restlessness

Since I have been adding weight to my ankle/right leg (now almost up to 120 lbs, so closing in on full body weight), I suppose not surprisingly, my muscle aches have increased at night and I haven't been sleeping very well. Maybe it's time to suck it up and take a Tylenol before bed. I am dragging today, so will take a morning nap or wait until after I bicycle at the Y later. I am glad I have a massage schedule and maybe I will ask her to pay attention to my leg a bit.

My mind seems to have energy in the morning but, like the birds I watch outside, my thoughts don't want to settle anywhere. I skim the newspaper, read my daily literature and then find my thoughts wandering into melancholy land. Yesterday I watched a 1947 film starring Spencer Tracy and Katherin Hepburn, "Keeper of the Flame", but it wasn't one of their jolly films. Instead, it was a bit film noir--back lighting and shadows, woods and raging rivers--about the rise of an "American hero" who was really planting the seeds of Nazism in the U.S. It seemed uncomfortably close to the temper of our times where racism and hatreds against "others" is becoming more mainstream. This is where my thoughts go---into a sense of doom about where our country is headed, one red tar ball at a time.

I want to rediscover hope and put myself into a place of creativity and imagination. That's one reason why the newly awarded NEH grant, Prime Time, that I will be part of is something I am looking forward to (along with a trip to hot and humid New Orleans next month). The local stuff I am doing is less hopeful, so mired down in the muck of low to midlevel local politics. I also think I need to take a break from watching "The Tudors": the last three episodes charted the decline of Anne Boelyn and graphically showed beheadings of her supposed lovers (all orchestrated by Cromwell, in part, because Anne didn't want the recently claimed Catholic riches to be turned over to the King, but, instead, wanted houses of literacy for women and children).

So, instead of political gloom and doom, maybe this afternoon, I will try to soothe my butterfly brain by reading the NEH materials that came in the mail, including a new version of "The Three Little Pigs" with great illustrations. I need to let my imagination breath in the light a bit and, with some rest, rediscover the joys (and meaningful order) of stories.