sewn
It’s dark now by the time I leave work for the day which I thought would be sad, but which has turned out to be oddly, wonderfully exciting – all those people bustling home through the streets lit by storefronts and strung-up trees. It’s as if everyone suddenly and simultaneously swung nocturnal. As if all the things we might feel obligated to do in daylight have been dispensed.I holed up, tonight, in one of my favorite coffee shops, a place with warm lamps and steamed-up windows and very good cake. I read a book and I eavesdropped. I drank a large cup of tea called Roots that smelled of orange peel.
I have been feeling, these past few weeks, a rather doomed-by-definition Compulsion To Relax. People I know are nesting. They are buying new bedspreads and wintercoats, and a lot of them are having babies. Meanwhile I have finally gotten my shit together enough to work on making my life here look more like me. Portland took a while, and I didn’t arrive with much by way of reserves. Now that I’ve unpacked my paints and found good work and found good pubs, I need to remind myself that Making Up For Lost Time is not a sound proposition. It's still just today for today, and the next time I wake up it’s just going to be tomorrow.
I have needed to remind myself of this in all things. My job is a good job, a good and worthwhile job, even though after one whole month I haven’t yet changed the world. My house is a good house, and I don’t need to feel embarrassed about it, even though I would rather live somewhere with a garden, somewhere I could invite people over for dinner. My relationship is a good relationship, and it challenges me and brings me joy, and all the parts of it that are out of my hands are Out Of My Hands. And if some days I feel like I Need To Know, if some days I feel like I can care or not care accordingly, I remind myself I have learned this already. Enough times, I think.
Until Thanksgiving this is my plan: relax and be glad to have my feet underneath me, drink lots of tea, kick up leaves. Move as much as seems appropriate in fall, but not more. Have fun in the dark.
posted by tortaluga @ 10:58 PM
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