Author and Columnist Shelly Reuben

I am a firm believer in reality. I don’t remember when or where I first heard the words “Reality exists,” but I’ve always found them soothing. Also, the Ayn Rand quote “A is A,” as well as a phrase fellow sleuths regularly opined during the years when I was investigating fires: “It is what it is.”

The bottom line being that we shouldn’t consult tarot cards or tea leaves about our course of action on any given day, week, or year; we should simply do what life requires of us.

Want clean teeth? Use a tooth brush. Want a garden filled with voluptuous flowers? Water and feed your blooms. What to be thin? Eat less. Want to be strong? Exercise. Want to buy a house? Work three jobs and save money. Want to be an artist? Learn your craft. Want to be a writer? Ditto.

Reality requires this discipline if we want to succeed – in our souls. In our brains. In our bankbooks. In our lives – with a happy heart.

But … but there are days when all bets are off. When you get up, say to yourself, “I should write that next paragraph, pay that next bill, and research a new air conditioning system,” but instead, you roll over in bed, jam your pillow over your head, and go back to sleep.

And once you finally do get up, you shower, dress, walk over to your computer, turn it on, and for the next two hours, you stare out the window at … nothing really. Just blue sky. White clouds, and a leafy abundance of crepe myrtle trees surrounding your backyard.

Propelled by you-know-not-what, you eventually amble over to your desk, skim over what you accomplished yesterday, and flip through a few pages. Your attention flags. Your eyes wander. They alight upon a late blooming rose bush outside your front door. You start to recite to yourself:

‘Tis the last rose of summer

Left blooming alone;

All her lovely companions

Are faded and gone;

No flower…

You want to finish the rest of the poem, but those are the only verses you remember. So you drift outside. There is a very comfortable wicker chair positioned on a concrete slab overlooking your garden. You fall wearily into it. As exhausted as if you’d just attempted to climb a flagpole instead of walk across a room. You arrange a pillow behind your back and stare at your roses.

Later that afternoon, it takes you half-an-hour to drink a glass of lemonade and 90 minutes to open the envelopes from that day’s mail (you never get around to reading what’s inside). You forget to check the messages on your answering machine, to unload the dryer from yesterday’s laundry, and to check the dehumidifier in the basement to see if the water bucket is overflowing.

You are, in effect (and just for the day), taking a step away from reality. Not for any grandiose purpose, either. You aren’t contemplating a new amendment to the Constitution. You aren’t devising a more efficient way to put out forest fires. You aren’t pondering the incomprehensibility of the International Date Line or the dubious practicality of Daylight Savings Time.

Simply, after weeks, months, years, and decades of self-discipline, when you got up that morning, you were … tired.

You are taking a day off.

And the wonderous thing about reality is that IT DOESN’T CARE.

If you ignore the work on your desk … no big deal. That next paragraph can be written tomorrow. If leave your clothes another day in the dryer, they may be a little more wrinkled, but ... so what? That’s why irons were invented. Your flowers can wait to be watered, and you don’t really have to open all of those envelopes NOW. One day of neglect doth not a Late Payment Fee make.

So, give it a rest.

Stare out the window at nothing, as if it is as remarkable as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Put cookie dough on a baking sheet and forget to turn on the oven. Fill the bathroom sink with soap suds and forget to wash your face.

Hell. It’s just one day a year or (depending upon your personal proclivities) one day a decade. Heed Oscar Wilde’s irreverent words that “It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind.”

And then … you have my blessings.

Go back to bed.

Copyright © Shelly Reuben, 2025. Shelly Reuben’s books have been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more about her writing, visit www.shellyreuben.com