“Never mistake the undone for the unworthy.
The desk may be cluttered.
The life is not.”
—Poor Brentford Lee (b. 1947. Altar ego—with an alter ego, too, of course. He ministers and he meddles. Life coach without credentials. Available for lectures, upbraidings, and unsolicited reminders of everything you’ve already accomplished.)
Sometimes we’re our own worst enemies. Maybe, all times. I know I am.
It doesn’t matter how much I get done, it’s always the undone that grabs hold of me in my waking hours and throws me into a tiff.
Just the other day—just as dawn was breaking—I sprang up in bed, asking myself:
“Where did it go? Where did it all go?”
Not my life, mind you. That’s still very much in progress.
I meant January and February—two months that often keep me snowed in on my mountaintop here in the Shenandoah Valley. And this year—once and for all—they were supposed to be the two perfect months to bring order to chaos. To organize my office.
Boxes. Amazon boxes, to be precise—a small mountain of them, stacked near the woodstove like a cardboard monument to every good intention I’ve ever had. Some are open. Some are not. All of them smile at me. That relentless Amazon smile, curved and cheerful and absolutely unbothered by my shame. I have begun to suspect they are multiplying when I’m not looking.
Desk and worktable. Buried. Buried under manila envelopes, unopened mail, a box of highlighters, a coffee mug that may or may not still contain coffee, and enough paper to reforest a modest hillside. The lamp burns bravely through the chaos like a lighthouse in a nor’easter.
Even the plants have opinions. Two magnificent specimens—sprawling dramatically across their ornate iron stands—have taken matters into their own fronds. One has sent a long, accusatory leaf directly toward my leather chair. As if pointing.
Pointing. Yes, pointing. The same way the ghost of my gray-haired grade school history teacher would point and declare with the wrath of an angry God:
“A cluttered desk is the devil’s workshop.”
And between Mrs. Snyder’s admonitions and my lament—”Where did it go? Where did it all go?”—Poor Brentford appeared as if in a vision rising up from nowhere in particular and everywhere at once.
“Where did it all go, you ask? Where did it all go? I’ll tell you exactly where it went. Pull up a chair if you can find one in that brain of yours, all cluttered now with nonsense.”
I thought I knew for sure where his harangue was headed. But for once he surprised. He did not stoop so low as to rap knuckles with any of the cliches from his repertoire of wisdom.
Not once did I hear,
“Time and tide wait for no one.”
Not once did I hear,
“Make hay while the sun shines.”
I didn’t even hear the one I was certain he would speak with calm certainty,
“Lost time is never found again.”
He didn’t recite any of those things.
Instead, he cleared his throat with great ceremony and delivered his first knuckle rap with the precision of a surgeon and the satisfaction of a man who has been waiting a very long time.
“Only handle it once.”
He let it hang there. Just those four words. Floating in the air above the Amazon boxes and the buried desk and the manila envelopes and the coffee mug of uncertain vintage.
“Your words. Well, Grace Reed’s words, if we’re being precise. Your Copyright Office colleague. The woman whose office was lean, mean, and sparse. The woman whose wisdom you borrowed, researched, published, celebrated, and then—apparently—left to ride around in the Jeep with the junk mail.”
He fixed me with a look that left no room for argument.
“Don’t bemoan where it all went. You know fully well. And you know exactly what to do.”
Then Poor Brentford’s voice softened. Just slightly. Just enough.
“Do you remember what you wrote on January 15th, 2024? You raised your Bunnahabhain to all the tarriers, the delayers, and the occasional shelver. You said, and I quote, ‘Here’s to the to-morrowers, the champions of It can wait until tomorrow, because sometimes tomorrow is just a delay away from today.'”
He smiled. For the first time.
“And do you remember Scarlett?
“She understood something you sometimes forget. Tomorrow is not surrender. Tomorrow is strategy.”
Poor Brentford gestured grandly at the Amazon boxes.
“Your Tara is a little more cardboard than hers. But the principle holds.”
He straightened his jacket.
“The office will get cleaned. One day. Tomorrow, perhaps. Or the day after. Or sometime before the Amazon boxes learn to walk.”
“Scarlett managed. So will you.”
But Poor Brentford wasn’t finished. He stood there, poised to deliver his final and most devastating knuckle rap. Quietly. Almost tenderly.
“Forget the cluttered office for now. I want you to remember something you wrote, something about a young professor who stopped you in a hallway and handed you an offprint with four words inscribed on the front.”
He paused.
“This is life everlasting.”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“You asked whether he was suggesting that we live on forever through what we share with others: ideas immortalized in print. You answered your own question. Here you are, nearly fifty years later, speaking his name. Professor Myerson continues to live.”
He leaned in close.
“And so will you. Through every word you have ever written. Eight books. More than a million words. Scholarship and essays that will outlast every Amazon box in that corner.”
“THAT is your life everlastin’. Now act like it.”
Just when my chair started getting uncomfortable, Poor Brentford had the nerve to tell me to shout out:
“Get behind me, Satan.”
I sprang up at once because in that command I recognized my own mother’s voice. Over and over again I had heard her rebuke the Devil whenever she faced her own pole of proverbial chaos.
Only then did I realize what Poor Brentford had done.
He had serenaded me with snippets of my own advice—counsel I had been publishing right here in this column for years.
I could hardly be offended.
I looked again at the Amazon boxes. The buried desk. The pointing plant.
They were all still there.
But the panic was gone.
The office could wait.
After all, tomorrow is strategy.
The Wired Researcher 