Block-Be-Gone!

Fuck. I'm stuck. Writer's block. Life block. The bouquet of rotting flowers on my dresser is a withering mass of wrinkled faces who stare at me from beneath their sleepy lids. Lumpy piles of clothes seem to shift around when I turn my back and my bed is a boat bobbing in an endless sea of dreams. Street sounds assault me in the night, a man in pain, a couple fighting, a gunshot, screaming, laughter. The walls and windows and doors and locks keep me safe and separate. Sometimes I get the feeling that those walls are slowly dissolving. Right now, I'm lucky. The play needs work. Maybe if I clean??? ...On with it!

I read about job cuts in the paper and then I heard about it happening to strangers in my city. It started happening to my friends and then it happened to me. I still have my job (though, no longer 40 hours a week) but the feeling of panic is spreading. The recession is a bitch but I won't let panic rule my world and I'm actually finding that there's a lot to feel great about these days!

The state of things around me is forcing me to do even more thinking than usual about my life and what I'm finding is a fresh feeling of freedom. As I watch people lose material things I empathize with their pain but am reminded that the less attachment I have to "stuff" the better!  I feel so lucky to have my own room, (messy though it may be) and to live in a place where all I need to get around is my bike. I love you bike.

I can't spend as much money going out but when I do I make sure not to skimp on tipping servers and bartenders. If you're going out you better be doing the same! People depend on those few extra bucks.  I'm also hyper-aware of how great my friends are, how wonderful it is to be able to read and listen to music, to have food to eat and awesome Hetch Hetchy water to drink!  Life is good.

I usually try to write some kind of analytical article about whatever interesting thing I recently read or heard about but I just can't!  Today I just want to get out of my head a little and say, "thanks world, I'm alive and it's pretty cool".  When I was a kid one of my favorite teachers was my math teacher from Sri Lanka.  He had lived a luxurious life with his wife and children, (big mansion, lots of expensive things in the house) and they lost everything to rioting robbers during some political upheaval.  He told me that the one thing no one can steal from you is your knowledge and it always stuck with me.  Times are a little harder and they may get worse but at least in this moment, I have the luxury of choosing to feel good despite circumstance.  I hope you do to.