The Mod Cottage

Frustrated…restless…overtired. I’m trying to put in an extra 20 hours over my 40 hour work week scoring essay tests. It is not going well. When I’m tired I lose focus and when I lose focus I make stupid mistakes. Making stupid mistakes pisses me off. I’m not used to feeling pissed off, it’s a cascade of events that makes me totally uncomfortable.

These events make me want to give up, stop this ridiculous scoring project and drink…or lose myself in other hedonistic pursuits. I want to lose myself in anything at this point. This is perhaps a small window into larger issues…I’m ready for some kind of change, something exciting, something new. I’m bored. I’m not comfortable with feeling bored either. I’m a firm believer there is no reason to EVER be bored and yet here I am, I’ve arrived at this place of boredom with…my life, I guess.

It makes me want to peel my skin off and leave it behind, become someone else…run away to a small town, very far from here, where no one knows me and reinvent myself. It’s cold to be this detached, I know this…and yet…here I am. I fantasize about it in detail. Maybe this is normal? This sounds angsty for an adult…and I don’t like that, but it is the way I feel. I balance precariously on a precipice sometimes and I wonder what it would feel like to just…tip…over the edge. Would the free fall be worth it before I hit the ground?

“Embrace it,” the gurus of psychology would say, “don’t hide from your feelings, to deny them gives them power.” I don’t want to embrace them, I want to not feel them at all, to not struggle constantly, to be a little numb so I can power through this and arrive back home, to myself. I used to feel quite balanced, and really, I still do most of the time. However, the times of imbalance are so dark, like tonight, they seem to eclipse the balance. Isn’t that typical? Typical. What an ugly word. I hate being typical. See? Now I’m just pissed off again.

Ah the cycle…you’d think I’d be over all of this crap by this age. Something has to give…and soon.

There’s nothing like hurling for a solid 12 hours to help you feel detached from everything…except your body, it certainly makes you acutely aware of your body. I’ve been in a fuzzy cocoon-like state since “the sick.” I was clear for a few hours this afternoon and now I’m back to fuzzy and totally exhausted. I know I should go to bed but the mind is churning, a mirror of the stomach a day ago.

I should also try to meditate, at least use my Ho’oponopono to soothe it, but even that mantra seems flat tonight. I’m probably overtired, like a wee bairn. I need to tuck myself in and be done with the day. Perhaps hum myself a dear little lullaby…

The Husband is already off to bed, leaving me to my own devices…he always precedes me to bed by at least 2 hours on weekdays. Sometimes I truly enjoy my time alone, most of the time I do. Other times, it just makes me lonely. Tonight is a lonely night. Even the dogs, it seems, have abandoned me to their twitchy little dreams. TV seems too loud and crass, even at a low volume, and Facebook just feels limp and robotic. Pinterest is too much for the eyes…too many beautiful designs I did not create, too many recipes I’m not using, too many beautiful studio spaces I don’t have, too many wondrous places I can’t afford to go. I feel inadequate all of the sudden.

A walk, a walk in the cool night air, splashing in a couple puddles along my neighborhood streets! It even has a hint of danger (probably just imagined…but I like that element of danger nonetheless)…that is exactly what I need. Yes.

OF COURSE! The cures for my restlessness and over-active mind are so obvious…so damned obvious. The one thing that let’s me fully express myself…creating. Paint and collage and some wire and not thinking for an hour…I already feel better, more centered.

I’ll go back to it later, like always…but now, the other cure; some meditating…some communing with the universe, God…whatever you call the higher power. I’ve gotten away from my spiritual practice in the last few months and it shows. I don’t feel as loving and open, I’m faster to judge, I hold onto things very tightly, I’m not as grateful or kind or understanding. I’ve been wobbling off balance for some time, attaching too tightly to my ideas, thoughts, beliefs, possessions, people, animals, fleeting emotions, etc, which invariably causes suffering. The trick is to be detached while still loving and caring for all of these things. The detachment can’t be cold and distant, it has to be loving and kind but accepting of what is…while not judging it as good or bad. Not easy, but when it happens, when you hit the sweet spot of detachment, it feels so…steady, so stable. It is contentment.

