Un-Begun

Apparently it's half past April. I'm not sure how that happened. I mean, I understand the rudimentary mechanics of the earth turning and moving from day-to-night-to-day and onward through the seasons. I get that, at least at a level that would allow me to follow along on a wall calendar.

But what I don't get is how my calendar pages got flipped to April and nearly to May while so many things from last month's list (and if we're being honest, last year's list) still lie unfinished, uncrossed off, and, some, even un-begun.

As I contemplate the weight of un-completed to do lists, I realize that even the lists themselves aren't complete. Meaning they aren't even completely written.

And, rocked by that realization, I have to duck to avoid being hit square in the chest by a wave of panic that brushes my cheek as it rushes by, saturating my low places and eroding the foundations of my confidence.

On the other hand, un-begun has a nice, meaningful, almost magical sound to it. As if by acknowledging the epic-incompleteness of something, we somehow gain power over the tasks and hopes and dreams that remain in the wish-space, un-begun.

Un-begun is too important to lie lost in the middle of some paragraph, weighed down by page upon page of heavy prose. It deserves to be brought to the uncrowded light of a song or a poem, where, standing on its own, it becomes more magical and important. And that would be a beginning for un-begun.

But it would also be the end-of-the-beginning-of-the end. Because like modesty is lost the moment it's acknowledged, un-begun gets un-done the moment its begun, and, adding more 'un' becomes un-un-begun.

(c) Jeanene Vesper 2010