I used to do these lists.
They started out as “Ten Good Things.” By nature, I tend to dwell on the negative, so it never hurt to spend a few hours a week dredging up the positives. I felt the lists nudged me somewhere toward proper balance.
Then we bought the restaurant, and…well, that was essentially the end of “Ten Good Things.” It was often all I could do to scratch up ten things that hadn’t totally sucked. Didn’t make for very edifying reading, so I didn’t bother sharing those too much. I think I might have sunk so low as to post a list of “Ten Things That Bug The Shit Out Of Me” at one point during the café days.
Recently, at the end of a rough day, I fled to the dike and wrapped myself in the soft orange light of the setting sun, stitched with silhouettes of water birds, as if it were a ceremonial robe. As usually happens when I try to empty my mind, it filled with random thoughts. Ten things.
1.) I need a name for the Source of All Things. “The Universe” or “The Almighty” sound too “New Age.” “God” has too much weird history. Perhaps “Teacher”…?
2.) When you actually live in your home, you wake up to the lingering smell of what you cooked for dinner last night…instead of what the pets had for dinner. Or rather, how they processed it.
3.) The current peace between myself and my life partner is as fragile as a hummingbird egg.
4.) Heron. Herons. Another heron. It’s Heron. I get it.
5.) If I breach this dam of tears, I could cry for days.
6.) Fall is absolutely the perfect time of year.
7.) I am precariously perched on the edge of a crater of depression. Can I keep my purchase on the rim and not fall in?
8.) I’m addicted to the wild sound of calling geese. And I live steps away from Goose Central, where I can score a fix any time.
9.) I really do like to cook. I had forgotten. Or maybe I never knew.
10.) The diet will have to wait until I am in a better head space. This should be after the holidays sometime.
Since some of these are rather cryptic, it might be worthwhile to blog about each thing separately, in some future posts...
NaBloPoMo 2024 - day 05
2 days ago
I totally understand that idea of holding a dam of tears at bay...it takes a lot of energy to do that...as well as the energy it takes to not fall into the pit of depression. But, sometimes the effort to keep above it actually succeeds in keeping one out of it...also, I often think of God as the "divine" - more than a teacher, the divine one does teach me, but also reminds me that I while I can become a teacher I can never be the divine one....but frankly, if teacher works for you, go for it!
ReplyDeleteTeacher works. Perhaps mentor. That suggests that there might be something worthwhile to emulate. It also suggests a true relationship. Btu, I tend to find the divine in the squirrel hanging upside down the from the feeder. :-> shrug
ReplyDeleteRegarding your #6 above.
ReplyDeleteLove the weather , love the colors, love the crisp morning light. boy man do I hate raking those leaves - almost drives me to that well of tears thing.