It’s the weekend, no rushing to get out of the house, which means I do the meditation –> writing (morning pages) in this order. On weekdays I do the morning pages first, then run around, getting out of the house with W. (even if I didn’t walk with him, I’d be “on call” to drive him to the station in case of filthy weather, and even I were to just stay home, I would be distracted by his rushing around – which in turn stands in such contrast to my life and days here, suspended in amber). After I come back from this morning “duty” I sit down to meditate. The idea is that I had meditated for a year at least before taking up the morning pages, and that I started doing them after meditation was done, which in turn began to set up a habitual response in my brain: meditate –> calm mind/ focus –> write. Then, when the job situation changed again, I realized that morning pages first, followed by scrambling, followed by soft focus and calm mind (meditation), followed by writing could continue to work for me as I was now actually writing / working on projects (like my “sunset boulevard” novel).
Except, all this week that just ended, I broke the habit of meditation –> writing. It has been a horrible week (they happen), and actually the week before was equally ridiculous. Since Monday I’ve had a nonstop low-grade headache, the cold and rain, sandwiching a three-day heatwave ten days ago, has made me despair of the weather, the possibility – and especially desirability – of going anywhere, and coupled with my “stuckness” here in B., I’ve just tumbled, tumbled, tumbled way down low these last two weeks. I’ve immersed myself far too much in “current” events, stalking Twitter profiles of people I don’t follow, but whose views I’m nonetheless curious to know about, and this has further “virtualized” (but not made more virtuous) my life. A kind of dull, weary physicality, coupled with a pixelated, digital mentality whose mercurial shifts – yet underlying never-changing platform – has me feeling out of my mind. I’d go for a walk in the woods, but I hear the ticks are really bad again this year. And now there’s a new, worse-than-Lyme, virus out called POW (Powassan Virus Disease). Causes incurable, permanent neurological damage. No thanks, nature. So, wouldn’t it be nice if I had a great city to wander around in?
Maybe things will improve going forward. For one thing, W. has decided that the bullsh*t 5:30a.m. wake-up time to get the early train will stop going forward. We’re going to sleep an extra hour and he’ll take the later train. Hallelujah! Five-thirty killed me.
My various home improvement projects are idling, the contractors aren’t responding. Maybe it’s a sign that we should forget about them and sell up instead. I have this book from the library by Duo Dickinson, about staying put, remodeling the house you have, and that serial homeowning is bad. I don’t disagree – I’ve wanted a “forever house” since …forever. But I’m not sold on this location…