get out now
/In a given week, how often do you drive away from home, remember you left something on the stove or forgot your gym bag or your shopping list or the gift you’re carrying to a party, and you turn back? Your neighbors see you rush out like the Mad Hatter and return crawling like a centipede, head tucked to the ground.
Her again.
You run back for hand sanitizer or tissues or dental floss. What if you need those? What if, what if, what if? You grab a hat and gloves should the car break down on a mountain, a snack should you find yourself starving in a forest, water if you become parched in a desert, critical phone numbers or even a phone. Oh my God, the phone.
You’re determined to make a quick exit, start the day bursting forth, not apologize for being late again, not feel terrible about yourself. You scream, “I’ve got to get out of the house!”
And yet . . .
What if you never come back? What will the family think when face-to-face with your expired yogurt, wilting plants, messy desk? Will they think a real person lived there? Humiliating. You clean a little.
“I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming . . .”
Or, in those last frantic minutes when you twist a wrist, brush your teeth with Comet, break a glass—do you fret the skirt you’re wearing reveals your dimply thighs, or your tights will pinch or sag, or you’re out of painkillers should something bleed or swell far from Rite Aid?
In which case you might need Google maps. But what if the phone is dead and where is that power cord?
“I’m coming, in a second, I’m coming . . .”
To get out of the house, I take precautions. I fill my car with blankets should the temperature drop, a bathing suit should a lake come into view, a crown to greet an audience. I manage the possibilities.
Yet what if someone else is driving?
“I’m coming, I swear, I’m coming . . .”
Soon. But if I wash the dishes or throw in some laundry or straighten a bookshelf, I’ll be more relaxed later when I come home, even if I’m less relaxed now. Especially after banging into a door, and suddenly I have ice on my arm.
Still, I wonder, Shouldn’t I road test these shoes by taking out the trash?
Not wanting to feel crummy about myself—late again—I have an idea: start earlier. And a rationale: the time I waste in last-minute rummaging and racing, driving away, coming back, is the same block of time I could use on the front end to exit gracefully and stay out. What a novel idea.
Did you say start a novel?
Two thousand years ago, people seemed to be the same way when they tried to get up and going. I know this because the Roman poet Virgil said, “The hour is ripe and yonder lies the way.”
In other words: get out now.
Virgil must have been trying to convince a drunken warrior to board the carriage, jump on the horse, grab the lance or the walking stick, and forget about plucking the grapes from the vine.
Too bad. On a long, hot journey—especially in dry, dusty, ancient Rome—I bet those grapes would have tasted pretty darn good.