Thursday, August 28, 2008

Blogging Through The Fog


I am having a hard time writing these days and have been, ever since the anxiety came to visit and even though I'm (mostly) feeling so much better, I'm still finding it hard to have coherent thoughts about anything I feel anyone would be interested in.
Which makes me very anxious.
But ah, it's late summer and the hurricane lilies are sending up their skinny green stalks, soon to open into other-worldly blossoms of red while we watch the hurricanes' cones of doom change and reform every six hours on the wunderground website and here in North Florida we are still driving around, looking at pine trees seemingly growing out of lakes and being very, very amazed because we haven't ever seen water like this before, poured out in such an amount and so quickly that five days later, it still sits, nowhere to go, no hurry to leave anyway.
And it's hot and it's humid. I spent about an hour and a half this afternoon in the yard, picking up branches tiny and large that broke free during Fay's visit and trundled them over to the burn pile and I sweated and I wiped my brow and finally had to call it a day and came in and passed out.
I had lunch the other day with the film commissioner of the state of Florida who happens to be my ex-husband's wife and also my Lis, who was here for a short visit, and I sat at the table, trying to pay attention to the conversation, lettuce occasionally falling from my mouth (especially every time my ex's wife looked at me while making a point about her job), making me feel even duncier than I felt already. These two women, good friends from way back, are women I love and with whom I'm friends and both of them are ambitious and incredibly talented and know everyone in the S.E. who is anyone in certain worlds of music and art.
I felt so strange then, sitting at that table at a downtown restaurant, trying to keep up with the words they were speaking. I felt like I was on one planet, and they another, a loftier one, one more rich with possibility and purpose, one filled with people like them, talented and driven and strong and creative and smart who know what to wear and what to say.
And that's how I'm feeling these days, overwhelmed by underachievment, overtaken by a miasma of sweating through long, hot days of mosquitoes and snakes, chores that are essentially meaningless and struggling with words that don't begin to say what I need to say, even if I knew what that was.
I cook the fish, I sweep the floor, I listen to my husband, I try to understand.
I try to understand.
I try to see through the fog that seems to engulf every landmark, every detail, every hint of the path that lies before me, searching and squinting for something to come up out of that grayness that will point me in the direction I need to go now that the kids are grown, now that my world has shifted so dramatically and suddenly.
I'm like all of us who knew a storm was coming last weekend, who thought we were prepared, and who, when it really happened, sat with mouths agape, watching water pour down with a force we couldn't have imagined.
For thirty-two years I was so involved in the one-task-after-another days that I lived that I didn't give a thought to the certainty of the time when those tasks would not be needed to be done, when the children grew up.
I didn't know the time would pour down upon me like this, so suddenly and so unexpectedly, even though I surely must have known it would.
I always thought I'd write and here I am, the time to do it, and nothing comes.
Forget the fiction, I can't even write a blog. I say the same things over and over.
I just have to believe that the time will come when the fog will blow away, when the slender stalks of the hurricane lily will shock me again with color and form, and I'll know a little better where I'm going, what I'm doing, and have the strength to go there and do that.
Until then, I'm just floundering in the floodwaters, trying to keep my head above it, trying not to lose hope, trying to remember that although I don't have the vision now, I will.
I hope.

16 comments:

  1. I am glad you're "blogging through the fog" and I don't think you say the same things over and over. It's always a pleasure to see what you have to say, Ms. Moon.

    And, you are a talented writer, whether you believe it or not.

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  2. This is depression that you're feeling. You never mentioned what pills you're taking - the name of the medicine and dose per day. What are you taking? I'm not sure the pills are working yet. Give them 3 or 4 weeks on whatever is a theraputic dose. If you don't feel better by then, you may need to try something else and/or therapy.
    Depression really stinks, but it's treatable with the right medication and the right therapist.

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  3. Thank you Nicol. You are a blessing in my life with your words.

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  4. And MOB- your comment just popped up after I posted an answer to Nicol. I think the medication is working in that the anxiety, which sent me to the doctor in the first place, is but a pale imitation of the terror I was feeling. I've recently upped my dose a bit and I believe that will help. I think this is a normal (albeit exaggerated) reaction to life changes.
    I do have hope. I just need to figure some stuff out.

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  5. Tell me about the hurricane lilies, you know I'm interested.

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  6. I know just how it feels. Trust me, I do.

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  7. "And that's how I'm feeling these days, overwhelmed by underachievment...and struggling with words that don't begin to say what I need to say, even if I knew what that was."
    ...you may feel as though you are struggling for the words you put down, but your words give shape to the thoughts of many others who come here loking for that articulation.
    So, thank-you.

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  8. Sally- I've made it so that if you click on the picture of the lily, you can go to an article about them.

    Ms. Lemonade- thank you so very, very much. You are so gracious.

    Aunt Becky- I know you do.

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  9. I seem to be in the same emotional place that you are right now... but you are far more articulate than I am. Keep writing through the fog and eventually it will begin to clear.

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  10. These storms and floods really screw with the control we think we have.
    Comparing myself to others is a game I like to play too. Everyone is happy and successful at lunch and at parties. When they go home their demons are waiting. They may be sitting there wishing they were living in the moment like you, and not chasing windmills all day long.
    Keep writing about the flowers and the trials, it's honest and there's not much of that out there.

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  11. It's not what you write about sometimes as much as how you write about it

    Fat Lad

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  12. I know, Brother B. I know. But it sure seems like I'm living on Planet Inane while others are on Planet Gettin' It Done While Wearing Nice Clothing.
    Thank-you, Fat Lad.

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  13. Merluna, did you know that on the planet "gettin' it done in nice clothes" everyone is a republican and they don't have ice cream? Your words show a life rich in the things we all take for granted. Your kids can look around their lives and if they watch closely, they can see all of the things you put there. You know that is something that unfortunately you missed, so use what you did for them. Don't just write the words, do the things you want to write the words about. Nothing can stop you, and no one can start you but you.
    Now go cook some amphibian stew.

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  14. Oh, Brian. These women are definitely NOT Republicans.
    But as to the rest of it- you're completely right. Except for the amphibian stew. On that, I can only say, "Uh, no."

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  15. I wondered a while ago if your daughter finally leaving the house for real, right around a birthday (another year older), had something to do with your recent struggle. But I hadn't/haven't been reading regularly enough to feel able to suggest it. You really are a fabulous and amazing woman, and until you can see that with your own eyes everyday I am happy to tell you as many times as you need to hear it.
    You're going through a big life change- kids out of the house, perimenopausal. One of the books I'm reading now says that peri-menopausal women experience a surge of kundalini energy that rises up in them powerfully, often forcing to the surface old issues. I'm not sure what that means, but I thought of you when I read it. You are still moving steadily tho invisibly on your path (I can feel it), even as you feel lost, stalled, and inadequate. You are so much closer than you realize. You are an amazing person, who has worked hard and with purpose, and who is beginning a new phase in life with a new (only being discovered) purpose. But that purpose could be, the new life, devoted to YOU. Being, enjoying, discovering, and loving, in new ways you never have, YOU. I think that would be perfectly appropriate for a women as great as you. Seriously. You ARE all that! :D

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  16. Quiet Girl- you are so precious. Thank you for all those beautiful words.

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