Gotta stay awake
Gotta try and shake off
This creeping malaise.
If I don't stand my own ground
How can I find my way out of this maze?
- Pink Floyd, "Dogs" from the album Animals
Today I struggled more than previously to stay connected, to feel grounded in myself. It wasn't the whole day; sessions with patients went well, which always feels good. But by the time I closed out my last video chat, I felt drained, disconnected, and hungry for something unnamed.
Changing out of my work clothes and coming downstairs, I became more conscious of an absence that has been inching its way into my awareness, but still couldn't get my hands around. I plopped resignedly onto the couch. A copy of BMoreArt lay on the coffee table, a new subscription I've been excited about; I opened it to where I left off, but couldn't concentrate. I thought about a piece of music that I'd started working on recently, but my mind cringed at what seemed like a pointless expenditure of energy that I didn't have and that could only end in dissatisfaction. Same response to the thought of picking up Lynda Barry's comics workbook. Finally, lacking any better idea, I grabbed a bag of pretzels from the pantry, returned to the couch and turned on Netflix, picking up where I left off in the fifth season of Twilight Zone. Two episodes ("Uncle Simon" and "Probe 7, Over and Out") of Serling's sparkling, indulgent, thesaurus-busting dialog later, normally a tickle for me, I felt worse.
By this time, my wife had finished her workday and came to join me on the couch; she saw plainly that I wasn't myself and asked about it. We talked, unpacking the difficulty we had both been having over the last twenty-four days trying to sort out the best recipe for self-care -- how to recuperate-in-place, how best to use the limited energy we have when work is done, how to stay connected with each other.
Part of the balance I've been trying to strike is spending time with my wife versus making time for creativity. Being married to the woman of my dreams, my best friend, my partner in business as well as life, we seem never to run out of things to share, discuss, even debate; being with her is a delight and a repletion. When circumstances keep us separated for an extended time, we both feel the loss and the cost of reconnecting; our quarantine has felt like a boon in that regard. On the other hand, I have some of that "gotta dance" creative drive; I feel a need to make stuff, whether with sound, words, images, wood-and-screws, or what-have-you. If I don't do something with it, it kind of stagnates and spoils and that spoilage can give off a noisome fume that thickens my mind and mood like the blue cannabis smoke filling the car I first heard Animals in.
At the end of a day's navigating a sea of troubles, I often don't seem able take up my creative arms in opposition and instead settle into the comfort of the company of my wife. Not a bad thing, but if I do this frequently enough, the miasma from the putrefaction of my creativity starts to cloud my sense of self. This can feed back on itself, making it harder to push myself upstairs, into the studio and the uncertainty of invention and away from the comforting presence of my partner and the numbing reassurance of Netflix; a few loops of this and the haze thickens until a find myself drained, disconnected, and namelessly hungry as I did today.
But, this evening, my wife and I sat on the couch and chatted, holding hands, cuddling. After the sun went down and we discovered our lamps wouldn't turn on, we actually had fun figuring out why (there was a wall switch we'd never used). We lay together some more, her scrolling through her social media and me reading that article in BMoreArt I couldn't start earlier. We were present, just being, and it seemed what we both needed. After a while, I said, "I'm going to go write a bit" and came up to my studio and she picked up her current British character drama where she'd left off.
We both cope with the stress of quarantine differently, but we each recognize and respect our differences. It's easier for me to trust her way than my own, but when I remember, I can remind myself that it's okay and go do my thing. And when I do, that creeping malaise blows off me like someone opened a window.
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