I come upon an empty soup can on the sidewalk. The label is tattered, but still legible. Tomato. It’s one of those pop-top deals that doesn’t require an opener—the lid’s barely hanging on to the rim.
This isn’t my can. I don’t buy this brand. It likely came tumbling down the road from someone else’s garbage when the truck’s automatic arm turned the can upside down and shook loose the contents into its cavernous bed.
I pick the can up by the edge of the lid and toss it into the now-empty bin. It clatters to the bottom.
Someone else’s garbage is the first deposit in my trash can for the week.
Figures.
I consciously will the evolving metaphor out of my head as I drag our bin up our steep drive and park it to the side of the house.
I don’t want to do trashcan retrieval, and I wonder, after this minuscule feat, if I’ll have the energy to sweep up cat hair in the utility room or start a load of laundry.
Some days, the simplest of tasks feel the most daunting. This funk waxes and wanes. Today? The funk is waxing and gathering “why bother” evidence.
What’s the point of dragging the bin up?
Future me will be grateful the can is where it needs to be the next time the kitchen trash is overflowing. So I push through.
I turn back toward the street. Perhaps this is where the funk is gathering steam.
I know what’s waiting for me in that box across the road. Envelopes with those little yellow or white strips from the post office pasted on the bottoms so they forward from Mom’s house to mine.
My mailbox holds deliveries for my father-in-law (2016), my grandmother (2018), my mother-in-law (2024), and my aunt (2024).
Now Mom.
2025.
It’s been a year. Or, rather, it’s been several years.
When something shows up in the mail for each of them on the same day, I wonder if the mailman wonders how many people live at this address.
The range of junk mail for the deceased includes Medicare supplement ads, political propaganda, and a new offer from the Psychic of the Month club.
That last one intrigues me. I’ve been tempted to give it a go and maybe get a heads up on when my funk will lift. I’ve thus far restrained.
None of these pieces of mail makes it into the house. I stand outside, directly over the garbage can, and sort it there. It can keep the neighbor’s soup can company.
Future me will be grateful that she doesn’t have to touch this not-my-mail a second time.
I take the mail addressed to me inside and slump into my office chair. I open random bills and pile them to the side. I’ll deal with those later.
My script book for a community theater play I’m in rests open next to the keyboard on a scene I can’t quite get to stick in my head. I close the book and put it with the bills. Not right now. Maybe not today at all.
A stack of manuscripts to be finished/edited/dealt with has sat on the edge of the desk for weeks. Maybe months now. I’ve lost track. I have writing pieces that I can/should put out into the world, but right now feels… funky.
So, not today.
“You’re kicking a lot of cans.” Little Miss thumbs through the various piles of paper that threaten to topple the next time a cat lights on the desk to check on my word count progress, or to inform me Tuna Feast in Gravy is late.
“I know.” The cans the 2024 version of me kicked down the road have piled up for me now. Some must be dealt with, funk or not.
“Future Beth will be overwhelmed,” she says.
“Current Beth is overwhelmed.” I pull the manuscripts onto my lap. The pile represents hope on hold and dreams delayed. A pang of sadness rises from the funk.
Little Miss settles next to me. She sometimes taps into a rare state of calm. It doesn’t last long, so I try to make the most of it.
She leans in closer. I can smell the grape bubblegum stuck in her hair. “Let the cans you kick be tomato soup. Let them be things that can truly wait. Let the kicked cans be other people’s problems. But don’t let them be your goals.”
I stare at her, eyes wide. She’s waxing philosophical.
“Your manuscripts are not cans.” She sticks her chin in the air. “We’ve worked too hard on them to let them pile up in some ‘someday’ down the road.”
“2025—”
“Has sucked. As did 2024. And who knows what fresh story fodder ‘26 will bring.”
“Fodder as opposed to chaos?”
She rises from the chair, spreading her wings and shaking out her tutu, her butt in my face. “I am the only chaos you’ll need.”
I start to say something, but she interrupts, positioning herself directly in front of my face. “Give me grief about this, and I’ll grab you like the dump truck grabs the garbage cans and shake you upside down until the funk falls out.”
So I pick up the pile of bills and pay them.
I study the lines that fight to stay in my head until they stay in my head.
Two fewer cans for Future Beth.
Little Miss Muse pulls out a bottle rocket and her amethyst bedazzled Zippo lighter. I can’t tell if this is a threat or a tease.
I mentally kick other people’s problems down the road and open the manuscript-in-progress.
She lights the fuse.
And the funk wanes when the magic begins…
