Geography of a Coaster Ring

The coffee in my mug had gone cold. The condensation had left a ring on the coaster, an imperfect, irregular, small map of nowhere. I studied it with the seriousness a man usually reserves for tax forms or jury duty notices.

It struck me that most of life is like staring at little rings like it, and pretending they amount to anything. I had sat down at the kitchen table at seven sharp with every intention of improving myself.

A yellow legal pad lay before me. At the top, I had written two noble words, “Today’s Plan,” and that was as far as my enterprise advanced.

By eight-thirty, I had drifted into a philosophical consideration of squirrels. By nine, I was examining the crack in the ceiling over the stove and wondering whether it had grown or whether I had merely become more observant from disappointment.

The coffee grew cold during these proceedings, the way my ambition does.

Outside the window, the world continued its noisy insistence upon existing. A garbage truck groaned down the road, sounding like civilization digesting itself.

Somewhere, a dog barked at invisible enemies. Across the street, my neighbor was attempting to repair his fence with what appeared to be optimism and profanity alone.

He believes he can fix anything if he uses enough clamps. It is a common religion among men, and entire hardware stores survive upon it.

I watched him hammer the same board six times before discovering he was striking the wrong end of the nail. He stared at it afterward with deep suspicion, as though the nail had betrayed him personally.

That was when I noticed the ring on the coaster again. The ring looked temporary and permanent, all at once. I wiped it away, and it vanished.

I touched the mug, and it was cold enough to discourage all hope. Still, I drank it.

Meanwhile, there are two kinds of people in this world: those who throw away cold coffee and those who drink it because making another pot feels like surrender. The taste was bitter and stale, which reminded me of election years.

I belong firmly to the second camp. Not a pioneer exactly, but I am durable. I looked again at the legal pad.

I re-read: “Today’s Plan,” then, underneath it, I added two more words: “Tomorrow instead.”

It felt wiser. More realistic.

The older I get, the more I distrust energetic declarations made before breakfast. History proves that men who announce grand plans at sunrise usually spend the afternoon causing trouble for everybody else.

The sunlight shifted across the table. The neighbor finally repaired the fence, though it leans at an angle suggesting moral uncertainty. The dog also stopped barking, and the garbage truck disappeared into the distance, carrying away evidence of ordinary living.

I wiped the ring from the coaster with my thumb. It vanished instantly, as if it had never existed at all.

That is the unsettling thing about small moments. While they are happening, they seem worthless.

Later, you discover they are most of your life.