Saturday, October 20, 2007

*Hangs Head in Shame*


I'm aware that it has been a very long while since I have posted here. It makes me feel guilty to see my name at the side of this page, particularly because I haven't even conversed with Paul in quite a while.

I hate being one of those subtly-stressed floundering career women who always blame everything on not having enough time. I know that I waste a lot of time chain-smoking and petting my cat. So it would be lame of me to try and justify my prolonged absence. I do enough of that when I call in sick (three cheers for mental health days!).

Instead I will kiss all of your virtual feet and beg for your quiet forgiveness.

An incredibly brief synopsis: Migraines not yet subsided, life in splinters, cat box perpetually dirty, can't find ANY of the twenty some-odd spoons I know are in this house somewhere.
And that is the extent of my knowledge regarding my latent realization that I haven't been happy in months.

Enough whining.

After reading Paul's frighteningly visceral post, "Changes", I felt compelled to share a little secret of mine that makes seasons more bearable and beautiful, even if one hates all four of them.

A long time ago I decided to rename the seasons to suit what they actually DO to me. It's obvious that changes in weather aren't gentle in their violent rearrangement of my outlook and substance. In fact, it may have nothing at all to do with the weather, but rather, my life may follow some twisted cycle of phases that lines up perfectly with Mother Nature's, and it's all pure coincidence.

(Thanks go out to my grade twelve sociology teacher for drilling it into my brain that "correlation is not causation", and forcing me to remove all natural assumption from my daily thought process.)

I don't suggest that anyone adopt the same labels for seasons that I have, as they're likely influenced by my own experience, and the fact that I live in Canada. However, I think 'renaming' the seasons to accommodate one's feelings toward them can promote self-awareness. Because really, who actually knows what the heck "summer" means anyway.

These are mine, respectively:

Boring, Rainy, Miserable Days

Arid, Thoughtless Days crammed full of Denial

Sleepy Days when everything smells Pleasantly Dead

Desperate, Freshly Frozen Days

Also, my personal blog, Lipstick Without Borders, has been flagged for objectionable content. *VICTORY DANCE*
Cheers to my no longer being viewed as the Milk and Cookies of the online literary world.

8 comments:

george.w said...

Eryn, over a year ago, I posted a story that I wrote on my blog. Everyone seemed to like the story a lot. I created a category called "Stories" and thought, "That went well! I'll post another story next month." The category still has only 1 story in it. I would love to write more, but cannot seem to mount the level of concentration that is needed.

I only mention it as a lead-in to voicing the opinion that shame is something others expect of you. Be ashamed if you ever hurt someone for personal gain, perhaps, but for struggling with time and pain? There is no sin to forgive.

Congratulations on your objectionable content, btw! :-)

Anonymous said...

What's that thing in the picture, near the bench plz? scratchin' me head over it...

Eryn Leigh said...

I'll assume you mean the ball of light. It was at one point a pocket mirror (the type they sell in shiny colors to little girls at dollar stores) It glinted in the picture (an accident on my part, since it wasn't my mirror) and I filtered it with some linux-based photo editing software. Just so people could scratch their heads about it.
Otherwise, the picture contains a bench, a garbage can, and part of a tree.

decrepitoldfool, thanks for your words of wisdom. I'm sure I'll be rid of my guilt complex one day. I suppose I'm just the type to need reminding every so often.

Anonymous said...

Ah, it could be an interesting thing to experiment with - different shape mirrors, prisms, ect.

Such techniques could be used by the unscrupulous to trick people into thinking it was something mystical - eventually it's going to happen.

And yeah, you're under no obligation, eryn, it's not as if we're somehow harmed, we should be grateful for what we do get from everyone - ideally people shouldn't burden others or themselves with expectations, because then people feel constrained and disappointed

Paul Sunstone said...

Eryn, I so love your prose! But there's no reason for shame at anything.

Trinifar said...

We are chained to shame and guilt are from the first day -- instigating a life's work to free ourselves. Today I posted on my blog for the first time in a month. I've never been one to post daily, but a month seems like such long time these days. So today I choose to enthusiastically and adamantly revolt at the idea of time compression being beneficial.

Used to be, one could write a letter full of deep thoughts and superficial musings and expect it to take weeks or months to arrive at its destination and a similar period to pass before receiving a reply. Strangely both the letter and the response were written by hand using pen, ink, and paper -- physical things, things with a dear cost as dear as the education that enabled the literacy required to use them. A letter's content was enclosed in something called an envelope composed of paper and glue which protectively held your scriblings while providing a surface on which to scratch the location of the intended recipient. That envelope was actually picked up by a human being (!no shit!) who touched it with a human hand, and it went from bag to hand to bag to hand as it proceeded across town or between continents.

In those days both the sending and the receipt of written communication from another human being involved one's careful attention if not a certain celebration when the communication send-response protocol actually succeeded. Contrast that with the way we fire off email today and hit delete, delete, delete to clear our in-boxes.

"Death be not proud...." That is, fingers on my keyboard be not proud! I say stop, at least slow down! All this finger tapping accomplishes so little. We reach out across an emphemeral network to emphemeral acquaintances rather than knocking on a neighbor's door behind which is a real, physical human being who we might see, touch, and smell. And we think this keyboard fingering is meaningful?

***

Okay, I'll stop. I think I was channeling some better part of myself there for a moment, but now I'm back to the basic Trinifar, the blogger, the environmentalist wannabe, the sustainability advocate. Whew! Sorry about that. Damn those creative writing classes of decades ago!

And thanks a million for your honest postings here on Café Philos, Eryn. I really love reading what you and Paul have to say.

Anonymous said...

deep thoughts are notoriously hard to capture in words on paper, and are difficult to share to those who havn't already arrived at that thought, but sometimes someone who was heading towards that thought, and close enough, can understand (and you'd be the source of something profound)

It seems you never forget what you've explored (you retain and build upon the mental infrastructure that would incline you that way even if your memories are gone)

stevo said...


Sleepy Days when everything smells Pleasantly Dead


Lovely and too true. Your seasonal description are apt. You've inspired me to create my own.