pace
I’m feeling more like myself and I think it has a lot to do with being on my own. Having the house to myself, that is. I miss having my own place, but I’m starting to figure out my next step, so there’s progress. And by “starting to figure out” what I really mean is I’ve known all along, but I’m not running from it anymore. Or at least I’m wearing out. I wish I could have the same philosophy with my future in writing as I have with cooking—what Julia Child said, “what the hell.” Just let it go. I’m getting there.
For yesterday being the first day of my period I looked tremendously like a boy wearing my baseball cap to work because my face is a mine field for one (I feel like I’m sixteen again), and two, I felt like keeping to myself and there’s something distancing about covering your head and shading your eyes. One of my coworkers stared me down as I entered the room, studying my Giants hat with a tripped tongue like he couldn’t decide which trash-talk insult to throw out first. I just looked at him. And today I’m celebrating my period with sushi and a slice of carrot cake from Cravings. And then I have a date with my grandpa on Friday at a restaurant that never fails to put my stomach in a state of meditative bliss.
Starting this writer’s group has to be the best thing I’ve done since I graduated. I remember my friend Craig, when I had first gotten the group together, warned me that I’d be lucky if we met more than three times before it petered out. We’ve got you beat, sir, and tomorrow we’re having a potluck to celebrate. Celebrate what? I don’t know, the fact that we all dig being around each other and talking about writing. I always feel refreshed after our Thursday night meetings. It’s a reminder that I can do anything and that I know what that something is. That’s a feeling I too quickly forget on a day to day basis.
I woke up in the middle of the night last night as part of this recent trend of what I presume to be some kind of menstrual induced insomnia (though I’ve never experienced anything like it before, so really I’m just making that up) and I decided, this time, I’d try the old trick that worked so well in television shows like Full House. I followed the dark hallways and stairs to my kitchen, poured some milk into a mug and warmed it up. I sat at the kitchen table sipping on the milk which had lightly sweetened with the heat and I waited. I found myself in bed twenty minutes later, seduced to sleep.
Slowing down.