It’s after 11pm and my mind is exhausted but whirring with thoughts, some good, some bad; like a machine stuck in the same patterns, the metal parts worn and shiny-smooth. It was an odd day today in my head…an odd couple of weeks actually. I’m restless and restlessness is not productive for me, it has gotten me into trouble in the past…so I beat the feeling down and act as normal as possible. I’ve gotten scarily adept at hiding my emotions most of the time. It’s rather like containing a feral animal that halfway wants to be tamed yet acts on fearful instinct. It can be tiring and numbing.

Reading helps, pinning pictures to my Pinterest boards seems to help a little too, when I don’t get caught up in the social aspect of it. Walks help. Facebook does not help. Facebook has a way of making me feel scattered, self-conscious, and inert. I feel like ignoring it, but I have a compulsion to check it throughout the day. I can stay off of it at night sometimes, if I feel balanced. I want to give it up, but know I’d feel isolated if I did. I also feel an obligation to stay in touch with a few people. I walk a fine love/hate line with it. Tonight the scales have tipped to hate for no particular reason.

I’m pretty sure that the 4 or 5 people I knew read this blog don’t even read it anymore I post so infrequently…and honestly I’m okay with that, though to be truly transparent I should go start a new totally anonymous blog…I hate to feel like I’m writing for anyone’s approval. I’m not…I just need something to talk to, something that can’t judge my stupidity, impulsiveness, inertia, disorganization, randomness, ridiculousness, and a host of other flaws that feel very exposed. I’m human, our flaws give us character blah, blah, blah…can I get a new set to work on for a while? I’m fucking sick of working on mine, thanks very much.

Now…outside to talk to the stars for a while about some of these thoughts…I’ll see what wisdom and light they can shed on my whirring motor mind.

Where there exists a tremulous meeting of sea and sky

the shells and stones are deep…and lost,

and I become lost with them.

My seawater eyes cease to see and my seaweed hair is born adrift on the trembling current…a bloom of red algae.

Here my bones…bleached driftwood…

sink darkly down, deeply resting

with the sand and lonely sea-worn remnants.

My only vestige.

I found a bunch of my old blog posts from 2003-2007! They are still online…and I happened upon this one from May 28, 2005…a friend and her daughter were here from Illinois visiting and we went to the beach…I used to be a halfway decent writer…(please excuse the incomplete sentences I used for effect.)

The Beach:

Wednesday was all sea and sky. Sun bleached bits of shell and wood, white like bones nestling in the sand. Deserted sand except for 2 or 3 quiet families wrapped up in their sand castles. Standing at the edge of the continent, the very edge, remembering that the world is round as I let my eyes sweep 180 degrees and notice that the sea comes up in a deep blue arc all around me. No flat horizons here. No sense of time here either. Life slows down to match the steady rhythm of the pounding surf. It becomes our collective heartbeat.

Languidly we walk to the edge of dry sand and because the tide is coming in and forming small tidal pools in the wet sand directly in front of us we stop and set our beach chairs down in wordless agreement. Three women, two sunny blondes and a redhead plus one little white girly dog.

We’ve just walked across a small road where we parked and through a tunnel of knarled and sun dappled live oak trees, true dune trees these, windswept and wise to the ways of the salt air. We emerged on the boardwalk to open dunes, the very top of the lighthouse in view to our left, and a hill in front of us. As we crested that hill the sky opened up and came down to embrace the ocean. Pleased at the openness and deserted feel of the beach we all let out a little gasp. Willow trotted a little faster, a spring in her step I had never seen, it being her first beach experience.

Now the beach chairs are down and the 16 year old (not 13 year old like I thought) has already removed her t-shirt and is at the water’s edge. My friend is sitting in her chair and I decide to let Willow see what the beach is all about. I remove my cover-up shirt and sandals and let Willow off lead. We head to the where the surf is frothing up onto the smooth wet sand. My feet and ankles relish the contrast of the hot dry sand and the cool glossy sand. To my surprise Willow is not afraid of the water, reluctant to let it touch her, but altogether curious. I smile, already knowing I have a beach dog.

Soon my friend is in the water with her daughter, waist deep and just past the breakers. I love it when the water is shallow like this, like a pool. The surf coming in is forming wider and deeper tidal pools on the beach and Willow and I are wading through them, feeling the sun-warmed saltwater tingle on our legs.

