Another morning of sleeping incredibly long and deep. I awoke at 5 again, briefly, then at 8 or 8:30, then at 9:30 finally to realize that, yes, I could spend the rest of the day in bed, but that there was something almost abnormal – no, strike “almost”! – about how enervated I feel. I’m not convinced it’s any one thing in particular. It’s a pile-up, a concatenation.
No exercise program all the while we traveled and were in Florence (and New York City before that). Sure, lots and lots of walking, but it’s not the same as deliberate (and even vigorous) stimulation of sets of muscles. A focus on the mind (daily meditation and writing morning pages), and openness to different environments and culture and art and architecture, but again: the body just ticked down the older (and getting older) clock.
Then, a return here, back to lots and lots of chores, and then, five days in, the injury to the finger, which, frankly, is minor on a scale of mayhem, but annoyingly painful enough to prohibit – or at least inhibit if not outright proscribe – a return to some kind of exercise. In the meantime, the mind absorbs, and says, “this is not my place.” Occasionally, lovely things creep in to make the mind ambivalent (“maybe you do want the burdens of a single-family ‘House Beautiful’ instead of a city apartment after all, eh?”), but …no. There has to be a change.
And the dreams. Sleeping late, they come. I was stuck outside of a parking garage, unable to retrieve my car, unable to travel “home.” Z. was involved, running a shop (I think it served comestibles of all things – so not Z.!), and a dog ate fresh basil leaves. I drove into the parking garage fine, and also exited on foot more or less anxiety-free, but then was faced with warrens and tunnels and massive dead ends when I tried to (re-)penetrate the building to return to my car. I knew exactly where the car was (LL, corner), but couldn’t enter the parking structure. None of the elevators (shortcuts?) worked. I realized I needed to re-find the entrance I had used originally, and that this would let me find the way. To do so, I would have to persevere in circumnavigating the building. I awoke before I did, though. It had taken me a while in the first place to come to this realization (that I needed to re-find the original entry point). Z. was of no help in the odd moments she appeared in my dream. No one else I knew was in it.
