The Runner
I’ve been frazzled. Of late, I mean. More than lazy, and unwillingly so. Slothful. In a fleshy way. A messy way.
So you see, it isn’t only the writing I have put off. It’s the bowl of cereal, the cereal all ate, with a ring of hardened soy milk fossilizing to its center, on my night table, among scattered bottles of body cream and such. It’s especially the piles of clean clothes stacking up, pilling up new dust and cat hairs. And the piles, papers, envelops, photocopied insurance slips, newspapers and magazines on running, news, wars and American foreign policy. My cats have stumbled their way through my curtains, which now shows a hole like a gash. Have I tried to clip it back? No. I’ve mentioned that it’s time to change them. They’ve been turning from white to yellow, what with the rays of the sun, and all. My surroundings are in a state of disarray. Even Ben has started to complain about it. He asked me this morning if it’s the result of some instruction from my therapist, some sort of way to “let things go.” A pattern practice, maybe? But no. It’s completely natural, unprompted, and spontaneous.
The collage I put together for Oma’s funeral — propped up on a bookshelf, fell behind it, mangling the photos. It’s been like this for a while. I haven’t put them away. Pressed them down, back in their proper photo albums. I’ve left it as such. Mangled. And part of me feels this is sacrilegious. Or that’s it’s a sad metaphor. Of me and her. I tell myself often that I will put them away. Like I tell myself that I will compile those insurance bills and send my claim, to receive a much desired return. But days pass. Ben picks up the yucky cereal bowl and adds it to the dishes he practically always washes by himself. He doesn’t clean up after me, as he shouldn’t. So the rest of my things remain in disarray.
One shouldn’t think that I am a complete slob. I do go to work. And I do look presentable. Why, just last week I got a hair cut. I work good long hours. My bosses are satisfied with me. On my off-hours, I run. I’m training for the half-marathon. 21 kilometers of meditation. Closed in on myself. The pith of me. I’m quite disciplined. My determination surprises me. (I won’t call it stubbornness: too pejorative.) I’ve come to think that if I wrote as much as I run, I’d have the base of something finished already. But I’ve put off writing. I don’t know why. Quite spontaneously, naturally. Not to think black on white? Maybe. Most likely just not to think.
Walking in the park last night, I remembered how much I went there last year. Last year, I knew the ducks by heart. And morning had a different light. And it was god awful hot outside. Writing my thesis, caught in that moment, I could not have imagined how far time and space can propel you in the span of one year. It’s all so different. Hardly recognizable. And part of me suspects (and voices only when that one drink too many has been consumed) that I will get bored. Surely, I will get bored.
So you see, it isn’t only the writing I have put off. It’s the bowl of cereal, the cereal all ate, with a ring of hardened soy milk fossilizing to its center, on my night table, among scattered bottles of body cream and such. It’s especially the piles of clean clothes stacking up, pilling up new dust and cat hairs. And the piles, papers, envelops, photocopied insurance slips, newspapers and magazines on running, news, wars and American foreign policy. My cats have stumbled their way through my curtains, which now shows a hole like a gash. Have I tried to clip it back? No. I’ve mentioned that it’s time to change them. They’ve been turning from white to yellow, what with the rays of the sun, and all. My surroundings are in a state of disarray. Even Ben has started to complain about it. He asked me this morning if it’s the result of some instruction from my therapist, some sort of way to “let things go.” A pattern practice, maybe? But no. It’s completely natural, unprompted, and spontaneous.
The collage I put together for Oma’s funeral — propped up on a bookshelf, fell behind it, mangling the photos. It’s been like this for a while. I haven’t put them away. Pressed them down, back in their proper photo albums. I’ve left it as such. Mangled. And part of me feels this is sacrilegious. Or that’s it’s a sad metaphor. Of me and her. I tell myself often that I will put them away. Like I tell myself that I will compile those insurance bills and send my claim, to receive a much desired return. But days pass. Ben picks up the yucky cereal bowl and adds it to the dishes he practically always washes by himself. He doesn’t clean up after me, as he shouldn’t. So the rest of my things remain in disarray.
One shouldn’t think that I am a complete slob. I do go to work. And I do look presentable. Why, just last week I got a hair cut. I work good long hours. My bosses are satisfied with me. On my off-hours, I run. I’m training for the half-marathon. 21 kilometers of meditation. Closed in on myself. The pith of me. I’m quite disciplined. My determination surprises me. (I won’t call it stubbornness: too pejorative.) I’ve come to think that if I wrote as much as I run, I’d have the base of something finished already. But I’ve put off writing. I don’t know why. Quite spontaneously, naturally. Not to think black on white? Maybe. Most likely just not to think.
Walking in the park last night, I remembered how much I went there last year. Last year, I knew the ducks by heart. And morning had a different light. And it was god awful hot outside. Writing my thesis, caught in that moment, I could not have imagined how far time and space can propel you in the span of one year. It’s all so different. Hardly recognizable. And part of me suspects (and voices only when that one drink too many has been consumed) that I will get bored. Surely, I will get bored.
posted by julie at
10:17 a.m.
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