Hurricane Kip

Last night I just stared at the screen, a list of tasks urgent in my head, but not an ounce of energy to motivate myself into action.

Perhaps this could be because Saturday nights are supposed to be frolicsome rendezvous with pals and lovers, while I was home and very much alone. Maybe it could have been knowing that my son and his mother were dancing at an annual event where we had all been together a year ago.

I know I could not move, lift a finger or blink an eye. I was done for the evening but still unable to take myself to bed. And this morning feels little better, grey with remnants of a hurricane spitting its last gasp on us far to the north of where it showed its mightiest power.

Fortunately, I can look back on a week that began with strong words leaping to pages on the screen. Ideas percolated for stories stretching towards print like the hurricane gathering moisture. For several days, thoughts raced through my mind. Even as I dutifully wrote out bills and proposals for the construction work that feeds my family, characters formed on the horizon as light and dark clouds.

In the middle of the week, music embraced my attention, pushing me up the street to play in public for the first time in many years. Inspired and compulsive, on the verge of obsessed, I worked late into several nights to get old music online, establishing a few minor chords of bragging rights to illustrate the tugs and twists that color my personal midlife, an upheaval of mixed metaphors storming around a half-centered third eye.

How strange it was to be so immersed in the blogosphere of my imagination, conjuring dreams of an appearance on Oprah to talk about surviving Hurricane Kip and playing a song or two from my hit album with my hot band, only to be humbled by jumping into my truck—late as usual—with its cracked windshield and dents, in my dirty clothes to pay the bills of reality.

By the end of the week, I had to be fully engaged in late night painting sessions to transform the interior of a deli that had to remain open each day. Working alone, as people stroll past between restaurants and the theater (yes, we have culture as well as cows in Vermont), enjoying their evening, disorientation and delusions spin ugly thoughts.

Into every life there must be a healthy measure of balance. Work and family, art and finances, music and the hum of daily activity—the balances and blendings must be found to create a well-rounded peaceful life. Even the tension between joys and pains must be balanced (not necessarily equal), like day and night, sunshine and rain, activity and rest: one infusing the other. Without these dances--balanced harmonies--crisis is certain.

So I can forgive myself, after finishing another wall, and cleaned up enough to face my list of tasks. I can understand why my fingers refuse to budge. And in the morning, after a good night’s sleep, they seem to be doing better.

Now if I could only explain this to my mortgage company.

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