Fresh Look

Today things look better. I apologize for the crack about menopausal felines, as perhaps I am one of their ilk. (I've always preferred canines, truly.) But an afternoon's walk on the beach in the sun can place much in perspective. Maybe it's all the death at one's toes, or the wonderful simplicity of birds feeding.

I've been trying to figure out why I'm so burnt out. My day job has involved an awful lot of back and forthing between attorneys, it's true, to no great constructive purpose that I can see. Business seems to be a matter of projects, and one of the good things is that there are resolution points. They don't last forever, maybe, but they're attainable. So when I'm involved in a process where there appears to be a willful refusal to attain any such resolution point, I become frustrated.

This is especially true when there is no time allowed for life in the interstices. I've been in the process of editing my manuscript for a year. I've written new portions, but I haven't had the opportunity to start anything new and I'm so stale in the dailyness of everything that I perceive it as misery. It's really not misery, though. Misery is illness. Stress is merely stress, and I don't handle it well.

We need help with stress, as people, as a country. That's what fuels the beer and wine industries. That's what sells tranquillizers, too, and supports many of the fitness emporia. In the past couple of years, I've become unable to enjoy the first of these, tolerate the second and have very many options to engage the third. Maybe that's why I miss the place my mind goes when I'm beginning a story.

I really miss it terribly.