04 25 – Lisa Marie Blair

115 // Digital Spring Cleaning

Hard start to the morning, but no one expects any easier on a Monday morning. I managed to will myself out of bed with my alarm, so I’m off to a good start, but poor quality sleep, general aches and pains, and a growing sense of overwhelm have depleted me before I could begin.

Today I am grateful for the mental and physical stimulation found in a big cup of strong cold brew coffee.

I have a few projects in the process for the morning, meetings through midday, and an afternoon I’m hoping to keep to myself. The schedule is light this week, but with us entering the last stretch of the school year, I have serious doubts it will stay that way.

I’m getting better at making use of the moments in between tasks and time spent waiting for the next event to begin. This is time to jot a few notes, write a paragraph, read a page or two, or even step outside for a short walk, though we aren’t having the best weather for it today. Still, the rest of the week is looking warmer and there’s no doubt my sour mood will sweeten in the sun.

Over the weekend, I accidentally broke my blog trying out a new theme. At first, I panicked. I cannot count the hours I put into making this place just right, but after poking around and trying to put things back the way they were, I realized this may have been the reset I needed and the perfect start to my digital spring cleaning.

When I reactivated the old theme, all the widgets in the sidebar were gone along with the custom CSS settings. I tried to rebuild them but with WordPress’s move to block editing, many of my old widgets and settings are no longer available in the form I added them in so many years ago. But, you know what? I never really needed all that, anyway. From now on, I’m going to keep it simple on the homepage but refine and expand my use of pages, tags, and categories.

My dream is to create a place in constant flux, a place with surprises, but I fear this theme, and perhaps even this platform is not conducive to that sort of digital growth. I can’t say what that means, but only ask that you bear with me through changes great and small.

115 // Paradox of My Life

You ever have one of those days where outwardly the world appears calm, everyone you love is collected, and all of your problems are neatly under control, and yet beneath it all you sense a black and simmering chaos that you cannot reach? On days like these all you can do is watch and wait for that inevitable eruption of darkness, and it is this watching and waiting, not the bubbling chaos itself, that fills you with a vague dread for which there is no cure.

Or perhaps there is? I tried coffee and yard work today, then watching a stupid show and taking a short nap, and suddenly I can see the sun and tomorrow doesn’t seem so dreadful. I feel better, but I also don’t. I suppose it’s another paradox of life, or maybe only of my life as it is right now.

There is something about that dreadful and bubbling chaos that feels almost good.

The fragility of the world is never far from my thoughts lately and “ends”—my end, the many ways life as I know it could end, the end of the humanity, the end of the world, the cold and distant end of the universe—are weighing on my heart but, strangely, I have never felt so alive either.

It’s been so long since I’ve been walking mindlessly through life from work to home to bed to work to home and bed again and again and again, but I’m not mindless anymore. I’m awake. I’m aware. A sudden truth has come to the forefront of my mind and it won’t be shoved back again so easily. I’m hurting more, but I’m living more and I cannot make sense of it except that to avoid any one part of life is to neutralize it all to endless grey monotony.

You are alive, but it is only the barest kind of life. You are content, but you are not happy. You are safe, but all sense of self and meaning have been removed. You will have your years, but you will not grow. This, right now, is a lesson.

116//366

The stay at home orders for my county have officially been extended through May 8th. I haven’t yet heard from my supervisors and coworkers about how that affects our plans to return to work in the coming weeks. Obviously our return is delayed, but by how long is the question.

Saturday continues to be my favorite day of the week. There has been very little to do any day of the week for over a month now, but on Saturdays there is even less. I wish time would slow down so I could enjoy more of it, so I could luxuriate in it.

I’m back in the “creativity room” though not much of substance is being created. The good feeling isn’t as simple or short-term as happiness. I’d say maybe I feel hopeful, or optimistic. Life feels promising and as long as my path continues straight forward from here, things can only get better. That doesn’t mean things are great right now, it just means the future feels bright.

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