In Place

Even the cat has abandoned me.  She is going outside now for the first time in. . . I don't remember.  She only needs me to feed her and clean her box.  I am no more than a provider.  It is like that, I guess.

I'm supposed to be going to the little treehouse on the river today, but I am not.  But I am not going to the factory, either.  I thought about it, but I couldn't face it.  I have spent three days alone talking on the phone briefly but seeing no one.  I will spend a fourth.

The world is a sparkling, sensual thing.  People take vacations to look and eat and drink, to get out of the workaday world that consumes them.  But that is what there is.  There is little to do but to look and to eat and to drink.  In the short time we have off, if we have the money, we want to emulate an episode of an Anthony Bourdain series.  I'm not criticizing.  It sounds good.  We might do it in the city or the country, or we might want to get out into the mountains and hike.  Maybe even take a boat down a river.

I'm just saying.  Nobody takes vacation so they can do research.  For that we want grant money or some other reward.

I must get away.  But I can't.  I can't even take a drive out of the AAA tow truck range of the car dealership.  I am this close <> to madness and it is terrifying.

And so. . . I must ignore the sparkling, sensual outside world and focus on the inner one.  It is not so sparkly or shiny.  It is a room cluttered and falling apart.  It will be a challenge just getting in.  There is much work to be done, getting rid of the trash, plastering and scraping and painting and reorganizing.  I must get rid of all the cameras and notebooks and bric-a-brac.  I need a little Zen interior where I can chill.  Those old masters didn't need to go anywhere.  They could just sit on a mountaintop alone for twenty years and meditate.

Who wouldn't want to do that?