Yesterday when I was trying to read I was overcome with sleepiness. It happens sometimes. My favorite reading chair is in a window through which sun often floods. I get sun woozy and close my eyes. I am neither awake nor asleep. I drift until suddenly, often in five or ten minutes, I pop up like cork. Yesterday was different. I slept deeply and, although I'm not exactly sure how long, for more than an hour. I woke up around 11:00.
A minute ago (it feels like a minute ago) I wrote a post about morning reading. I'd taken to reading on mornings when I wasn't going swimming and I really enjoyed it. It felt indulgent and luxurious. Now every day is a day that I don't go swimming. After a week or so of morning reading that stretched into afternoon reading, I realized the days were losing shape. I started having breakfast, doing the yoga/bike wheels, taking a shower and getting dressed. Then I settle into the chair and read. Often I split my breakfast into parts. This morning I had cereal and milk. Did all the things. Made a cup of coffee. Got a slice of cranberry bread and then settled in.
It didn't make sense that I was so tired yesterday. I'd slept well. 11:00 is when I have been stopping the reading to post my poem fragment, check email and the like. But I really wanted to read! I kept trying to believe that it didn't matter if I posted at 11:00. I could read for awhile. All scheduling is arbitrary. But I could not concentrate.
I have a bunch of pillows on my bed. It a long silly story. They are decorative. My bed is adjustable so I am never propped up on them. In the evening I take them off and pile them up beside the bed and after the yoga/bike wheels I put them all back on the bed. It takes (maybe) two minutes. When the morning reading stretched into afternoon I often didn't put them back. It didn't seem to matter. Even when I changed my current rhythm (because that's what it is) (rhythm) I wasn't putting the pillows up. One day I looked at the pile and ... just put them up. When I walk down the hall during the day and see them they look pretty and I feel happy.
Before the virus my days were somewhat fluid. But there are these little demarcations. Oh it's time for Chris Hayes and Rachel. Time to put on the PJ's and get whatever I'm going to eat and get in front of the television. Oh it's time to move from the living room to the library and read or watch something fun. I check my watch all the time. As if it matters.
I have long believed that these little rituals that shape our day give us a kind of continuity. Some times it's good to ignore them. Take a break. But the structure of a given day gives us (or at least me) an unconscious comfort.
I feel relentlessly distracted. Always. But particularly right now. There is something nagging in the back of my mind. Something I can't quite track. Because there is no track. We are all wandering in the land of uncertainty.
Taking a shower. Pillows on the bed. Pajamas and the news. It all matters.
1 comment:
I think many of us who also live alone can relate, Tish. I've asked myself just lately if I am acting a bit OCD making my bed each morning, arranging the afghan my mother crocheted "just so" at the foot. Or keeping up with the dishes, or vacuuming, even.
But as you point out, there's a satisfaction to it. The bed is ready for me, and until then, the room looks nice. When I walk into the tidy kitchen, I can launch right in to food prep. Keeping as much momentum on my rhythms helps me cope with the Large Unknown.
Stay well!
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