Rain on the Glacier

Troubled sleep fractured by thunderstorms and restless mind, it is no good thing to roll around on the sheets under the grey smear of a streetlight sky. The clocks may be digital, but that does not prevent them ticking too loud as to keep one awake. It was enough to make one run into the street, clothed in nothing more than swirling leaves and a coat made of anxiety.

It was rain on the glacier. Dark, cold, wet. Things to be avoided, yet here they were wrapped around my throat. I laid still, hoping it would go away.

A few hours later, and it was time to get up and make some sense of the day. Sense making is no easy task without defined goals, a sense of purpose and a job. I had none of those. The rain saw fit to make sure of it. Looking out the window, I saw the door to the shed flapping in the breeze, another incomplete task dropped from the colander of my mind.

It was the third day in a row I had forgotten to go shut and lock the door.

Not to be too pessimistic, but that seemed the story of my life, staring as I was out the window at the grey oppression of the sky. One long unfinished task, another episode of wasted potential. Chronic, it is. The contemplation of it left me in a sour mood, a brown study as the old-timers might say.

I thought once again of Bouvet Island, the most remote place in the world. Claimed by Norway, inhabited by no one, home to seals and birds, and I wondered if there might be a place for me in that stark ecosystem. Perhaps I, like the seals and penguins, could learn to live on krill and ice water. Brutal and harsh, maybe, but simple and and beautiful in own way.

The sun came out late in the day, the white gold light of which inspired me to grab my pinhole film camera and leave the house in search of inspiration in what ultimately proved to be an abortive attempt to capture the fading glory of the day. I forgot a crucial piece of equipment and the light went before I would have been able to go get the piece. I shivered in the cold breeze, and returned home empty handed.

I daydreamed about Bouvet on the drive home, then reckoned it was too grim a prospect for me to dwell upon. The sun faded back behind the clouds as I pulled into the drive. Late fall and anxious thoughts had there claws in me, I knew. I cast about the house for some relief, and found it in the form of cooking dinner.

The rain continued to fall upon the glacier, but I chopped, stirred and tasted until the umbrella unfurled, and I found myself warm in the heart of home.

Relief Well

Assignment, Part Trois:

You see what just happened there?  This assignment thing?  It has me on a bit of a roll.  The cap is off the well (again) and today my hindbrain was all up in my mental grill, the Deepwater Horizon rig of my mind.  And I am not equipped with a blowout preventer.  My head may be big, but it isn't THAT big.

More ruminations upon blogging and digital identity kept spilling over into my workday.  Much of it was inspired by the posts I chose to link in my post of yesterday, because I could not help but wonder if they were the right posts to put out there for this exercise.  By 'right' I really mean 'best'.

A common undercurrent to all the blogging I have done is one of mild anxiety.  The anxiety conjured up by always questioning whether my latest effort was my best effort, should I have written that, why did I post that?  When I am in the midst of thinking about a story idea, and writing that idea down, I am usually convinced that what I am thinking and writing about is the best thing EVER!  After all, I wouldn't bother having the thought or invest the energy in writing it out if it wasn't the best, right?

Right?

Yesterday's post is a good example.  I spent an inordinate amount of time sifting through my blog entries trying to find just the right example of what I was attempting to convey.  Constantly searching for the 'perfect' post,  I was always convinced that the next one will be better yet.  So I kept reading and reading, ping-ponging back and forth through nearly two years' worth of archived material.  It was an exhausting trip down memory lane.  In the end, I don't know if the examples I linked are necessarily the best of their type, the ne plus ultras  of each type of post I have ever written.  Honestly, it being late, me being tired and needing to wrap things up probably means I picked what I picked because it was the last one in front of me at the time.

So this is what my subconscious was working on all day: searching my memory banks, trying to compare different posts, having a few "I should have picked that one..." moments.  I worried that maybe the ideas I had in mind weren't quite matched up with the posts I used as examples.

Then again, I worry about a lot of things.  Which is among the reasons why I write so much.

Ultimately, it will not matter.  I did my best with it, and that is truly what counts.  It's all grist for the mill.  To paraphrase a saying I read recently, there is no writing, but there is rewriting.  That is a central attraction of blogging (and writing, period): this ability to rewrite, with shared input.  If I feel like I didn't quite illuminate what I had in mind, well...there's always another post.

