Restraint of Thumb and Send

So, it’s official. I am still sick and am going to pick up an Rx from Kaiser shortly. I called out of work, which felt so lame considering I’d just had a week off, but my brain also feels as though it’s been gelled into a jell-O mold. Perhaps bunt cake shaped, next to candied lemon slices. Hence the delay of this morning’s blog.

The first time I got sick in sobriety, I was very confused. I suppose that having a near-chronic strep throat from smoking til I couldn’t swallow anymore made something as mild as a cold very unique and novel. Also, I think that when your blood is half alcohol, it fends off most infections.

I’d woken up that time a little off, not really feeling much gumption, and decided to go shopping. I bought a large cup of coffee and wandered the stacks of shoes in DSW shoe store for about an hour, and left with a purchase in hand and an empty coffee cup…and yet I didn’t feel any better. I was very confused. Shouldn’t this have worked? Coffee and shopping? They make everything better, right? They always cured the melancholia I assumed I was having. But, nope. Still felt off. What could be wrong?

I swear, I really didn’t get it. Finally, I realized as if inventing the light-bulb, OH! I must be sick! It was a moment of brilliance. Luckily, I have gotten to know myself and my body better since then, and am willing to take care of myself in ways that don’t involve retail therapy – which, FYI, doesn’t cure a sinus infection.

As to the title of this blog. With my brain in the wonky suspended state it’s currently in, well, it’s had a lot of time to latch upon obsessing about the guy I went out with on Monday, and pro-ing and con-ing and measuring the distance between here and where he lives. My brain likes to satellite around it, like your tongue going to a sore spot in your mouth, drawn there unintentionally.

So, if there’s “Restraint of Tongue and Pen,” I heard once that in these modern marvel text-addicted days, there’s also “Restrain of Thumb and Send.” I have composed lots of them already in my busy, befogged brain. But haven’t yet sent any. I sort of feel like it’s the same advice as, Don’t make any phone calls or major decisions after 10pm. So, don’t contact a dude when your eyeballs feel like there’s marching band drum practice behind them.

But. I might. ;)

What else is on my mind is the women’s retreat I’m going to this weekend, which I’ve gone on for the last 4 years or more, and I’m glad I’m taking care of this cold&sinus thing before then, as it’s also really hard to meditate with said marching band practice. I began reading Shakespeare’s Henry V last night, as I got a confirmation email for my audition slot in two weeks(!!), and that’s one of the plays the company is doing this year. From the introduction in my book to that play, however, the consensus was it’s not the best play, but I’ve never read it, and perhaps a commentary on an inflated political figure is a good parallel for our times.

Lastly, on my mind is fluidity. I met with a girlfriend on Monday for coffee, and she’s an expressive arts therapist. She asked me what was up with me lately, and I was again reiterating my non-desire to be a teacher when school is done. That there’s a sense in me lately that I don’t want to be tied to a geographical region. There’s some kind of impending knowledge that I want more fluidity than that, than being tied to a region, besides my other non-desires to teach at the moment.

So, my friend asked if she could do a little “work” with me then. Sure, why not. She asked me to close my eyes and imagine that fluidity, which I’d also called joy, and to create and act a movement to it. So, I closed my eyes, and I wiggled and waved my arms and body, gently and arms open. We both laughed, and then she asked me then to think about teaching, and to create a movement to that. My arms immediately contracted in, and sort of harrumphed in a Rodin’s “Thinker” pose, continuing to sigh and constrict in this closed pose.

It was very telling. She said there was more we could do with it, but I had to leave for said date. This wasn’t “new” knowledge, but it was certainly another underlining of the knowledge I have, and a kinesthetic expression of where I want to go. Follow the joy. Follow the fun. Follow the fluidity.

What that means in practical terms, I don’t yet have any idea. But to commit to a teaching job at this juncture, to actively pursue one, would be equivalent to dipping my soul in cement, and I want to be much lighter than that. And, I believe I’m worth more consideration than that.