Albert tossed and turned, finding no sleep that night.
05.20.2021
There are nights when it is just difficult to get to sleep. It is usually a struggle to decide whether to get up and try to do something productive or to remain in bed in the hopes of drifting back to sleep for those few precious hours of rest. I have always been a morning person, so if it is 4 am or later, I tend to go ahead and get up to begin the day. If it’s earlier than that however, I am often trying to quiet my mind to gain a few more hours of sleep.
I don’t think Albert’s getting nearly his recommended amounts of sleep these days.
As evening drew near, Albert was concerned about leaving the pie unattended while he slept. He got out his tools and worked to make the refrigerator a little more secure.
05.19.2021
I can’t help but relate to Albert’s over-protectiveness here. A few weeks ago, we ordered a rooftop tent for our car as an experiment in our family camping adventures. Because of the size and weight of the tent, it was delivered to our house by a freight company. The gentleman who delivered it was kind enough to wheel it by dolly to the back of our house, where I worked awkwardly later to walk it up onto our back porch. It was a day or so before a friend of mine was able to give me a hand to put it onto the car. Thankful that it was at the house but nervous that it was sitting in the open on my back porch, I checked on it through the window every time I passed by, just to make sure that it was still there. As we went out of town for an evening that weekend, I arranged a random collection of objects around the tent as a protective distraction. It must have worked, because the tent was still there when we got home, and I’m happy to say it is now bolted securely to the top of our car...where I still frequently check on it each time I pass the window.
The next morning, Albert got ready to go to work, but he could not bring himself to leave. He decided to stay home. Throughout the morning, he made several trips to the kitchen to check on the pie.
05.18.2021
As Albert stands transfixed at the threshold of his home, I have a vivid memory of a basketball game that I played in when I was in the fifth grade. I remember being called by the coach to come into the game, and I was nervous. I walked over to the scorer’s table and knelt down, awaiting the call from the referee to come onto the floor. When I’m nervous, I often will clench my fingers and toes tight. Somehow that pressure has always helped me to settle a bit. I remember walking onto the basketball court that day with my toes curled up inside my shoes.
Albert’s hand trembled as he opened the refrigerator door and he let out a sigh of relief as he saw the light green of the pie filling with the soft white of the cream atop.
05.17.2021
Albert’s reassurance at the familiar sight of the pie reminds me of driving back towards my hometown as a kid, after trips to neighboring towns or places in the countryside. The town I grew up in sat next to an interstate and was notably located at mile marker 100. I remember feeling like time in the car stretched on forever, and I often practiced my subtraction skills to keep track of how far we had to go. As I first saw the signs for Exit 100, the water tower and the familiar clusters of restaurant signs, I knew that I was almost home.
At midday, Albert closed the shop and walked home.
05.14.2021
Here comes Albert, packing in the work day and giving in to his desire to get back to his pie. Being a Friday, I am especially sympathetic to this move on his part. Many times the middle of the day on a Friday would have been enlivened with a surprise halt to work and an early return home. I can’t say Albert’s preoccupation with the pie feels like a healthy reason for closing the shop early, but more concerning things have happened...just as long as he doesn’t take it too far.