dried up

I keep telling myself this is temporary. It won't last forever. Those are the phrases I keep repeating to console myself.

There are reasons, I tell myself. I have many reasons for feeling like I'll never write another word that is interesting. I wonder if anything I have ever written is interesting. I wonder if perhaps I shouldn't take my writing and just hang the cd's from the scarecrow in the garden this summer -- not that I actually even have a scarecrow. Certainly the stuff I bled all over my handwritten journals should probably be shredded and burned. It might not even burn, damn it!

I'm so stuck that I feel like I am glued to this chair. I'll just continue to sit here, maybe connected intravenously to the coffee pot, munching on the most grossly artery-plugging junk food I can find, slowly swelling up, growing bigger and bigger, bulging out of the chair, until finally I just leak out onto the floor, on and on...like some giant, disgusting fungus-like science-fiction monster.

Did I mention I have reasons? Hmmmm. Now what were they? Oh. Maybe one of them was the overwhelming newness of a new computer and it's new operating systems. Maybe it's because all the bugs haven't been worked out yet. Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I'm worried that all the negotiations I have been making to arrange my trip to Ethiopia will just fizzle out because I'm too tired to finish anything. Maybe I just don't know where to start with the mundane chores I've been neglecting: the dishes, the laundry, the garbage, the tidying. Paperwork and bills are piling up. Changes I have contemplated making towards getting a new and different paying job mean taking action that I haven't taken. I'm worrying that I'm not keeping an eye on Misty, caring for her after her surgery, as well as I should. I'm worried that I'm missing symptoms of possible complications because I don't feel confident in my powers of observation. A new and expensive supposedly squirrel-proof bird feeder isn't. Spider mites on the lemon verbena and the hibiscus are taking over. The rosemary is probably unhappy in the warmth of the south-facing window. Even daydreaming about the plans for the coming season's gardens seems like a chore. I haven't even started to order any seeds yet because I don't know what it is I might want.

Oh. And then there's guilt. I haven't talked to any of my kids for days or is it weeks? I miss hanging out with my Granddaughter. I haven't done lunch for ages with M. or F. or K. or C.. I wonder if I'm even capable of meaningful relationships.

OK. That's what I feel like. Maybe I shouldn't resist it, allow myself this day to feel miserable. Some more rational part of me is trying to remind me that I have had some marvelous fun lately, very recently in fact: a dinner party, great conversations, nourishing heart-to-hearts with understanding friends, glorious snow, brilliant sunshine, birds at the feeders. I'm going to ignore my conscience which is telling me to be grateful today. I'm going to be a grump just for today and wallow in it. Maybe after getting thoroughly disgusting, I'll get it out of my system. Then perhaps, the inspiration will return and I'll be re-energized.

I dreamed last night that I was stripping wallpaper from a wall in an old house. This house, (the house I live in, not the abandoned house across my laneway of the photos above) but only vaguely so. It was incredibly satisfying and I was happy.