Spring has come here in the south and it was particularly beautiful today in the 70's and breezy. My flowers have been blooming for over a month but not in a good way. It was cool sometimes and rainy and hot other times and they are confused. Just like we are right now.
This makes me think of an old song with a line that says "should I stay or should I go now?" You can't really keep people cooped up forever and when spring comes it is even less likely to work. The mind just says "look how beautiful it is it can't be that dangerous. Right?
I have to admit I drove to Lowes today and it was a mob seen so I didn't leave my car. I did stop at a small Ace and bought all of one kind of plant that matched the ones in my flower bed. I would tell you the name but I don't know.
I am sure I could have gotten them cheaper but I also could have gotten Covid along with the discount so I think they were a bargain. Besides the Ace stores are independently owned and this one was struggling before the pandemic. They could use the business.
I have started reading again and I am finishing two books a week which is interesting since I haven't read for pleasure in years. I am also listening to Trevor Noah - Born a crime - read by him and it is hilarious and pretty unbelievable his success given his childhood.
Something he said reminded me of myself. He talked about how if something didn't seem logical he would just refuse to go along with it. He was raised Pentecostal but went to a Catholic school where they wouldn't let him take communion because he wasn't Catholic.
He explained to the nun that Jesus was not Catholic either and it was his blood and body so that was not acceptable. He felt like an outcast so he stole the bottle of grape juice and bag of wafers and finished them off. When the nuns told his mother she said his argument was perfectly legitimate. He is a pretty smart guy and with his mother's tenacity and guidance he became who his today.
I feel like I am re-inventing myself with reading for pleasure. My whole adult life I have read mostly self help or spiritual books looking for answers. I was trying to figure out what I was doing to cause bad things to happen to me. I turns out that life is pretty random and you can waste a lot time preparing one thing and then something else happens. We have to find peace in the midst of the turmoil and love ourselves and the mistakes we have made. Fill our time with small pleasurable things and let go of our past hurts.
With reading I have found a lost pleasure. I not a fiction fan because they seem predictable to me but reading memoirs like "Brain on Fire" that I finished this week and "A Year of Bee Keeping" they feel less formulated. When I read Angela's Ashes and "An Education" both were a little to real both long and sad even if they ended well. It felt like every story of addiction and mental illness I have heard and experienced myself in Al-Anon. How no one matters but the one afflicted good but heavy.
I need to escape even if I loved to work lately it has taken a toll on me and I feel that I need to see what else is out there with the limitations of the pandemic. The reading has helped me to vacation in my own mind. I know that one day I will eventually leave work and have to find something else to do with my time. My coworker that had Covid is home from the hospital and may not come back to work. We are alike in our love of work so it really made me think about what is next.
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