Tuesday, March 3, 2020

I came home from yesterday's class so exhausted that I worried I was coming down with something. But maybe it was just plain old residual tiredness: all that restless dreaming catching up with me.

Today: editing, and prepping for a manuscript conference, and maybe messing around with a sloppy new draft, if I can find the time. And voting, of course. The temperature in Portland is supposed to climb sharply into the 50s, with rain tonight. We may be on the cusp of a sudden spring. Outside, a cardinal is singing and singing, as if he believes it. Maybe he'll convince me to get Vita out of the shed and pump up her tires and rub off her dust and take her out for a spin.

For some reason I'm feeling disoriented this morning--maybe a little overwhelmed by all of the job switching I do: teaching editing manuscript reading laundry hanging cat box cleaning floor washing Rilke copying Updike commenting grocery shopping dinner planning toilet scrubbing workshop planning insurance-company complaining Longfellow-essay writing firewood hauling flagstone laying . . . blink/do one thing/blink/do another/ and hardly anyone notices you've done anything at all.

1 comment:

nancy said...

It's like a winter hangover. I always feel disoriented this time of year -- can't focus on anything, have a fuzzy brain, am disinterested in just about everything. I feel just like my students, and I dial everything down in my classroom because, like them, I find it really hard to care too much or move too fast. I know that as soon as spring really hits, we'll have the will to live again. Right now, though, the sun is making its turn, the chickens are slowly starting to lay again, and the sap is going to run today!