The work week was a short one, shorter or me than most of my coworkers even, and I still felt like it lasted twice as long as it really did. When I write that or say it out loud, it sounds like a ridiculous thing to be upset about. More time—even miserable work time—is a gift I guess. It’s all about perspective.
“In the painting she stares out unflinchingly against a backdrop of luxuriant foliage. In the centre of her forehead, just above the two dark bushy eyebrows, is a perfectly circular round hole, within which is a rural landscape dominated by a skull and crossbones.
The face is neither frightened nor filled with despair; it is calm. She seems to say that if death and suffering can be accepted as a natural part of life then fulfilment is possible. It is one of her many self-portraits that relentlessly lay bare her pre-occupations with death and her own physical fragility.
It demonstrates her fearlessness in confronting what lies at the centre of existence: death.
By putting death in the place of the third eye, the chakra, she makes it the source of all wisdom.”
I woke up early this morning, too early to get ready for work and still too late to make going back to sleep worth it. I lay there in the dark worrying over recent frustrations, future to-do items, and all the ways I am failing in life. I lay there breathing hard and growing increasingly anxious and upset until I was practically vibrating.
I knew that if I didn’t get up and get some of this bad energy out of me I’d never recover the day. So I got up, grabbed my running shoes and the dog and ran it out as much as I could before I had to return and start the day.
Since then I’ve arrived at work early, eaten a healthy breakfast, gone for another walk, picked up a few groceries, and nearly hit my step goal for the whole day. It’s 7:30 A.M. and I feel amazing! I wonder what else I will accomplish today?
I’m picking up my old journal again tonight. Since I have been posting here, I stopped writing in the physical one, stopped carrying it around with me, hell, I couldn’t even tell you where it is at the moment, but, suddenly, I need it desperately.
Some stresses, misfortunes, and pain, and even some joys and expressions of love only half belong to us, more often even less, and telling a story that isn’t yours alone is, at best, not your place, and, at worst, a betrayal. Still, I must speak and writing has always been the only way, the only place I can speak as just myself with no filter, influence, or fear.
I’m struggling to send an email, just one email. I’ve written it and rewritten. I’ve had it proofread by two different people and then rewrote it again.
It’s hard to explain what you do to other people, and harder still to explain it to your bosses. They decide if what you do is right, or enough, or worth paying a person to do at all. It’s hard to meet expectation that weren’t spelled out explicitly and it’s hard to know what people want when they never told you they wanted anything.
I’m probably way over thinking this.
“For me, writing is really just learning about things that interest me, and then trying to convince you to find them as interesting as I do.”
— Susan Orlean (via Austen Kleon)
I took the day off today and I feel awful about it. See, the day wasn’t meant to be for me alone. It was meant to be spent with someone else but she ended up having to go to work. Now I feel guilty for still staying home when I could have, should have, gone in and avoided all this bad headspace.
And, what am I doing with my time? Nothing productive so far. The internet is a massive distraction and I am considering turning all theses screens off and going to read on the couch for a few hours instead. I figure that’s a much better use of my time than checking social media or tweaking the look of my blog, yeah?
Of course, what I should be doing is writing, but, of course, it’s the last thing I can get my mind to focus on. I’ve done the dishes, taken a nap, caught up on the news, I even pulled weeds!, just to keep from sitting in this chair and doing the work. Oh well, it felt good to be alone, to enjoy the silence, and that isn’t something I have always been able to do.
“Hey, insular cortex, that does disgusting food… ‘Moral disgust’? I don’t know, that vaguely sounds sort of like that. Hey, somebody give me some duct tape. I’m going to strap moral disgust onto gustatory disgust.”
We mistake feeling disgusted by something as being a good litmus test for deciding what’s right and wrong. And what we know is somebody’s “disgusting, this is simply wrong” is somebody else’s “perfectly normal loving lifestyle”. And it’s tempting if your stomach is in a total uproar, you know, “if it makes you puke you must rebuke”.
It’s hot out today, like really, really hot. Today Denver hit 100 degrees in September for the first time, ever! Considering the what it felt like outside we were able to keep the house relatively cool, but we are still miserable. We won’t be sleeping until late tonight I’m sure.
We spent the afternoon lunching at my favorite place for my wife’s birthday with her family. I didn’t pick the place; I was just pleasantly surprised to hear where we were going.
Other than that I got caught up on some words here and worked out how I plan to post the drafts I missed getting out on time because of my trip. I’m going to finish them and progress on a few other pieces and projects I have been hoping to start. The rest of the week will be busy to make up for the time I took off but I don’t care. It was worth the trip and the rest.
Today I head home. The visit has been wonderful, and though I feel very different and very out of place here, I’m a little sad to go. I wish I could have all of my family with me back home. I wish I could see them all whenever I wanted and that time and money were never any obstacle.
Siblings are highly underrated and deserve more praise, more love, more forgiveness, and more work on our part to keep them close. Half the strife between any two siblings is mostly the parent’s fault, or at least cause, anyway.
Airport security was much easier this time and I am so happy to have upgraded for a window seat. The clouds are beautiful from here and flying through them is just incredible. It’ll be just a few hours before I am home and to be honest all I can think about is when I can get on a plane again! I don’t understand how people can be so humdrum about it. To be so high up traveling at 100s of miles per hour is damn near magical to me.
But, I’m happy to be back on the ground and back with my wife, back at home where it’s safe.
I arrived to my destination safe and sound yesterday morning and spent the rest of the day getting settled and enjoying time with my little sister. I’m here for her baby shower (which is later today) and since we didn’t grow up together, and since she is going through such a big life change, there is no end to all the things we feel we need to say.
We have a lot in common for two people born 6 years apart, lived miles and miles apart and were raised by different mothers, and are even now still living in different states with different cultures, norms, and climates. Genetics express more in us than I think many of us want to believe, or maybe it’s that I want to believe so badly.
The air here is hard to breathe. I’m used to high altitudes and dry air, but it the scenery gorgeous. There are trees everywhere and they aren’t like the trees in Colorado at all, these’re as tall as skyscrapers to me and breathtaking. I miss the Rocky Mountains for sure, but the greenery here is tempting me to stay.
Lisa Marie Blair 