random thoughts on a tuesday

I am wondering if I want to do the 10-day early morning Christmas mass from the 16th to the 25th as a kind of prayer petition. I have never done it before. Maybe I will have first-timer's luck.

I am wondering whether I will have sealed the deal on a job or a big project before the year ends. There are many prospects hanging in the air, hovering like indifferent spacecrafts sizing a planet for takeover.

I am wondering if I could exorcise this particular dream wrapped around my heart before my heart breaks from the sheer weight and heat of it. This particular dream of a hope of someone. This thing that I thought I had safely put to sleep. I am wondering if I could manage to just not care, and instead pour all that energy and fervor into something else, like an artwork or a novel.

I am wondering how much time and effort it will take to save up enough for a trip to England. My desire for it surpasses how I felt for my little pilgrimage to Athens, Georgia in 2000 (where I left a hand-bound and handwritten book of poetry at Michael Stipe's old home - yes, I'm kind of crazy that way.)

As Christmas approaches I feel less of it. For one thing, its commercial grip could find no purchase in me. My own Christmas gift list has been dictated by necessity and intensity. It is a very short list, and most of it I will make by hand, with whatever material is available. Little labors of love in little parcels, made with very little time to spare. I seem to be running out of many things - money, patience, time, hope. For everyone else I will send out good intentions and I hope I have enough of that as well.

But I am not unhappy. That is probably the unusual thing. Normally I would be unhappy given the circumstances. I am not. It is puzzling. My life hangs in a precarious balance and all I could feel is a strange stillness inside me.

I have been in a sort of daze for the past few days. As if one foot is stuck in fairyland or dreamland or some other plane of existence. I have this urge to sleep all day and stay within the safety of my bed. I seem to sleepwalk through the hours, barely able to eat, fingers itching constantly for a pen or a pencil or a keyboard. Writing grounds me a bit, makes me feel less like floating, reins in my thoughts from wandering too frequently in one direction ("She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me..." - Mr. Darcy, Pride And Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Reading helps sometimes. But sometimes the stories pull me deeper and away. They keep me up at night,  playing with the shadows on the walls.

My dreams alternate between orderly attempts at symbolic prophecy and chaotic chases through obstacle courses. Clever distortions of my desires.

I was planning to have a dress made for a party but at the last minute I changed my mind. Instead I went through my now-meager closet and looked for something close to what I wanted (a bit Austen-era-inspired, empire cut, scooped neckline, work in a few ribbons and lace).  The dress would not matter much. But how I am while I'm in it would. At the very least it has enough sleeve to hide my heart.

My life right now is a cliffhanger. A series season-ender. A storm waiting to break.