stop look listen

I wish I could say that the above isn't true right now for ricebag but I really can't. Coming back from India I have felt raw and sensitive and ... just crap really. Bit tired of ME. Of being me. Not in a my-life-is-crap kind of way because my life is definitely not crap. But in a kind of sick-of-the-sound-of-my-own-voice kind of way. Bit over myself. Over me. Wouldn't mind entering some cone of silence for like a month and just not do or say a thing. What I am learning again (because the first 15 times obviously isn't enough for this turtle) is that everyone needs quiet time. To quiet their heads and their mouths and their ears and just be still. And it's my time for that quiet time again - but because I am now on the worker bee treadmill, I am going to have to figure out another way to do that because repeating the historical ricebag litany of literally dropping life and running solo to the blanketed hills of some no-name 'other' country, just isn't going to cut it this time.

On Saturday as I was driving home from my cousin's wedding the loveliest Jaybird rang me and we discussed a separate and quiet melancholy both of us seem are experiencing right now and I said something which I know to be true - we, all of us, need these pensive, somber and dispirited funks - they are the stones at the other end of the fulcrum and their weight helps to balance us so that we can understand and appreciate joy, hope and cheer. But much more than that, feeling low (NOT depressed or despondent but just out-of-your-own-skin) acts like a lever for triggering remorse - for a particular thing or no particular thing at all. And that can mean, at the very least, an examination of your own conscience. It's that old Newtonian thing - every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

So I accept my funk. I don't relish it because examining my weaknesses is an uncomfortable exercise - but I am grateful for it. It's my own body's way of telling me to stop, look and listen. And learn. So I am. And I am shutting up. And I am closing up shop. For a while. In a way.