First Words; Altered Silence

Every morning, I walk out into my cold, dark neighborhood at 5:30 AM. I think I have found the perfect way to start my day; the perfect step -- both literally and figuratively -- into the world for someone who is an introvert but whose career relies on being around large numbers of people.

The most prominent sound is my footsteps on the wet roads. Only a few cars are awake and purring in driveways, but that sound is peaceful. The dogs (even mine) are sleeping. The usual, faint ocean-sound of distant traffic is absent. The grass frost twinkles in the available light and I avoid stepping on it for fear of the noise it will make, even though the boy in me wants to stomp right over everyone's lawns. (In today's world, though, I'd probably go out the next morning to find police patrolling for the owner of the size-twelve-shoes that defiled the sanctity of so many suburban lawns.)

I walk head-down, hood-up, hands jammed into the pockets of my heavy coat. My thoughts unwind gently, the way accordion-crunched drinking straw wrappers uncurl after a drop of water: slowly and meanderingly. I see bedroom lights wink on in the periphery, here and there. The only other signs of life within houses is the occasional blue glow of televisions and that glow makes me glad my senses haven't yet been assaulted by the electronic storm that the day will become once I step into the doors of my school.

Too Much Noise

I had a weird feeling the other day -- like the reaching of a limit. Some of the things I had written

Shel Silverstein

this week got attention, all at once (a lot by my standards, not by James Patterson's, of course), and a lot of issues were coming at me on a personal and professional level and I felt a little like I was being surrounded zombies had forced me into an alley with one of those caged lights swinging overhead. I felt the beginnings of a kind of mild panic.

I've been busy before. I have been overwhelmed before. But this was different, especially on the writing end. You spend time trying to develop an audience, so, when they respond, you figure it will be a reward -- and, it is, usually, but, it felt like a line had been crossed, all of a sudden. Coupled with the whole busy life thing, I guess it the "mild panic" sort of came in like a Ninja before I knew it.

(No -- this doesn't mean I want you to stop commenting on my posts. Seriously.)

It's a lesson, though. One from which I should be able to extrapolate some wisdom about my future self. I won't bore you with my conclusions.

Part of the panic was a metaphoric and literal noise issue. I find that when I cut some of the literal noise, that much of the metaphoric cacophony lessens, so I have been driving with the radio off. A half hour to and from work, no radio; no music. Decompression, if you will.

For me, it is like putting my brain in a hot tub with a nice sunset view. Sometimes we need to retreat, I guess. But I think it is more than that for me. I need to clean out some of the clutter lying in the path of my days. I'm starting to feel claustrophobic.

On Leaving Home

It occurred to me, the other day, that some see "home" as a cocoon; a retreat; a place to hide from the world's ugliness for a precious few hours each day. (Okay, guilty as charged.) Others seem to see home as a base of operations; a place to get showered and changed before heading back out; a place for parties; a place that keeps the rain off of one's head. I wonder which is the healthier view.

I'm thinking much in the same way the I did in a recent post: there is a certain uneasiness in having succeeded in taking good advice. You work and work to get yourself conditioned to take that advice, then you either become a weirdo for being one of the few who accomplished the desired outcome, or, you start to wonder if the good advice is really that good after all. 

For instance, we are always told to treasure the moment -- to put less emphasis on the past and the future and think of now; to drink it in and savor the experience. I'm the king of this. This, I've gotten down.