my weekend was spent in (voluntary) solitary confinement after the worst week ever. i had enough of people and their issues and how they freely fling them my way, as if my way with the catcher's mit makes me fair game for the force of their crap. (my apologies for using the word 'crap' in a picnic post; while honest, it's ugliness seems out of place.) i intended a short little lunch al fresco, in the privacy and silence of my own backyard. i needed rest and quiet and clearing.
i made a healthy little meal of dill tuna salad scooped into one of jessica's amazing heirlooms and ventured out early to beat the sun's scheduled plan to validate the heat advisory. despite it being just after eleven, beads of sweat instantly appeared on my iced tea glass. and yet i was oddly comforted by the warmth as if it was a rogue sunny day smack dab in the middle of february.
the backyard is loyal that way.
since returning home from california, i've been on a total health kick and have found it surprisingly easy to eat seasonal and organic produce. i'm even toying with an ayurveda diet. while my body feels light and clean, my spirit is heavy and gray. today i realized that it is not only my physical health that is in need of a reboot.
i savoured my lunch then lazed about a bit in the hammock, one foot dangling off, staring up at the almost-white sky, pressing the cold glass to my face while being serenaded by lazy chirpy birds and the tinkling of the fountain.
then i cracked open 'lit'. by page 37, i knew that while i could lose myself reading the brilliant prose depicting childhood emotional hell, i no longer want to muck around in the real-life versions making fruitless attempts at change in a system that is often as screwed up as the families it professes to serve. i am weary and beat and bitter in this field where at every conference and in every newsletter, the only inspiration they have to offer the soldiers is that corny ubiquitous starfish story. the soul investment has become too risky. just like that, the decision was made.
