Endless Summer
The Autumn colors came three weeks late and by mid-November, the little tree kitty-corner to my living room window was still full, still a shade of dark green. Lake effect snowflakes mixed with rain, but it was a half-hearted effort–more a threat of things to come–and even though a lot of COVID panic had subsided, it still didn’t feel like the Holidays.
Inflation was all anyoned about how much it cost to fill up the gas tank or how much the pricee could talk about. They didn’t use that term, of course. They complain of bread or milk or chicken or fish had jumped. We all grew bored at the constant talking heads repetition of supply-chain problems and containers not being unloaded at the ports.
On the radio, we were told to encourage everyone to ignore Black Friday and Cyber Monday; (and by inference to please cease the entrenched COVID habits of ordering from Amazon and Walmart). Small Business Saturday was our targeted goal. And local merchants our heroes and intended beneficiaries.
I took most of the summer and the start of fall off from writing my blog and felt my motivations beginning to drift. It was burnout. A long overdue rest from that. Or it was feeling my age. Or not being able to decide on a new plan or what the next step should be.
All I could seem to think of was how much better things could be if I made more money and wasn’t so isolated and lonely. But on days when I wasn’t on deadline, all I could seem to muster was to bury myself in the latest book I’d downloaded to my Kindle, or listen to one of the zillion podcasts I was interested in.
The hours slithered past in the background of my day and when I did look at a clock, I was continuously shocked that it was always so much later than I thought. From a newsletter I read I began to call this my Pathless Path and had no idea where I was heading or what I was going to do to change things. All things. Any things.
I had a Thousand-Day Plan that was due to expire next April 27th but I wasn’t any closer to figuring it out.
There are Zen practitioners and other balanced meditations of eastern philosophies that encourage this trait—the not knowing, the not being able to figure it out. “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” The idea is to rest and let the inner truth determine the path.
It’s the exact opposite of how we handle such things as Americans. We’re conditioned to take action, impose our will, will things into existence, create order from chaos, and persist.
But even my country seemed like it was just drifting toward whatever lay beyond the next corner, weary of a year and a half of hibernation and the continuing call to fear, tired of being pulled to this side, or that one, extremes and hysterics making the loudest noises but getting little accomplished except for amassing followers on Twitter and Tik Tok and making the occasional headline.
The Big Chain stores had reversed a trend started a half dozen years ago and decided to stay closed on Thanksgiving Day.
Everyone needed a break.
I wanted my break to be over now, even though it had barely begun. I wanted to push toward some greater accomplishment, fulfill some vague quest and learn to have adventures again. Sometimes that felt like a lot of work, but once in awhile some spark would flicker through and I’d get a fading glimpse of what it could be, with just a little more effort.
Do you follow the advice given to all souls who search in earnest and let go and let God? Or do you lose patience with your own restlessness and indecision, sweep away the residuals of self-doubt and just push toward the first thing that turns your head, however foolhardy that’s been in the past?
Maybe I would have to extend the Thousand Day Plan.