Good. Not so good.

Day 75

If only the sounds could come through in a photograph.

If only the sounds could come through in a photograph.

Morning walk.
Cool breeze.
Audiobooks.

Wearing a mask on a humid day.
Negative thoughts.
More than 100,000 dead.

Leggings with pockets.
A thick layer of cream cheese on a bagel.
The feeling of the word swell in my mouth as I speak it.


As I sit here, again, beside the Mill River, not quite rushing or pulsing but steadily flowing, rippling past rocks and running steadily, I am trying to put to the page some of the ideas that have been stirring over the past 53 minutes, while I have been walking and listening to a book and, also, thinking nonstop. My brain does not rest. Ever.

As I sit here, recording the good and not-so-good things that have been stumbling around in my mind I find it is more difficult to put a name to the not so good. In part, I know, because I am — at heart and, it seems, in brain — an optimist, but also because the not-so-good things, the difficult things, are more telling. More personal. More revealing. Vulnerability is the hottest flame of my psyche.


Reading in bed to begin the day.
A full refrigerator.
Three and a half more days off from work

Losing my temper with my children.
Losing my temper with myself.
Ankles dotted with very itchy mosquito bites.


As I sit here, trying to decide whether to hit publish or to try to make this something more, I feel stirred, uncomfortable, slightly hungry. It is noon. I have no plans this afternoon beyond reading another novel, later making dinner. I’m trying to enjoy the time I have to do nothing other than this, but I find myself, daily, feeling as if I am wasting this time. That I should be accomplishing more during my week off. More projects. More writing, More cleaning, organizing. More behaviors that may somehow get me closer to what I think I want. A cleaner home. A nicer backyard. A book contract. But all of those things seem so unattainable, and I am paralyzed by the unknowing. And the piles of books to be read are limitless and, truthfully, add up to something completed. To progress. Another one read. Another book closer to my annual reading goal. Is that what I really want? To be able to show accomplishment? To be able to reach a goal, albeit one that means nothing to anyone but me?


Honesty.
The scent of lilacs.
4.5 miles behind me.


Stay safe, everyone.

Some days are better than others

Exposed