Archive for August, 2007
sitting and still
The lazy amber ball slips slowly behind a distant hill after a long August day spent overheating this little pocket of the world. One hundred or so degrees today. Melted chocolate in my purse. That’s what I’ll remember from today. Walking from store to car, just enough time to melt a bar of chocolate.
“Le Vie en Rose” is playing now though, in the cool apartment where I find myself alone, sitting and still, for the first time since moving in. The Paris-style melody crescendoing through the speakers wraps around me and I’m dreaming dreams, more than I can count, the way I do whenever I hear this song. I’ll remember that, too, when I think of today. At least, I’ll remember it for a couple days…melted chocolate and “Le Vie en Rose” dreams.
And an early dinner with mom over Gram and P.A.’s 70- or 80-some-year-old oak table. Mom’s in town a few more days before returning to the great British isle so, with little other than a few errands and a dentist appointment to interrupt our visit, we’ll enjoy meandering moments that will pass too fast. And I’ll remember this also: dinner with mom, our fresh red tomatoes spreading their tangy juices around our empty plates.
And all that “important” stuff scribbled and screaming at me in hasty capital letters on scraggly scratch paper (STORE, PEST PEOPLE, VITAMINS, CLEAN BATHROOM) begins to fade as the sun peeks through leafy motionless branches, winking at me one last time. The next time I look up, she has hidden beneath the hills, leaving only a glow and reminders of a day.
No Commentsnew shadows
Jason and I recently moved (which, on a sidenote, is one of the reasons you haven’t heard from me lately). It was a good move, complete with labeled boxes, fast movers, and a cool breeze to aid us on multiple trips up three flights. But for all the goodness, I still feel disoriented, discombobulated, a stranger in my own life.
For starters, I still wake up wondering where I am, not recognizing the new bedroom where Jason and I sleep, blinking and searching the room as light filters through our old curtains in unfamiliar patterns, casting new shadows.
But, again, don’t get me wrong. The new shadows are good. And the move needed to happen. No longer do we have various and sundry children bounding above us, dropping their toy anvils and running best-of-five foot races overhead, nor do we have bump cars thumping out gangsta tunes directly outside our window countless times a day, nor do we have the oblivious family below slamming doors and shaking the entire building throughout the day, nor do we have the multitude of other annoyances.
We have peace, quiet, a happy little love nest…and new annoyances. Large, woodsy spiders, for one, that have taken up residence on our deck, keeping our miniature patio furniture-less and us happily inside observing their nocturnal spinning. And we have an overtly angry and possibly dangerous across-the-hall neighbor. And we have about forty-square-feet less of space, which is not a huge deal since Jason and I have simplified and reduced, but still poses some challenges.
But don’t hear me complaining. Have I mentioned it’s good, this move, this new place. Woodsy spiders and all. It’s good. That’s what I keep telling myself. So, why do I feel so strange? So out of place? So restless?
I’ve been thinking on this the past few days, even doing a little research on moods. Come to find out it’s normal to experience a letdown after so much anticipation toward a momentous event like moving. Some of my resources even said it’s possible to experience acute depression from this type of life change.
Still, with plenty of psychologists confirming that my emotions were normal, I believed there was something deeper, something more. So, instead of the Internet, I searched my soul. And there I found discontentment. The feelings were real, understandable, even warranted. But something uglier, something we all wrestle with in some form and fashion, was showing its repulsive face again. My discontentment, my unreachable expectations, my fears.
But then last night, the sun flung its fleeting rays, amber and golden, into our living room just before it set beyond the gentle hill and vast foliage outside our window, shrouding the room in warm light, while the sky blazed like fire. I took a breath in and out as the glow washed over me; settled, at peace, OK for the moment with the unexpected, frustrating and discomforting new elements.
And I tasted briefly of contentment, trying my best to remember what someone said about the secret of contentedness, in plenty, in want, and in new apartments.
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