Soon I hear a scream of delight and see my friend and her daughter pointing and jumping up and down just as I catch 3 dolphins bursting up through the water, their backs arched in unison as they dive back into the water. They are maybe 20 feet from my friends. I smile again, realizing we are here at the perfect time of year, before the beaches get crowded with summer people and just after the dolphins have come back. For the next 4 hours we have a constant show as 20-30 dolphins play and swim and feed right in front of us. Truly a sight to behold, so much more tangible than dolphins in an aquarium.

After a long, crazy, jumping, spinning run toward the resort area on the wet packed sand, Willow and I are feeling the weight of the sun and wind and decide to languish in our beach chair. We fall into a pleasant state of sensory relaxation next to my friend. There is no need for words.

I am able to see the beach and the ocean and the dolphins through their eyes and am amazed and shocked that I live in such a beautiful place. I forget sometimes, that there is such wonder within arms’ reach.

After about 6 hours and more running and playing and splashing we are all limp from the salt air and the omnipresent sun. We nod in agreement, pack up our things and head back toward the dunes and the path home.

My Mother-in-law wants to move in with us, maybe. She’s here right now, measuring every square inch of our house and plotting it out on graph paper while muttering, rain-man style. I love graph paper, but that’s not really the point. I’m not sure what else to say.

As I showered last evening in the dusk with the lights off, gazing out the window in my shower at the inky clouds scattered impasto over the pale blue canvas of the sky I was homesick. Homesick in every sense of the word. Homesick for people I love. Homesick for fields of corn stretching out to the horizon. Homesick for cows mooing in the night and the lazy hilled pastures where they graze. Homesick for corn on the cob and a decent steak. Homesick for 6 billion stars, all discernable in the velvet black by the naked eye.

I know I’m romanticizing it to some degree…and why not, it’s something I don’t have anymore. It’s where the grass is greener and the sky is bigger. I miss it. I miss the cool Autumn nights, sitting around my parents’ firepit on their patio, talking and drinking whiskey slushes. I miss the stars, oh how I miss those stars and that black sky. I miss the brutality of the changing seasons…in theory anyway. I miss not having to care about Hurricane season.

But honestly, I would miss just as much about Virginia, Virginia is my home now, just as Illinois will always be my home, so too will Virginia even though we may move on eventually. I would miss the ocean and the beach when it’s cold and desolate, though I rarely go I always have the option (and options are nice, I appreciate options). Something about living on the very edge of the continent makes me feel less claustrophobic, plus you always know exactly where you are on a map. I would miss all the birds and flowers that don’t do well in the forbidding winters of the upper Midwest. I would miss the mildness of the seasons (except for summer…it sucks in both places). I would miss the extra long, albeit late, Autumn and the sudden Spring that brings a rush of color and scent. I would miss the fig trees and the yellow crowned night herons nesting in my trees and the sight of water wherever I turn. I’ve really grown quite fond of Norfolk too, and I would miss the vibrancy yet smaller city feel of it. I would definitely miss my chosen family of friends the most…and my house with all it’s flaws and character.

But I think what I really long for are simpler times, good memories, places in my life where I was more in touch with myself, the Universe…along with those corresponding physical places. The memories are sweet because they are memories, because they have been defined by a beginning and an end. They are over, no longer accessible in the physical world. It’s okay too, this homesickness, this longing. It keeps me alive and feeling and I want to keep feeling.

More reworked poetry from my past…still feels unfinished, but there it is.

Almost 2am and sleep eludes me. I don’t have insomnia often but when I do the whirring of my mind makes a sound I cannot escape, even with the blissful white noise of the furnace to camouflage it. I sit in my dark living room with night all around me, I want to pull it closer, like a cloak.

The sodium light of the street lamps bleeds through my filmy curtains, casting elongated tree shadows on the wall that undulate in the intermittent breeze. Now the furnace has turned off and I can hear the sweet, mellow tones of my wind chimes, like distant bells…just a few notes and then silence…now the ticking of 2 separate clocks become apparent…such a feast for ears and eyes. 

The darkness suits me, it feels so intimate…yet changeable as I watch the shadows cast by headlights glide by lazily. I wonder who else is up at this hour? I wonder what they can hear and see?