Unstuck

Have you ever felt…stuck? Stuck. Frustrated by the same things. Annoyed that what annoys you is starting to both annoy and bore you. Feeling that what you want is so close, and yet not. No, wait. You don’t even know what you want. So how can you know it’s close?

Meaning to mean something and hearing with horror as the words from your mouth come out differently than you intended. The intention, twisting, spinning round and round as you see it going…down the drain. Of course you need to do something differently. But, what?

And then, suddenly, inexplicably, you’re unstuck. You speak, unsure of what to say, and watch in awe how it comes out…right. Things you used to swim against the current for drop. On your lap. Free. Your lost friend calls you. Your business prospers. What used to matter doesn’t. Really. You suddenly – oh! - understand.

I’m not sure what causes the change. I think it’s a current, an invisible current that we have no control over (although we like to think we do) that runs through everything. When it switches direction you marvel at the consequences it leaves in its wake.

Or maybe it’s that life is like a kaleidoscope. You look through the eyehole, rotate it ever so slightly, less than a fraction of a millimeter, to find the picture has changed, the prisms, the colors, everything has shifted, and the world looks better now.

Photo: bindweed.com

Why

An orquestra from inside the orquestra me conducting a priceless violin a lot of work a vacation on a beach the unexpectedly loud sound of waves beating against rocks the fact that I started reading again a lot four books a week discovering a new favorite author losing something I had found finding something I had lost learning remembering how much I love to learn so hungry for learning having many questions without answers watching one of my favorite movies ever needing to look inside to listen to myself not knowing what to pick having too much to say nothing to say nothing to add feeling kind of blah and then feeling motivation new fresh knowing you misplace people along the way but feeling regret despite the knowing wondering if it’s just a scrape or a deeper crack something irreparable watching things unfold hurting someone I really didn’t mean to hurt recovering an incredible stroke of luck a fantastic restaurant salsa negra feeling like it doesn’t matter it never mattered

Just a few of the reasons I haven’t written

Photo: Wikipedia

Without me

I'm out of town this week, and my husband is at home without me.

Luca, who likes coffee but drinks tea, who sleeps on his left side, who likes black beans but not peas, who yodels when I make eggs for breakfast, who loves Springsteen but not Bocelli, whom I love with the unvarying strength of the summer sun, will be home alone.

I predict he'll eat well under the minimum daily requirement of vegetables and more pizza than anyone would recommend. He will watch so much calcio his brain might ooze out of his ears. He'll listen to a constant stream of music, as I suspect he's not too fond of silence.

I will come home to a relatively organized house but a really messy home office, papers strewn everywhere. And piles of smelly laundry. He'll forget to water the yard.

I wonder if he'll feel the weight of the spaces I leave empty. If he'll come home and shout a greeting despite knowing there is no one there, like I do. If he'll stick to his side of the bed or stretch out. (He'll use all the pillows. That's for sure.) If he'll prefer to read than to watch television (I guess it depends on the sports programming.)

He'll finish his big fat book and I won't be there to witness him proving me wrong (I told him it would take him a year to finish it.) He'll use my bathroom to shower, but his body wash, because he refuses beauty products that are not specifically designed for the male species. He'll forget where he left things, like his slippers, and he'll wish that I was around to tell him where they are. (Hmmm. I should have hid them.)

He might secretly enjoy looking at his computer screen for 18 hours straight, free of interruptions. Finish the ice cream. Leave things that belong in the fridge out on the kitchen counter. Refuse to unload the dishwasher.

I hope he misses me, but I hope he doesn't get lonely. I hope he discovers what a pleasure his company is. I think so, anyway.

Whole

I woke up this morning
I could barely breathe
Just an empty impression
In the bed where you used to be
I want a kiss from your lips
I want an eye for an eye
I woke up this morning
To an empty sky

"Lonely" is not the word I would choose to describe how I feel when Luca is away. It's more caustic than that. It's a gnawing, a crawling, a primal contraction, unclassifiable. It's closer to fear than to isolation.

