Holidays

Lately I can feel myself closing down, day by day. I don't want to write anything. Or maybe I want to write in a real journal, by hand. Tonight I'll try here though, because I haven't been journaling, and not writing tends not to be good for me, after a while. Not that I feel I have much to say.


Chloe is home, very briefly. Last night I lay on the living room floor (beneath the ceiling fan, if you must know) and for a moment I thought I heard the rain. Then I suddenly realized that when she types, her keystrokes sound like gentle raindrops. Mine are somewhat less delicate. She has to leave again tomorrow night, and I already miss her. I feel like she's been home no time at all, and I am not looking forward to becoming reacquainted with her absence. Who will borrow my scarves and shoes and purses? She doesn't hug and kiss me goodnight anymore, unless I hug her first.


I was in a terrible mood on the way to Thanksgiving dinner in Norfolk, but Jim called to wish me a happy Thanksgiving, and that helped some. And my impossibly large, strong, loud, and loving family helped. I love them. I love Thanksgiving. I took video of our sung blessings, and took to heart some of the words:
His name be ever praised; he forgets not his own.


There are so many Christmas gifts I'd like to buy for my family that I just can't afford. It's a shame. And I guess I go through phases of contentment and lack thereof with regard to my existence, though when I'm in the contentment phase I so love to hopefully pretend that it's a real, forever change. That I am at peace with myself and God and the universe. That I am enlightened. Zen.
Alas: such, once again, does not seem to be the case. I'm doing alright--just feeling rootless again. Utterly directionless. I need a goal. Never before, that I remember, has a goal seemed so necessary to the act of breathing--but it certainly does now. This trackless sea seems airless, too.


Tonight, as I stepped out to walk Miley, the sky was overcast with a thin cover of clouds. At the bottom of the hill I threw myself into a leaf pile, as is my wont on evenings such as this (Miley was, as ever, reluctantly patient), and looked up through the trees at the pinkish, sodium-light sky. I tried unsuccessfully to convince our short dog into the deep leaves, then gave up and silently remarked to myself how very comfortable leaf piles are, and how nice it would be to sleep in one if I didn't have a dog attached to my wrist and a family that would worry and if I had a warmer coat, and then talked myself back onto my feet. On the way home, the wind picked up and the clouds began to run by above. The previously hidden stars glowed through the cloud cover for a moment, and then burst out and shone like bright and sparkling moonlit snowflakes.
I love the night.