Someday
Someday. adv. 1. An unspecified time, esp. that future when all the dreary details of this day have vanished—no quarrels over his drinking, no credit card blues, no squeal in the rear axle. As in: At last, her father will hold her close and weep for his blindness. As in: out in the driveway, a shiny new car. On the soundtrack: Beethoven’s Fifth. 2. Occasionally refers to a day of reckoning. As in: Someday he’ll get what’s coming to him: black eye, eviction, a slow leak in a heart valve. 3. More often, a reference to that future moment of fulfillment when all the children will return and sit at the table. What a wonderful childhood, they will say. And no one will mention the belt or the shouting. 3a. Because someday is an adverb associated with amnesia. 3b. Because today’s misery is yesterday’s warmed up and salted with tears. Philosophical corollary. In an obscure paper, Kant observes that someday can never arrive. Arrival is reserved for other things. Tomorrow arrives and a stage 4 diagnosis and the news that the polar caps are melting faster than expected. Old age arrives, but not someday though we insist we can see it just beyond the orchard, over the bridge. And all the while—these birds fill our skies, carrying the past in their talons like a charred branch.
Gail C. DiMaggio watched her husband play jazz in a world where no artist ever gives up a day gig. She has refused to become discouraged. Her work has appeared recently in Slipstream, Salamander, White Stag, Blue Lyra Review, Adanna’s Woman and Art Anthology, Antiphon, and Allegro.
1 Comment