Thought Collisions

Maybe it’s the barometric pressure? The way it can bring out aches and pains; for example, how, according to my chiropractor, a change in barometric pressure often makes the place hurt where I fractured my spine a year ago? Does this also potentially cause our thoughts to collide, bringing them all out at once so create frustration? I’m looking for a scientific answer here, and not being all that scientific, this is the best I can do.

So, it’s a snowy, gray, January day. I decide to join the masses for a grocery run, in case the snow amounts to anything must-stay-in-worthy. While my daughter unloads groceries, I bring the firewood in. Then laundry. While I’m there, in the laundry room, the place that also serves as office supply room as well as a catch-all for stuff-that-might-be-useful-some day (am I turning into my father?), which also desperately needs to be purged (so I can put other things in there) but is mostly out of sight and out of mind and when it comes to mind (the purging process) it’s overwhelming to think about (who has time?) so has remained largely un-purged since rearranging my studio a year and a half ago after The Flood happened, and anyway, (breathe) I see it and think, heck, just get rid of some boxes. That’s not such a big deal. Just do it. Now. Then I think, but of course! ~ just do a little bit each day, rather than feeling like you have to do the whole thing at once. (I knew that). So I pile up the boxes, empty boxes that I-thought-would-be-useful, and take them to the dump. Before I do that, I mention to my daughter how some of them are very nice boxes, in case she wants them…. this way I wouldn’t feel guilty about being wasteful. But alas, she says she’s pretty good on her box needs, and to the dump I go. On the way back, a car in front of me does a crazy-eight on a straight road. “Slow down” comes to mind. I check my speed, and despite traveling at a snail’s pace, make a wide and slippery slide around a corner heading home. Then, I remember I forgot to get milk. Shoot. So I carry on, crawling to a stop sign, and turn another corner with no trouble. Get the milk, get home. And somewhere in the midst of all this, my mind starts filling up with all the projects I want to do; things I’ve started and not finished but want to finish, or haven’t started but really want to, and they all circle round and round my head, vying for attention. “Me first!” “No, me! I should have been done ages ago, but you keep getting new ideas and I’m left undone.” “You should focus on me, over here, because I’m the one you want most”. (Mostly books and paintings, by the way; all the pieces that typically scream at me when I’m otherwise detained on things like, say, keeping a roof overhead.) And on and on… a creative traffic jam ensues. Inspiration overload. And also somewhere in the midst of all this muse-like bantering, I briefly wonder where my patrons are, so I can get to this stuff in earnest without so much energy needed for the mundane. However, realizing this is a fruitless thought at the moment, I allow the banter to continue, which it does annoyingly well.

Einstein was right. I don’t know what we’d do without the concept of time, because whether it’s real or not, it gives us a chance for a little order in what could otherwise be all out chaos.

And I still don’t know which muse will win out today, but maybe it’ll sort itself out when the barometric pressure switches again. Stay tuned. 🙂