Whenever I'm feeling a little blank or a little psychically wind-burned I write dialogue. It's a safe place to say a small thing. Sometimes I will profile an imaginary dysfunctional person, trying to understand what we might have in common. (How could I, after all, understand anything else?) Comedy comes when I'm feeling anxious or unsettled. Comedy skims and scars the surface. It's easy and cheap, but it's a relief sometimes. When I'm feeling conflicted or confused I write poetry, hoping it will say something I cannot, never really sure if it does.
Running is what really makes me feel good. When I haven't run for a long time, when I'm getting reacclimatized, I force myself to focus only on my breathing. I'd rather stop running and catch my breath than run without control of my breath. I push myself, trying to convince my heart and lungs to calm down. Everything will be okay. It takes several days, a couple of weeks, but I eventually cross that place, that wall of pain, and come out to the other side. I end up in that place where breathing in and out, counting steps, is a rhythm to which I can sing a song of wellness and contentment. When I reach this place I feel as though I might be a normal person. Almost. I might almost be a normal person. I never reach that place, though. I haven't run for more than twenty years. I never run.
After an initial paragraph about a topic, when I'm afraid I can't say more without saying too much, without repeating myself, I just change the subject. I talk about something else. I might, and often do, come back to the topic of the first paragraph in the third paragraph. By then, however, the danger has passed. Now it's safe. Now it's all casual. The third paragraph is probably my favorite place in the world.
Hello, friends. How are you today?
Later. Love.
