Day: February 6, 2017

Hot and cold

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Real life mirrors the thoughts. Floods of thoughts on the juxtaposition of hot and cold, all its meanings, spill over into literal hot and cold. The heating in my house is out again. My neighbors will have to help fix it, but the neighbor is away on holiday so will have to contact his son to help. Meanwhile I will run, dance, climb up (and down) the stairs, hula hoop, jump like a fool throughout my house as the temperature drops.

I am trying for the moment to look at it as a strange kind of blessing. I read an article last week about how the human body is not made for the kind of constant idle comfort we generally live in.

“Until very recently, there was not a time when comfort could be taken for granted—there was always a balance between the effort we expended and the downtime we earned. For the bulk of that time, we managed these feats without even a shred of what anyone today would consider modern technology. Instead, we had to be strong to survive.”

Yes, maybe I do not need to live in this icebox forever, but I also do not need to live in “a perpetual state of homeostasis”. I did after all try to wake my mind and heart from a comatose state as the new year began, as well as my body – this just pushes it up to a whole new level. The level where you never get warm again.

Photo (c) 2007 Jonas Bengtsson

drop like a rock

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It is strange how disrupting a routine can set an emotional downturn into motion. Getting tired and overstimulated by socializing, and then feeling a great urge to sleep and do nothing else turns the mind inside-out. The great productivity and motivation of the past six weeks gives way to at least a couple of days of despondency, feeling a certain emptiness that feels like it comes suddenly, from nowhere. But all the signs that it would arrive were waiting to ignite, alongside a building resignation.

At least it only lasted for about two sleep-filled days. Now it is – and I am – back to normal. I suppose that is what we always hope for – normalcy and balance.

The best way to get there is to go back to what was before all the disruption, before all the up-down-all-over-the-place. Back to the quiet of place and mind. Back to a time before the little sounds of hope (and crashes of dashed hope) chimed.

Photo (c) 2007 Karen