By Scott Graber
It is Wednesday, and it’s overcast. This morning I’m sitting on our recently renovated deck drinking my second cup of Starbuck’s Breakfast Blend trying to figure out what I’m going to do with my day.
In times past the day’s agenda would be dictated by appointments and deadlines that were written down in an 8-inch-by-11-inch book that I order from Paragraf Diary every December.
When opened-up that large, clothbound book showed five workdays, Monday through Friday, spread out over two pages. These pages had five boxes — each captioned by a day and a date — that were filled in (by me) with phrases like, “Meet with Judge Castillo at 11:00” or “West Africa talk at USCB.” But mostly it had the names of clients and the agreed-upon time for our meeting.
Earlier this morning I leafed through the 2004 book, looking at the names of these clients and, sometimes, coming up with a face. Sometimes that conjured face was pleasant (adoptions and loan closings) and sometimes that face was contorted in anger (divorce and property line disputes). Sometimes there was a business card or a question — “Is Dr. Lewis going to testify in Gibson?” Sometimes there was a little sketch of a football player catching a pass.
I kept these date books from 1983 to 2023, and now they provide instant transport back to the week of August 23, 2004, when I was desperately trying to make arrangements to leave for Italy where my nephew was going to be married on the side of a mountain in Umbria.
I can (mostly) remember the meetings with the client, have some slight recollection of what was accomplished, but the details are long gone. And the urgency (or angst) I felt at that moment is completely gone.
All of that is good.
But I do miss the sense of predictability that came with having most of my future neatly scheduled into those five little boxes.
I miss the predictability that came with having meetings, court dates and trips planned, and written down, three, sometimes six months in advance. Looking at my calendar on any given Monday morning I was pretty certain I would be sitting in a lawyer’s office later that morning; or in Jasper’s dark, forbidding courtroom on Tuesday; or running around bag-toting people on the moving walkway at Charlotte’s Douglas International Airport on Friday afternoon.
Of course there were delays and postponements. But, for the most part, I could rely on this book and the boxes — make plans that were very likely to happen — such as a nonrefundable promise to attend my son’s Parents Day Weekend in upstate New York.
I was in the habit of taking this diary wherever I went. Sometimes I packed it in my leather, carry-on backpack; but usually I had it in my left hand as I presented my boarding pass (with my right hand) to gate attendants in Savannah or Charleston. It represented certainty and continuity and it was as important as my driver’s license.
There was also the sense of purposeful work that came with the words penned into these little boxes. As I glance back at the week beginning on March 29, 2004, I see the words “Motion to Amend,” “Deposition” and “shredding.” I’m not sure what was shredded on April 1, 2004, but let’s assume for the purpose of this piece that it was some inconsequential file and does not imply wrongdoing or income tax evasion.
In those long gone days, I thought writing an Answer, Memorandum of Understanding, or Motion to Compel represented productivity, and purpose, and sometimes creativity—all of which compensated for a tendency to think my life didn’t really matter.
And now, with my retirement from the law, I no longer have this book, or any kind of calendar. I no longer wake up — glance at the week ahead — and practice my opening statement as I stand in the shower. Often, when I wake, I don’t know the day of the week.
The price one pays for predictability is spontaneity. Now my wife and I can get in our Honda and drive to St. Augustine for a drink at the White Horse Inn just across the street from Castillo San Marcos. But, of course, we rarely do that.
I do miss the certainty that I’ll be in the lobby of the Charlotte Kimpton on April 3 at 4:30; or that I’ll be alive on August 4 at 5 p.m.
Scott Graber is a lawyer, novelist, veteran columnist and longtime resident of Port Royal. He can be reached at cscottgraber@gmail.com.
