random thoughts – Day 2,113 (Monday) – fate or free will

Icy or just wet? 

It was raining when I went to bed Sunday night. The pinging and splatting sounds on the bathroom skylight tipped me off. This morning, the sky was dull and the asphalt street and driveway were dark and glossy and it wasn’t possible to tell if it was icy or just wet. Or wet on top of icy. I played it safe and stayed inside, venturing only to the dry back door landing to deposit the bag of trash into the bin.

Monday is trash day, but with just one bag of trash and the recycle bin nearly empty, it didn’t seem worth the effort to roll either one down the potentially slick driveway to the curb. Since my starring role in the Ice Capades last February when I fell on wet ice at my house and broke a wrist, I’m a lot more cautious. Half of the surgery scar is still an unappealing red and looks a skinny worm and I’m not interested in acquiring any more similar body art. It was the safety of the couch with a book for me, which was the basic plan for the day anyway, even before the rain and maybe ice arrived.

The past couple days of reading on the couch have felt like a staycation, and not the kind where I convinced myself to paint walls or do other manual labor. It’s been great. Relaxing. Rejuvenating. Guilt-free, especially where it’s the closest thing to a vacation in all of the miserable year of 2025 and after the pricey dental work of December, it might be the story for 2026 as well.

In high school, most of my reading choices were dictated by whatever arrived in the mail for Mom's Book of the Month Club membership and school work, which usually included an exam with essay questions, my favorite (ha!) being, “Was it fate or free will?” (… that those particular people were on that particular bridge that collapsed, or that Romeo and Juliette didn’t quite make it, or some other thing from some other book). The reading choices seemed dictated by fate, or at least the higher power of the book club editors and my teachers, but I never had a strong opinion either way on whether events were dictated by fate or free will in the actual stories and would argue both sides. Maybe I was/am fated to have commitment issues.

Roasted.

The bones of the story of my today are, it was raining and I stayed home. This is verifiable fact, no symbolism or hand of fate involved unless we are disregarding weather and science. I roasted veggies in the oven. It was near lunch time, and there were broccoli, carrots and onions in the house. Let’s go with free will on that, too. Later in the day I exercised free will when I chose to walk next door to get the turkey carcass from Mom’s house to start a soup. I also chose to sit on the couch and read most of the day. 

There was a lot of free will being exercised today. I can’t see that there was some higher power / hand of fate arranging elements in place. The weather was just weather, not a literary symbol of a major change for a main character. There is no symbolism in the vegetables, it’s just what I bought the other day because I like them. At least, I’m choosing to think that. Of my own free will. Or is it possible this entire day was pre-destined by fate? Great, now I have something to think about all night.