Today I have been immersed in solitude. I didn’t intend it, it just sort of happened. This morning I woke late (around 9:20 a.m.) and knew as I started into my journal writing that it was going to be one of those days–one of those “blue” days. You sort of don’t want to predict those things ahead of time so as to predispose oneself to them, but it’s kind of like the first sniffles that tell you a cold is coming on–you can feel it coming and hope you can do something to head it off before it fully develops. I generally find ways to rally myself when I feel the blues coming on, but when I got up and started into my day and realized that others in my household were likewise engaged in their own emotional struggles and didn’t want to talk, I found no particular motivation to pull myself out. I drove my son to work in unusual silence, then did at least manage to take Honor to the park this afternoon.
The weather was beautiful, if a bit breezy by the Bay. After our three-quarter mile brisk walk, we settled into a more casual pace as we headed up the “leash free” area of the park to roam about a bit, Honor interacting briefly with only a few other canines. Then we headed up to my “secret” hangout–a cement ledge that sits near the top of a hill looking out over the Bay. It’s situated behind shrubs and trees that obscure it from the pathways and grassy fields below and yet clear enough to look out at various vistas. I sat there, enjoying the warmth while Honor wandered here and there sniffing around, investigating her surroundings, eating grass. I tried not to think too much as I sat there, and managed that rather well. I sighed a lot, as happens frequently on blue days. I pondered my uncertain future with a bit more gloom than usual, and asked myself for the hundredth time how on earth I had gotten to be where I am. No answers were forthcoming, so after a time, I roused myself, clipped Honor’s leash back into her harness, got in the car and headed home.
Once back here, I found the environment much as I’d left it, the other human inhabitant of the house appeared to not feel any more conversational than before. So, I came upstairs and engaged in two behaviors that depressed people often engage in: I escaped into fiction, losing myself in the adventures of the people in my current audiobook, and later took a nap. Now here I am a couple of hours later and it’s time to write the gratitude blog. What does one say on days like this? I’ve had plenty of blue days since I started writing this blog and always manage to find something to say to salvage some bit of goodness from the crud. Now as I sit watching the cursor blinking balefully at me from the screen, I realize that I have a choice to make. I could complete the day without spending much thought on any good thing that might have occurred today, or I can quiet myself, search through my various mental files, and extract a list of things for which I can express gratitude.
Part of me feels a little rebellious, I must confess. I don’t much feel like taking the time and effort to make today seem somehow better than it was: today sucked, not majorly, but sucked nonetheless. I realize, once again, that this is all about choice. Time and again as I’ve struggled with the various hardships I’ve faced over these months, I have chosen to beat back the blues, forging ahead as valiantly as I could, grabbing hold of the positive things that occurred along the way to buoy me. Days like today find me barely keeping myself above the waves of anxiety and despair that threaten to at times to pull me under. But barely above is still above, and I am grateful for the sheer strength of will that keeps me hanging on and pulling myself up. And, I am still smiling, every day, no matter what. I look forward to easier times; I have to believe that they are coming. I am grateful for the discipline of a daily practice that causes me to take up pen in the morning and sit at the keyboard in the evening. It keeps me grounded in the midst of the emotional tumult that swirls through my present life. Thus, I shall continue and look forward hopefully for a good day tomorrow. May it be so.
