Monday, September 27, 2010

Where the Spirit Moves You


I should be listing books as we speak. I had a good day yesterday with several orders from Advanced Books Exchange, one of which was for multiple titles. Normally, that would be enough to rev me into high gear, but today it appears not to be so. I woke up at 4:30, a fragment of a strange dream caught in consciousness and a feeling of quiet contemplation already come over me like an old familiar sweater. I got up at seven – late for me – made coffee and stared out the kitchen window through the wet gloom to the lake covered in ducks, the white domestics huddled together near the far edge, the mallards swimming with their usual insouciance. How mercurial moods are, rising from seemingly nowhere and sometimes, as now, so seemingly off-kilter with reality.

It’s not the weather that brings on this melancholy. I like the dark days of autumn and winter, the chill in the air, the coziness of electric light in the middle of the day. Today is just simply “one of those days” when the spirit seems to insist upon stepping out of the fray. Will I give in to that, or will I push through and begin listing with deliberate resolve? I don’t know yet – it could go either way, or both ways, as the day progresses. When my children were in school I used to occasionally allow them what I called “a mental health day”, but neither one availed themselves of the privilege. Perhaps knowing that the option was there diminished the need to choose it. I allow myself the same privilege, but find that I, too, rarely take advantage of it. Perhaps I should though – perhaps we all should -- if we have the luxury. Perhaps mental health days are one of the perks of self-employment.

My husband tells me often that I work too much, stress too much, worry too much. Too much, too much – the words are his antiphonal response to both my laments and my silence. But I am not good at gauging quantity, so “too much” is meaningless to me. Where is the point of enough and how do I know when I’ve sped past it in my desire to what – succeed, accomplish, prove my industry, learn it all, do it all, WHAT? With him traveling again I work much longer hours – some days ALL hours -- but my work happily engages me. So how then could it be too much? IS it too much? Some would say so. Eric would say so. Could it be that something inside me says so too?

Yesterday being Sunday I walked five miles with my friend Nancy. We do this most every week, sometimes in the neighborhood, sometimes crossing through the park to an adjacent, larger neighborhood, and sometimes on the trails that wind around the large lake in the metro park at Hinckley. This walk is church to me –Sunday time, sacred time. But for some reason -- which I realize suddenly in this moment of writing -- I need to pull my old beat-up walking shoes out of the closet again and go out in the gloom today too.

“You really could break down and buy some new shoes,” Eric says to me as I write this.

He’s not here, but I hear him as clearly as if he were standing in the doorway. He very much dislikes my adherence to things past their prime. I’m not like that with most things, just some, like these old beat-up shoes. I had a pair of my own before and wore them through so Nancy gave me hers some years ago. They’re my walking shoes and my book sale shoes. I could polish them – I might even do it today – but I love them in their natural state just as much as I would with their make-up on. These shoes have walked more miles than I can count. These shoes have borne serious witness.

Well then. It would appear that today IS a mental health day, wouldn't it? So then. I will walk. I will read. And then I will play with the beautiful collage papers in the tubs stashed too long in the basement closet. It’s time, I think, to make something tangible, something that can be held in my hands -- something that can be quantified.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tess, on the Worry too much angle; why not try a little Ying and Yang, and think Less Is More. I too am a worrier and this one allows me to focus and stay in the moment in that state of Mindfulness and right now living that brings peace. Those beautiful white creatures on the pond may fly away tomorrow. Why not take the time to watch them as they float upn the water. Namiste.
An Elmer follower.

tess said...

Yes, Elmer fan, you are right. We need to live in the moment. I think for "doers" this is a hard thing to remember. We remember once in awhile, but then revert to our workaholic ways. Yesterday's time off did me a world of good. Thank you for the good wishes and kind thoughts. Much appreciated.