Today’s post (Saturday morning) is brought to you by the letters u, g, g, g, h, h, and the number 45 – as in for a solid 45 minutes, I was paralyzed with indecision and feeling a whole lot of uggghh. For starters, I’m feeling a little sick. It’s that scratchy throat, stuffy nose, something coming on kinda sick. When I woke up I was certain I had lost my sense of smell and taste. I didn’t. I felt it yesterday too. The COVID test was negative – maybe it’s just sinuses or something like that, except I don’t usually get “sinuses or something like that” sick. Because of this I slept poorly and was slow to get up when the dog tried to wake me at 5:15 in the morning. When the panic subsided (after testing my smell on the coffee), we each did our thing: big boy breakfast for me, three scoops of kibble for him, walk, and then coffee on the deck and some reading. That’s when the blasé paralysis set in. I wanted to go to the farmers’ market, but didn’t feel up to it. I thought I should exercise, but really didn’t feel up to it. I tried to work on a poem but… yadda yadda yadda. I sat on the sofa for 45 minutes, maybe more, not wanting to do anything and dreading how long the day would be – especially if I kept riding this seesaw. I needed to email the dog sitter back – didn’t want to. I needed to get dog food – didn’t want to. I stared at the computer screen and thought, “well, might as well write about it…” That’s when I decided not to write about it and got off my ass to go to the farmers’ market.
Sunshine, windows down, music up, fresh bread and tomatoes and cheese…. it helped – briefly. Being sick, or whatever this is, sucks. For those of us moving through life solo, it’s also a needle prick reminder that even if we don’t want to, we need to keep moving (groceries, chores, dog walks). There are lots of times when I relish a slow day – but force one on me and I’ll struggle to lean in to it… I’ll feel trapped and isolated and cranky. I’ll look at the sunny patches of lawn and want to run and play, but my energy level says maybe take a nap.
Sunday
Last night, I forced myself to go to an outdoor show in Millheim. A band I’ve seen before was playing – they play a lot of North Mississippi hill country blues (R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough). I was home by 9 and in bed by 9:30. I still felt like crap and slept poorly: congested and couldn’t breath and a fire burning in my throat. I tossed and turned the entire night.
This morning’s COVID test – still negative. I’m doing a bit better with accepting a slow day of isolation today. I started a few new poems and hope to submit some older ones to a few journals (I say that almost every week). I’ll need to step out to get groceries and I have a few things I have to do around the house – including looking for a dead mouse and maybe giving the dog a bath. But I can already feel my energy and ambitions fluctuating. I’ll wander around from room to room thinking I should do stuff, and then I’ll think I should nap or eat or edit or write or do anything. Yesterday’s poem, which I don’t think I’ll pursue further was about how we don’t necessarily like to fight with our partners or spouses, yet, given enough time alone, even the fighting is something that can be missed. Children learn this early on – bad attention is preferable to no attention. This seemed oddly tied to these days of competing desires and ensuing paralysis. I thumbed through my journal, going back to 2020 when I wrote, “the privilege of being a man in minor crisis.” “disturbed by the prospect of having to choose just one life.” “restless, the little ‘I want everything’ drum pounding in my chest.”
Clearly, these are not new themes. The paralysis of desire and the inability to name, much less act on, these sometimes faint, sometimes bold stirrings. I want it all. I barely have the energy to get off the sofa. And from something I wrote just a few weeks ago: “we were fugitives in the late night lobby of desire.”
I guess I should get on with it – whatever “it” is.