It was on Luca's latest business trip that I finally realized this sentiment is ridiculous. Not because I love him any less (never) but because love demands that you be better for it. But it’s hard to shoot for personal improvement when you are focused on trying to breathe.

So I went back to the most basic truth: for all my shortcomings (higher than average), I was created whole. Nobody's absence can possibly render me incomplete.

My life is enriched by the fact that I share it with Luca but on my deathbed I would regret the waste of wanting to skip the parts where he is not with me.

So he went to Australia, and I stayed behind. I rediscovered how much I like being alone. I enjoyed the silence, beauty and symmetric order of my house. I slept in the middle of the bed, diagonally. (Eureka - the antidote for imprints left on mattresses). I went on long hikes, read far into the night, discovered a spellbinding new author (and bookmooched all her work after reading that brilliant first one), went to lunch and coffee and visits with friends I hadn't seen (one in eleven months), attended a cozy housewarming/birthday party, bought flowers and plants for my yard and cooked elaborate meals for myself. I'd never bothered to cook for one, but, you know what? I'd be hard pressed to find a more appreciative audience.

This might be nothing to you, but when I woke up on Sunday morning and lay still to feel the cadence of my heartbeats and knew I had a beautiful day stretched out before me, I wanted to tell Bruce Springsteen that my sky is blue and crisp and anything but empty.

Drunk under the lamppost

My friend Nikhil recently told me the following joke:

A drunk loses the keys to his house and is looking for them under a lamppost. A policeman comes over and asks what he’s doing.

“I’m looking for my keys” he says. “I lost them over there”.

The policeman looks puzzled. “Then why are you looking for them all the way over here?”

“Because the light is so much better”.

We all look for things where the light is better, rather than where we’re more likely to find them. In words of Anais Nin, “we don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are”.

If this is true - and, who am I kidding? of course it is - I worry that we all stagger around, destined to be misunderstood. Or, worse. We’re all methodically, apocalyptically misunderstood, and it’s too dark to notice.

The instant karma of bookmooching

Bookmooch is a simple to use book swapping site. You register and give away books and in exchange mooch books from other people. You only pay for the price of shipping a book when you send one, which is how you collect points. In this way, receiving a book you’ve chosen is free.

I’ve commented before that books deserve a better life than to live on a cold shelf. Most of us read a book once, and then abandon it. In this way, a book fulfills its destiny: it’s held, appreciated and read by one, then passed on to be held and read again, indefinitely.

Sharing books also saves resources. Why buy a new book when what you want is lying around somewhere, unused?

I can’t promise I’ll never visit another bookstore, but I’ll definitely go less often now that I can mooch.

It's not about the wait

There is this balding, red haired guy in a building that I frequent. He's short and has a potbelly, red, wind burned cheeks and bloodshot eyes. He's missing a few teeth and usually has a two-day beard and a wrinkled uniform.

He's the guard on duty in the morning, and likes to stand with his hands behind his back against the elevator button. As I rush in, I can't push it at will. I have to wait instead until he decides to summon the elevator for me.

If, as I enter the lobby, one of the doors is closing, my impulse is to rush to push the button and stop the elevator, but, (you guessed it) with his body as an obstacle, my reflex must be suppressed. I have to stand there while he lets the car in question go, waits a couple of beats and then invisibly, so that I can’t be sure if he's done it at all, calls the next one.

I know what you're thinking, and I've openly admitted that patience is not one of my strongest characteristics. But this has only a little bit to do with the wait. This man relishes the fact that he alone dictates the rhythm of the people who venture into his territory.

We all trot in, clueless, out of breath, holding our briefcases and gym bags, balancing coffee cups and Blackberries, phones and Bluetooth headsets, and as he stops us in our tracks I turn and catch in that sad, haggard face an oh-so-slight lilt in the corner of his mouth, the faintest hint of a smile.

Photo from www.industry.org.il