Another post, another relief well to take the pressure off the gusher in my head.  Join me in this deep, dark ocean, won't you?

Vox Vocis Pacis

The rush and clatter of modern life overwhelms us…

Ambushed by sorrow, overrun by anxiety…


Occasionally a flash of insight penetrates the clouds…

The soul knows to seek relief…

From that which would tear us down…

From that which would cause collapse…

And turn away from the machine…

which growls but cannot follow…

Soul cleaves to the mother-spirit, calling, seeking…

Diving into the balm of good shadows…

Through earth, water and leaves walks the body…

Coming to rest in a refulgent center…

…where listening closely to the sibilant whisper of water, trilling birds and the conversations between rock and stream…

…listening closely…

…it hears the voice of God.

Zero To Sixty in Sixty Days

Today was a workday, kind of like the other workdays (which are stringing too close together) that have made me want to stand on my desk and just start hollering. Like the guy from ‘300’, except maybe not as buff. Just stand on my desk and ROAR.

(Them) This is madness!
(Me) No, this..is..GUMBO! (Kicks in computer screen, dives out window)

Okay, that is what I wanted to do. What I actually did was sit in my chair, grind my teeth and convince myself I could stick it out until 5:00. This has become increasingly hard for me as of late. I have always had a knack for bullshit, can spin it pretty good when I set my mind to it. A quote from some movie I saw years ago sprang to mind: “Never bullshit a bullshitter!” This was the predicament I found myself in. I know very well when I am not being honest with myself, and this was one of those times. I also find it easy to speak the truth that I know, when I know it. I was talking to myself, like one of those guys I’ve seen pushing shopping carts in downtown Baltimore. Do you know how weird it feels to be arguing with yourself, two voices, one out of each side of the mouth? One saying “It’s not so bad” and the other saying “Clock punching for someone else’s dreams grows tiresome”. I imagined it to be a running dialogue between Stuart Smalley and Dieter from Sprockets.

So it was that when I left work, I was all prepared to come home, stuff some groceries down my neck and then pound out a profanity-laced screed about being oppressed by the Man and overwhelmed by ennui not giving a shit. I was going to follow all this with a serious bout of plopping my butt down on the couch to watch something, anything, on TV.

That was the plan. I had forgotten that tonight was PAYNIGHT, which meant grabbing dinner out after depositing my hard earned slip-of-paper-that-isn’t-money-but-stands-in-for-money. As if I wasn’t in enough of a snit, the thought of having to turn around and head right back out the door, The Spouse and The Wee Lass in tow, just turned the screws a little bit tighter. I was feeling, what’s the word?, MISANTHROPIC to a very high degree. Fortunately for me, my daughter had other ideas for Gumbo the Grump. I bundled her in her car seat and we set off in search of pizza. The car hadn’t gone thirty feet when I heard this loud squeal of delight from the back seat:

“Let’s look for Christmas lights! Will we see Christmas lights, Mommy?”
“Probably, sweetie.”
“YAYYY! Look, Daddy, it’s a reindeer!”

One of our neighbors has a wicker deer on their front lawn, the kind strung with lights and a motorized head that bobs slowly up and down. It was dark already, and the white lights had the whole house front awash in the glow. Wee Lass was so enthusiastic I felt myself starting to crack. On the way to the pizza joint, and on the way back, she was eagerly looking out the window, calling out decorations and lights when we could see them on passing houses. In the face of such unself-conscious delight, I felt the hatin’ just drain out of me. I was still plenty tired, but not nearly as wound up. I felt like a human being instead of a clock spring.

I was mildly surprised to realize that this is my sixtieth post in sixty days. I was going to write a screed tonight, as I mentioned. Good for me and for you, dear reader, that I had the Wee Lass to hit the reset button. She brought me back on center and made it possible for me to ENJOY writing tonight. It felt good to reach a milestone on a positive note.

60 in 60 days. Whew. I had no idea it was in me. Thanks so much to everyone who has laid eyes on my creative overflow. Between the Wee Lass and your interest, I have been inspired and encouraged to keep at it. Something cool is just down the road, and I appreciate the help in getting me to it!