infraredrose

My family came back from the lake last night, so now we have plenty of fruits and vegetables and bread and milk (thank goodness – I was going crazy!). Now I’m not forced to get creative when I’m hungry, so I’ll be more likely to get something healthy, like a granola bar or an apple. Especially since I’ve missed healthier foods so much in the last week.

Did well yesterday – the only thing really worrying me is that I’m going to the lake with Jeff on Monday, will be there all week, and the lake is notorious for its inauspicious aura of luring you to nothing but junk food. So it will be an exercise of willpower. I think I can handle it. Especially if I’m swimming for six hours a day.

Which probably won’t happen, since Wimbledon debuts on Monday. :)

I think it appropriate that I’m reading Demian right now. Everything in it, its quality, its pensive characters, its citing of fortuitous events as anything but chance, is speaking to me. It’s helping me realize that life is a journey, nothing less, sometimes much, much more; I’m putting my own search into perspective as I read about that of Sinclair, I’m running lines through the story which parallel and decussate my own, and at times run completely contrary to my own. I’m gaining knowledge of why we fight the external system, to make room for the internal to grow.

I could not sleep at all the night before last. I think it was because my body was detoxifying itself, it was ridding itself of the negativity and ragdoll-esque encumbrances of the last week. As I lay in bed for…hours on end…I experienced a spectrum of emotions, ranging from frustration to self-loathing to envy to acceptance to curiosity to happiness and peace. Granted, they weren’t so easy to define as all that at the time, and some were much more fleeting than others, permeated sporadically by activities designed to put my mind to rest to I might sleep. Finally, at around 4 in the morning, I said fuck it, got out of bed, and went downstairs. Out on the back porch, I stood, a warm cup of coffee in my hands, my cat circling the warm, humid morning breaking around us, breaking within myself.

I watched the dawn rise, watched the crescent moon slowly fade to a distant, watchful pallor as the sun exhumed the sky with a beautiful, warm, glowing disposition. I wrote about it, briefly. Surprise. I wrote:

“I don’t know why I’m here in the long run, but I am here right now to appreciate these few brief, beautiful moments…My sleepless night was a blessing.”

Not the most eloquent of passages, but definitely how I was feeling. As I stood staring through the trees at the distant atmosphere, I felt comfortable. I knew, and I know, I have always known, that things are forever linked in the fabric of time, occurrences are not chance, not luck - they are coated with reasoning, layering meaning upon meaning until everything happens for a reason, everything is linked to you, your own being, to have some sort of impact upon your life. Maybe not everything, I suppose, but those important moments that make you stop and think, make you wonder, “that was weird,” or “I can’t believe that just happened,” or “I’m seeing that thing AGAIN?” - it’s all a part of your being jumping into the external world, making itself manifest in such a way that you notice those things, you hold back a few more moments so you unknowingly set yourself up for a day’s worth of timing, of being at the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time.

My sleepless night, my subconscious detox, ultimately led to the sunrise and the feeling of acceptance I have now. I’m not much closer to understanding where I stand than I was, but I feel I have inched forward, I have made progress, simply because I feel a little more whole.

I also got Jason Mraz’s cd yesterday, and “Details in the Fabric” helped me realize, as I’ve told myself a million times, you just have to realize who you are and what you are, “know your name,” and act accordingly. You can’t change that, on the deepest level, and you must embrace it.

Everything you encounter comes to you, speaks to you in a different way. Each time I hear something to that effect, something that isn’t in a motivational speech or in the mouth of some poor lost speaker from the Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility or something like that, it hits differently. Some things just have to be reinforced more than others.

I’ve gone on for quite too long. All my entries will be this way, because this is a big deal for me. I hope I can continue to be optimistic about this.

And the funny thing is, almost every day something will happen that will rock the boat – this really is an everyday process.

I love apple pie and M&Ms as much as the next girl, but with everything else on my plate (both literally and figuratively) – NEVER in the same day. At least, never again.

Same general concept as with my much broader goal, if I note my daily habits here, perhaps I’ll realize that I’ve failed to (or have miraculously been able to) make progress.

So…all in all, today wasn’t that bad. Except for that ice cream…it’s really embarrassing admitting all this technologically out loud, so this is good. Right? Anyway, the worst part is when you’re sitting there, home alone, in the summer, nothing to do, nowhere to go, you almost naturally gravitate toward the kitched. Maybe it’s a biological habit left over from our hunting and gathering days, or perhaps that nomadic phase we went through when it was necessary to eat as much as possible for strength and the fact that you had no idea when you would actually experience your next meal. In any case, willpower and distraction are important.

I’ve been trying to drink more water to quell the desire for more solid nourishment, and it works pretty well when I’m actually implementing this tactic.

We’ll see how it goes.