Just a drifter out of touch with reality

Friends, I tried and failed to write a post for today.

Working at newspapers most of my life, I’ve cultivated a diligence for coming up with story ideas and meeting deadlines. I’m not one to suffer from writer’s block – the demands of the job don’t allow it.

And indeed, yesterday morning I had ideas I felt might yield fruit. Then I rushed off to an appointment. There, I had an encounter that threw me off course. It was one of those small, incidental meetings that won’t alter the fabric of my life but shredded the fabric of my day, leaving me full of self-doubt and shame. I came home, sat down at my computer feeling surly, and started to research my first idea.

But a negative magnetism had now firmly set in place. When I dug into my little art historical theory that seemed pertinent to gender issues today, I found nothing to substantiate my whim. I scrapped it and turned to idea number two: A rollicking good story about the time I nearly burned down a house and was called “a drifter out of touch with reality” in the local newspaper. I’d never thought of myself that way before. But in some ways, I now see it’s true.

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The house-burning and drifting happened when I was 22, and that story springs from my righteous youthful perspective. I decided I’d better do a little research before I share the tale publicly. When I did, not surprisingly, I found more shades of gray than I remembered. Rethinking my righteousness, I stood up from my computer and took a deep breath.

That’s pretty much when I threw in the towel, although I spent a couple of hours sifting through poetry looking for another inspiration. Really, I had decided I was done for the day. I was still stewing from my morning encounter, and there was no room at my door for inspiration, only indignation.

Talking with my boyfriend John last night, I recognized that I was clinging to my outrage, and it wasn’t doing me any good. I saw that – like the source of my righteousness at 22 – a wound to my fragile ego was the source, and the agita was bigger and more dramatic than the issue itself. Alas! I love my agita. Sometimes I can really nurse it. But in the moment, I saw that I’d rather be present with John than caught up in my outrage.

Last night, I had a dream that a friend of mine was irritable. “Irritation is a waste of time,” I told her. “Wouldn’t you rather just move onto what’s next?”

This morning, I’m still a little indignant, mildly snagged by what Eckhart Tolle calls my pain body. But life feels more generous to me.

And look, I’ve written a Substack post!