Self-doubt is an interesting thing. Like anger or love, it’s an emotional state, or perhaps an emotion whose state we can acquire at any time, and which isn’t exclusionary. You can feel actual self-doubt and its near-opposite, something like love or calm, simultaneously. I’m not sure if this merely means that you’ve learned to accept self-doubt as an emotion, the way one might accept anger as an emotion that’s always there, available to choose from. No, it’s still too powerful, perhaps. Were it merely an emotion to choose, one could choose not to choose it. That would be sovereignty, or an authoritative mindset. As long as it’s able to assert itself with enough power to claim squatting rights in one’s mind, it’s not yet treated with, as they say, “sovereign disregard.” The latter, incidentally, doesn’t mean that the sovereign is unaware, or doesn’t care – compassion can look like disregard or detachment, can’t it? – it just means that s/he won’t let it run the show. But you know it’s there, that nagging feeling – just as anger can be there as a burning feeling, or love – even love – as a steadily flowing balm.
Sometimes it gets the upper hand. You feel blue, deflated.
I’m not actually feeling depressed or anything this morning; it’s just the more-than-typical Monday feeling after a particularly intense weekend. Yesterday we had glorious weather, almost custom-made for the birthday boy. Today the sky is thickly filled with gray, pale gray, slightly deeper gray near the horizon, a gray thickness that’s dripping with rain barely held in check. It’s there, but not yet really falling. You know it will fall. I wonder if the painters / work crew will show up today. It’s a huge contrast to yesterday, the worker-free Sunday, too.
I made breakfast yesterday, seemingly for hours. Two vegan recipes (artichoke and hash browns etc., and a tofu scramble), plus regular scrambled eggs. We drank mimosas, coffee, ate more cake. By 12:30 or so we were on our way to Gloucester, walked the seawall. E. actually making noises about maybe wanting to live here after all. Then announcing that she was hungry, which led us to the worst lunch / worst meal any of us have ever experienced. We went to the newly opened “Happy Belly.” We picked it because we thought with a name like that, it would have vegetarian and vegan options. It sort of did, but it was the worst “food” ever. Even W. and A.’s meat options were crap. I had a smoothie, which turned out to be the best choice as it was the least wreckable. Sixty-five dollars (including tip) for a truly awful lunch. I’m inspired to write a Yelp review, my first ever.
Wandered up and down Main Street, laughed at a “Diva” with an old Omega wristwatch (nothing special) for sale in her shop for $6,500. Gold armband, she claimed. Drove back via Magnolia. Later, dinner at Salt in Ipswich. We omnivores ate well, as did E. who chose, exceptionally, a fish dish. But Ax. had to go with the only vegan thing, called “A Walk in the Woods,” and while I didn’t ask him what he thought of it as our conversation was too deep into the topic of various dysfunctions, I thought it looked terribly meager, especially for the lofty price.
I don’t know, this veganism is bullshit. No idea yet what to cook tonight. Or tomorrow, or the next nights. But it will be better than what we’ve had at restaurants so far, though.