that the idle mind is the devil’s workshop.
My mother said that to me when I was hanging around doing nothing.
But it’s not true.
The idle mind is a workshop – wherein much is always happening.
Period.

And doing nothing much for a week of Operation Sloth proved difficult.
Consciously trying to liberate my brain from multi-tasking daily busyness took more effort than I had imagined – it was work.
Thoughts of next week and next year and what’s next always pushed in.
“No, not that - not today,” had to be repeated like a religious mantra.

Rest led to restlessness.
Sleep led to sleeplessness.
Self-indulgence led to self-criticism.
And instead of lolling about in a stupor of sweet nothingness, I was soon anxiously waiting for my self-imposed Time Out to become Time In.

Self-improvement and self-control have limits and can be overdone, I guess.
And I did. A few days might have been sufficient.

But there were some absorbing episodes.
For example, I had never thought much about cannibalism, but I did.
Glad that’s over.
But thinking about the unthinkable was an accomplishment.

Once I spent an afternoon trying to think of all the places I’ve lived.
There were some odd gaps I couldn’t account for – Where was I?

For awhile I thought of all the people who once were important to me – teachers, students, family, friends – especially those who I know are dead now – but not really, because they are still alive in my head just as they were the last time I saw them.
I am a keeper of their image.
And then it occurred to me that I am just as alive in other people’s heads in the form of memories of the last time they saw me.
Somewhere, in somebody’s mind, I am still a young teacher, a youthful boyfriend, a tanked-up laughing fool, a loving parent . . . and on and on.
How I wish I could see the pictures and the videos.

There was an almost-asleep-before-a-mid-morning nap review of my Life List – of those things crossed off into never-going-to-happen. Like playing trombone in a marching band, in the front line, at the Rose Bowl Parade.
Too late . . .

I could go on for pages – despite the effort it took, my Time Out was instructive and provocative.

In sum, it’s enough to say this:

It’s not true that your life passes before you just before you die.
There’s not much evidence of that.
It passes before you if you let your mind loose to wander.
And are willing to watch the re-runs.

I do not believe those who say, “No regrets.”
One cannot live without having failed or done some damage.
I do not trust those who say, “No hopes,” either.
One cannot live without believing one could do better . . . and will.

If that was not the case, we would not be doing what we do now.
We clean up the mess, pick up the pieces, put the holidays away, open the January calendar, pick up the tools that give shape and function to life and get on with it.

Time in.

Onward!