in-between
On Saturday I leave for my long-awaited trip to Maine. There I will stay in a simple, familiar rented cottage near the water within walking distance of shops, restaurants, library and post office. I’ll be less than ten minutes from my son and granddaughter, Cadi. My other son will be flying in from New Mexico and staying with me in the house. We’re all getting together to celebrate Cadi’s second birthday.
I am very much looking forward to going, but I am in a pre-trip slump. I only just realized that this is often what happens a couple of days before a trip. I become almost immobilized. This afternoon, rather than do anyone of the myriad of things I could do to get ready, to clean house before leaving, to work on my website, to work on the projects lined up in the sidebar of my life 
, instead I went downstairs, got a piece of cake and watched junk-tv >PSYCHIC TWINS!!< and (at the same time) played alchemy on my laptop for approximately two hours.
It's so unusual for me to watch tv in the middle of the day, that when I do, there is a residual feeling that I've done something >a little< wrong. I haven't always felt guilty about goofing off. I used to watch a lot of tv. I used to waste a lot of time. Perhaps I still waste as much time as I always did but now when I waste time, it's on the computer so somehow it doesn't seem quite so vapid.
Anyway, this blog, my life, my writings are NOT about beating myself up. I used to do a lot of that too. But I'm past that. If I need to eat cake and watch tv for a while, I'm just grateful to have the time to do it. No, this is about reflecting on energy levels. I would be lying to myself if I didn't acknowledge that there has been a LOT going on in my life for the last two weeks that have led me to need a day of goofing off. And even though events lately have had an unusually dramatic flair, it's always the case that an upcoming trip is preceded by a set of more or less engaging life events. So maybe that's my answer to the pre-trip slump.
Perhaps it's because a trip marks the beginning of a new story. The slump is me resisting or not quite knowing how to write the last sentence of the story I'm in right now. Tomorrow as I flash through packing, cleaning, doing, I'll jot down the final sentence and period. I'll write the words, "THE END" and when I get in that car early on Saturday morning and begin that almost-impossibly long, increasingly familiar trip, it'll be a brand new page.
THE PHOTOGRAPH: taken in my dining room. The dragonfly (my favorite bug!) is pinned to an obi that I picked up in a textile fair in Connecticut years ago. The sun has faded the fabric which was old when I got it. I’ve thought about moving it out of the sun but I have decided in favor of letting it age where it is. It’s a small vignette in my home which I never think about but which love.
ROLLER COASTER: on the level
WRITING: NetWorld - a short story
LOVING: this blog
NEEDING: a good long walk by myself
HOPING: for sunny weather in Maine next week
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