It's a gorgeous day out there, I've been to the gym and worked out, we had a productive, if long, board meeting last night, I've gotten a few votes in the blog awards competition, I'm not scheduled to leave for Vashon till tomorrow-----------I should be feeling pretty UP. And at least I'm not feeling down. But "blah" just doesn't cut it for me. And it doesn't usually produce a blog post, either.
But today it's going to.
I don't feel very interested in anything right now. And I'm not sure why. There's nothing serious enough in my life to actually worry about; there's nothing thrilling enough in my life to enthuse about; if anything, I feel tired of the same old, same old.
I was thinking about sermons this morning; I would like very much to increase my preaching schedule for the next church year. I think it would stimulate me to start caring more about what's happening in the world, rather than observing it all and sighing wearily.
What am I sighing wearily about these days? The presidential campaign which has already shifted into "what can we get this guy/gal saying on national TV that will get our viewers' attention?". The propensity of sane people to deny responsibility for stupid actions, whether they are national figures or local yokels. The endless arguments about climate change, some of which fly in the face of common sense, as in "quintupling the population of the planet has nothing to do with the extra greenhouse gases in the atmosphere".
And then there's Seattle's ongoing effort to deal with their traffic headaches in expensive and controversial ways. The ongoing east/west battle in the state of Washington, with the east side of the mountains being stubbornly conservative (not necessarily in a bad way) and the west side being stubbornly righteous about their liberal behavior (not necessarily in a bad way).
To say nothing of Exxon Mobil's immense profits in 2006, at the expense of the environment and the consumer. Or Congress' partisan conflicts over ideologies. Or Bush's babblings about how we can win in Iraq despite the growing wisdom to the contrary.
I guess I may have gone into "blah" mode to protect my sanity. Everything I've mentioned is worthy of a rant, but I just can't work one up. Molly Ivins always did it for me, but she's ahead of us all now, doing whatever the deceased do, wherever they do it. Or not. At least she's finished the book now; she knows the ending, whereas we do not.
So what is even slightly interesting to me right now? My island friends' stories about squirrels in the house. Training the cat not to yowl at the door to come in or go out (hah!). Checking the blog awards hourly. Wondering how much rent credit my landlord will give me because the basement is still in disrepair. (note: $600!)
And underneath it all is the beginning of an itch----to do a restart on my personal creativity and passion for this work. I think I have been so drained by winter's neediness that I need a resurrection. Maybe I'll go for a walk on the beach.
3 comments:
I recommend taking up knitting. It's a good indoor sport for winter, but it's challenging and (once you get the hang of it) creative. You live in a knitter's paradise--though knitting is becoming so popular that nearly any town of 20,000 can be a knitter's paradise if it has a decent LYS (Local Yarn Store).
And it's a good way to meet people. Take some lessons at your LYS and you'll discover a whole new world out there.
If you already knit, pick up those needles and get busy! Read knitting blogs! Whet your appetite! Challenge yourself with something really hard or really different.
Life is not all about work, you know. Go play with something.
I'm not sure that I can recommend knitting, although occasionally I have been the beneficiary of that activity. It is indeed time for cabin fever, as we called it in Vermont at this time of year.
One of my undergrad students wished me a good Groundhog Day on her anatomy quiz today. In this part of the world, south of western Lake Erie, the groundhog would have seen his shadow today, indicating six more weeks of winter. Indeed, from my years in in Vermont I remember the last swirls of snow sparkling in the sunshine of early May one year, which amazed me.
And I am occasionally having sober thoughts about the truck that drove into the right back corner of my station wagon early Wednesday morning when I was on the way to work. I had no physical injuries, although the wagon will not be the same for a while, but such things are very steadying. Memento mori, something like that.
We both are waiting to see the outcome of this silly business of the blog elections. I was surprised to see that more people than I was aware of seem to have gotten something out of some of my short sketches and comments. And you have also seen signs of appreciation: a pleasant set of the laity has joined me in nominating you and voting for your ministerial pieces written by someone able to project being a human amid humans and a woman in the middle of life. Awards are probably not to be assumed likely after a fairly short time out, but to have a certain number of people notice one favorably is more than I expected for myself. It has been a productive activity for you in terms of your degree and nature of connectedness, I think.
So, as you told me recently,
it is time to relax (and not try to fix the world all at once). My impression is that the role of minister has to involve setting some local priorities as to how much of the world to save, and which parts. And to do that well one probably should not be too hard on onself, would be my guess, although you surely know better than I do. I hope that you had a good walk on the beach, under the eyes of those soaring northern gulls.
LinguistFriend
Well, I didn't get over to the beach, but I did stop by a friend's house and give her cat Ophelia some pastoral care. Ophie had her tail in a twist because C & R are taking care of a dog; Oph and I are buds and she likes to crawl into my lap and tell me all her troubles.
So that helped. Plus I went to the Langley bookstore (Moonraker--great name, huh?) and picked up the latest Sister Fidelma mystery (Peter Tremayne is the author).
Wait, this is turning into a post.
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