Creative Procrastination
I sat down in front of the wrong computer this morning. Starting the day off the tracks makes it nearly impossible to get things running smoothly. And this Tuesday feels like a Monday, what with everything going just slightly wrong. I ordered the wrong paper weight, the vellum buckled like crazy even when I put the wet glued pages under three coffee-table books, and now it feels like there is a tightening vice pressing my temples.
And Leonard is begging for peanut butter, nudging my arm so that typing is impossible.
I think my lithium levels might be slightly off. So I keep eating on an upset stomach, as though weighing the nausea down will help. I’m eating Leonard’s peanut butter.
And I’m not supposed to eat peanut butter.
So: how do you take yourself by the ears and whip yourself crisp like a sheet coming off the clothesline? How do you unwind when you’ve turned yourself in circles like a bit of twine that’s begun doubling down, vertical knotting into horizontal, tight wriggling.
Becoming Cordage would be a nice title for a memoir if anyone knew what that meant.
Last night we walked on the beach. I wondered what got into the world since the usually vacant beach was bustling at six in the evening on a windy Monday. The fresh air was relaxing. But I wonder if the wind and the wild surf roused something in me. Or roused an awareness.
I can’t shake a sense of urgency. The word impending keeps coming to my mind. And so I put off all the things I’m supposed to be doing. Staving off… who knows what? I’ve a to-do list of tasks, projects. I have a stack of books on the floor that need to be shelved. The living room needs vacuuming. Leonard’s claws need clipping. But I can’t move.
I play with Gimp. With PhotoScape X. I write a twitter poem.
Failure.
That’s what’s impending.
Why is it that every time I circle back to the same damn fears, they are unrecognizable?
ocher paint on cream
paper – a stippling of blue
because wrong turns happen
like a maple’s samara
falling into the birdbath
stillborn
