Like any computer that has been left running far too many weeks in a row, I needed to power down and reboot today. I slept late, wandered around in a bathrobe until afternoon, gave myself a little home pedicure, and then went for my monthly massage. I ran updates and restarted, and now I am feeling clear-headed and powerful again. I don't know whether this would have worked a few days ago, but it seems to have come along right when I needed it. I "work" at home, with no fixed set of hours, so I feel like I am always on. I feel guilty when I need a day off, or even a few hours off of any given day. I have to remind myself that people with "real" jobs, those who aren't unpaid writers, only work eight hours a day, and then don't beat themselves up for going home and leaving work at the office. I can't stand waking away from the narrative. I always need to be focused on subject matter. I can't look at a scene, and not wonder whether it would photograph well. I can't have a conversation, and not try to memorize the funny parts or look for a profound teaching moment. I don't know how to distance myself from my work. I've never been able to turn it off. I have never had a part time job that didn't escalate into an all-encompassing obsession that eventually became full time. I've never had a full time job where I didn't donate unpaid labor, sometimes upwards of eight or ten extra hours a week, week after week. That gets exhausting. I don't know what I'd do without those few minutes a month where my masseur's elbows are digging into my shoulder blades, and I lay there, absolutely unable to form rational thoughts, much less verbalize them. I can't even put my mind in neutral and enjoy trashy romance novels anymore. I'm always tearing apart sentence structure, and thinking about how I would have phrased things differently. I used to like having the literary equivalent of junk food, to unwind my brain a little. For the last year, I have had no patience for any of that. Today's hours of silence did me a world of good. I might even be able to read for the fun of it again.
Some of my silence was voluntary, but a sizable portion was thrust upon me as well. Somewhere since I shut off the tv after SNL last night at one am, my receiver stopped communicating with the satellite dish, and I am in a television drought. Until it's my turn for the visit on Tuesday, I'm cut off. I'm going to be a grown up, and not freak out that I'm missing the last episodes of Cosmos and the Voice. I'm going to turn on some music, and sing along while I clean up what looks like the debris from a tornado wrapped in a hurricane stuffed inside a mudslide. I'm actually glad for it, because I know I will spend tomorrow panic cleaning, before some Directv technician has to set foot in my living room. It means that by the time I have a Memorial Day barbecue, everything will have already been cleaned and prepped, and I can relax and finally enjoy having a few more members of the bonfire crew over to the Park. I've been waiting for my turn, and it's finally going to happen. (I just wish my HOA covenants allowed me to have a big fire pit like the one at our primary party barn. Maybe those fire bowls are allowed?)
In a further step of hedonistic luxury, I joined the gang at the secondary hangout spot, soaking away our cares (and apparently hangovers) in the hot tub. I'm fairly certain it was the first time I'd been to this particular house in the daylight, so I tried to get all of tonight's pictures, and many of next week's gardening inspirations, from a different garden. And I am definitely inspired. My friend has a small yard, but it is so funky and cool, so well laid-out, I have to take some lessons from it. And more, she is sharing some of her plants as well. She had a gorgeous deep purple giant salvia, with bright lime green leaves, and it is taking over her space, so she promised to let me take a little bit of that home. She said she may have a banana palm that she can share, also. And she had, in pots, ready to go, rose of Sharon and American beauty berry bushes. I have never grown either, and I brought one of each home with me. I already know where I want to put them, along the fence where the peach tree and nine bark died. I wonder whether there is anything I can offer in return. Do you suppose she wants cannas?
No comments:
Post a Comment