I woke up this morning feeling normal. Today is the 8th day since I came down with a cold.
On day 6 I was both starting to feel better, but also feeling like I would never recover. I went to church, came home, went to the food coop for some groceries, and was suddenly overtaken with exhaustion. At 2 in the afternoon I stripped off my "public" clothes and took a 2 1/2 hour nap.
Tikka took a nap too. She was happy because it was the first time in a week we had been out together in the car, and she had been busy socializing with the other dogs at the Co-op. But she might just tell me she was "guarding" my clothes.
Sometime during the past week, I claimed ownership of the second nightstand. What? There are two nightstands, I live alone. They are both mine, are they not? But somehow, they were not. I have learned that it is important to me where things are placed, how they relate to the other objects in the room. The second nightstand was bare; well, almost bare. It held the charger for my watch. I had been looking for something to put under the small painting, to no avail, until I thought of the books, books I enjoy just picking up for inspiration and distraction.
It seems like my nightstands belong to me now. There is harmony between the nightstands and the person who lives in this house. Odd, the old house seemed like it didn't fit me. This house has seemed more like me than I myself have always seemed like me; more exactly, it has reflected my nature in a way that has not always been reflected in the way I present myself to the world. No longer.
I was thinking about this last week, well, when I was thinking anyway -- thinking about my sartorial evolution, thinking about how the seeds of my artsy-cousin (thank you Lisa) style were present early on, in the clothes I lusted after as a young girl, the clothes in which I was rarely allowed to indulge, in the protracted fights with my mom about whether I should comb my hair, about the style-dichotomy between my work-self and my home-self, and even my social-self, which came closest to integrating the two. I thought about how hard it was for me to give up my work wardrobe when I retired, not so much because I was afraid to cast off cultural fetters, but because it can be tricky to sort out the way we are sometimes. Self, culture, community, family: all conspire to make us who we are, are imbedded in the very fabric of our natures.
This is the 8th day. Further exploration may be warranted.
