behindtheax

what to do

I dreamt about dead caribou. They were lying all over a beach and I was stepping around them trying not to touch their cold, wet fur and bloated bodies. Their tongues were blue and hanging out of their mouths and they all had very shiny black hoofs, as if someone applied boot polish to them. It was a warm morning and the flies were hovering everywhere, some landing on the yellowy white of the caribou’s eyes. I couldn’t get off the beach because it was an inlet with rocky cliffs surrounding it. I was feeling very remorseful and felt very trapped. Then I woke up to the sound of Monica’s alarm clock playing the theme song to Love Story (which can be a little grating but she likes it) and the cat coming up the hallway meowing and I felt like oh no, there won’t be enough coffee in the world to jumpstart this day for me. Monday and the week stretches out in front of me and I’m feeling very disconnected. I don’t know why? The weekend was really nice. Greg and I got some running in. We went out to supper last night with friends and the girls had friends in and out the entire weekend, making the house a little chaotic but loud and alive. But last night it took me forever to fall asleep – I felt all this anxiety and really my life is so quiet that I don’t have much to be anxious about. It drives me when I can’t put a finger on what is bothering me. I think it is my lack of smarts. I’m always thinking if I was just a little smarter maybe I wouldn't be so intimated by everything. I know a person should be happy with who they are and not wish to be someone they’re not and I know I'm not an intellect. However, it does bother me.
And even if I can’t have the smarts that would still be O.K. if I could just be happy toiling at something, at anything, just getting up every morning knowing my purpose and doing it. But I don’t know what that could possibly be?

There is this guy who works at the grocery store, who always walks with this air of importance and he should because he has a worthwhile and busy job gathering the carts from around the parking lot and bringing them to the front of the store. It is a physical and necessary job for the store and he is out there no matter how cold or hot, slamming cart into cart and then wheeling them back to the store in one long train. He likes his job. You can tell in his stance and his purposeful walk that he takes a lot of pride in what he does. I actually look for him when I go there just to see some one who is busy at a job they feel good about. He almost became a short story but i got majorly stuck after the third paragraph. Anyway, there is a huge part of me that wants a job like that. Just to keep busy, just to be tired at the end of the day knowing I put a full day in and did my job well, not feeling I was second-rate at a job involving higher learning.
So right now I have no idea where this post is going. Be smart or push carts? I’m starting to think those dead caribou represent my brain cells.

posted by mary j. @ 3:38 PM