Am I Blue?

I think I am blue.

And I am wondering why. I guess the most likely culprit is the weather - it's been a cold summer here in the Bay Area - more so than usual. There's also the wear and tear of the hectic madness that is my job. Plus the minor everyday duties we all deal with, which in my case included going to the International Travel Clinic this week to get my correct recommended immunizations for an upcoming Egypt trip, which left me feeling sore, tired and generally lousy for 48 hours.

But what has really got me wondering about the nature of life - I mean, what is it we're supposed to be doing? - are all the thousand things I mean to get to but never really seem to have the time for.

I'm supposed to order a new toilet seat and light switch plate to match the newly painted bathroom. I am behind on my herb harvesting and drying. And there's a stack of magazines in one corner which I want to comb through to save all the pages I think will help me: they contain some sort of something....pictures that I expect to inspire me artistically, recipes I like to think I'll make someday, clever little craft ideas I must try, cartoons I want to tape up at work, articles I mean to mail to an interested friend, and on and on.

There's also all the books I buy - books about magic, tarot, costuming, craft, political theory, spiritual work, art, writing, music - all the things I INTEND to do, but can't quite get to. Or get to only very rarely. Sometimes I think I buy the books to avoid having to face the fact that I am not doing the practices.

There's the projects I plan - someday, I really will organize my ukulele music, and transpose all those songs I love into uke-friendly keys. There's the fabric I am going to stitch up into Christmas presents (sachets filled with my home-dried herbs that probably no one will want because *I* don't even know what to do with a sachet), yarn I plan to turn into sweaters and socks and shawls, the beads begging to be necklaces, the dusty free sample jars of Indian sauce I want to simmer, etc. I mean, really. Where does it all end?

And the reason I am thinking about these things lately is because when I get home from work (and I, like so many Americans, work 5 days per week, year in and year out, so MOST nights in my adult life are nights that I do in fact get home from work), I am tired. I am worn. I put a lot of energy into the day, doing things I feel are worthwhile, yes, often making meaningful connections with other people, and learning new skills. But still...it's a lot to do.

So when I get home, and I'm faced with all the OTHER things I want to do (and I won't even list all the normal, other obligations we all know about, such as cleaning, laundry, correspondence, cooking), I just get blue.

I think, what is the point of all this, really?

I think, I'm planning for later, but life is unpredictable and really short. I'm worried that the moment I really do organize all my magical spells on easily-referenced index cards or type up my journals (a task that would probably take months if not years) or assemble the perfect inspirational collage out of magazine pictures, something will happen and it will all be for naught.

On the other hand, if I toss all that out the window, and focus on the my zen teachings, and live for the NOW, for the moment, then I do what I normally do, which is kind of veg out, hang out with my partner, and lay on the couch. In the moment, it's very nice. My couch is exceptionally warm & cozy (it has a slipcover I made from sheets, so you kind of feel like you're in bed) and my partner is fun to rest with and I like to have my herbal teas and watch something - maybe some Woody Allen or Stephen Colbert. It seems fine. I'm in the moment, and very grateful for what I have, and I basically wiggle into this snug little world of contentment.

Then I think of that line from Annie Hall, when Annie says how great it is at Tony Lacey's (Paul Simon) house, how wonderful, they have a screening room and just watch movies all day.

"Yeah, and gradually you get old and die," Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) responds. "You know it's important to make a little effort once in a while."

I agree - with both of them. I watch movies all day, every Saturday. Yet I also expect to do & make things. I'm pretty good at the movie thing, but I think I fall way too short as a doer. The real issue - the monkey wrench - is that most of the people I know see me as a doer. You follow through, they say. You actually DO things. You are productive. My friends say this, my family says this, my co-workers say this. It must be true.

I wonder. Sometimes I think maybe I am just more vocal than other people. I'll tell almost anyone almost anything (hence, a blog). Ask me how I am, and I will tell you. (Lest you think ill of me, I also listen). Maybe I just toot my own horn too much. And I'm also not a parent (which is probably obvious, I am sure), but every single parent does WAY more than I do, and yet even parents think I'm a doer.

And when I get to this part of my train of thought - for this is an old, well-worn path for me - I come inevitably to this idea: what does it matter anyway? What do people do, anyway? Seriously - is anything worth doing?

There's eating, sleeping, reproduction, self-care, at the most basic level. Take it up a notch and you have work and socializing, then the more refined activities such as you'd find in academia (you know, people thinking deeply), science and art (from pop to high) and philosophy. Eventually you get to the more extreme or esoteric - sky-diving and Olympic ice skating and seven-day silent retreats - activities when, after you do them, you KNOW you did something. You can't deny it.

I'm reminded of a short film I saw on an early Saturday Night Live - back in the beginning, when they did crazy things like accepting short serious/cool documentary movies from amateurs - about Diana Nyad, the marathon swimmer who swam around Manhattan island. She describes the experience:

From a mile out, I can hear the clapping and the screaming. The people realize that I swam from a place they couldn't even see on the clearest day. They know I may faint when I arrive. They share with me the most extreme moment of all. For, after the pain, the cold, the hours, the distance, after the fatigue and the loneliness - after all this, comes my emergence. And my emergence is what it's all about.

The emergence. I bet that has meaning irrevocably hanging all over it, like burrs that cling to my picnic blankets, even through the wash. You'll never get the meaning out of something like that.

I was in therapy for a few years, and I had the same feeling. Therapy day was my favorite day because I unequivocably DID something. If you go to therapy, you don't have to do anything else for the rest of the day to have given that day its full share, its meaning. The same thing applies to days when you go to the dentist, create art, help someone in an emotional crisis, and, I expect, swim around the island of Manhattan.

There's a lesson in all this somewhere, something perhaps about balance, and equilibrium. Something about the fact that you can strip anything of meaning (it's just birth, it's just death, it's just a long swim) and you can also ascribe meaning to anything (the miracle of a baby's smile, the fact of a rose, just to be trite). Really, the choice of meaning or not is up to you, and really not all that attached to the actual thing or event itself, shockingly enough.

I personally think of Fred Astaire & Ginger Rodgers dancing, and that sort of beauty that doesn't really MEAN anything - I mean, when you watch someone dance, you wonder why it's so nice to watch, because if stop to think about it at all, it seems way to simple to be anything at all. Yet it IS something. Something that, for me, when enjoyed, makes me feel glad to be alive. Then meaning just starts to go all fuzzy, all slippery, and that's when I wonder if I should just throw out that damn stack of magazines and books and plans and obligations, or if I should stick with them, because from them, wonderful things will arise. I guess I'll just live with the question.

I also discovered, a great way to chase away the blues one gets when meaning is called into too much questioning is to write a blog post about it. Ha. Who new?