I woke with nothing and everything on my mind. Usually I wake with the feelings of 1. Am I still alive? 2. Where did I go for a few hours? 4. I need to untangle things.
That’s apparently 4 things to me. 3 must just be a continuation of my absence of thought for several hours. I have to untangle myself from the claustrophobic type burrito I managed to get into in my blankets. And in my head. It’s the one place I feel claustrophobic. In bed. Even though I know this is in my head. Or sometimes in a tight necked shirt. That may even be a different phobia. It may not even be a real phobia at all. Are any of them real?
I am curious where my mind is going to take me before I start the day. I am just kind of letting it go. Not forcing a topic to obsess about. I’ve blinked more this morning. I have what I believe is all of my eyelashes fallen into one eye. At the rate at which my lashes fall out I can’t figure out how I have any at all. And they fall in my eye. Not near it but in it. I guess I figured eye lashes were created as a protective component of the eye. Something to bat at the wind to keep shit from getting in them. But they can’t seem to protect themselves from them self. Mine aren’t long. I swipe a layer of mascara on them because they tend to have blond highlights to them and I can imagine I look like I have none. Which I may not? I tend to tug at them. To check and see if any are loose. Nothing bothers me more than an eyelash in my eye. Or the feeling of one. Or anything in my eye. Do they grow overnight? Maybe they grow as soon as one falls out. Maybe that’s why they do fall out. I grow eyelashes quicker than most? Where on earth in my eyelid is all this back up lash? I’ve contemplated researching extensively why eyelashes fall out. But I will not google eyelashes.
My cat ended up assaulting me for trying to remove mat from her back. I tried talking calmly but I wasn’t calm. The instructions should say start with a calm human. I knew the attack that was coming. I had to sit on her a little to remove a little layer. I was too afraid to cut close to the skin. I don’t know the layout of organs as well on a long animal like I do humans. I’m not sure it mattered anyway I don’t want to puncture her skin even if it was just spine below. She knocked some things over in protest when I gave up with my own arms bleeding. Then she curled right back up on top my legs last night to help hold me down in sleep. She is my dead weight to help keep me in place. Or she likes to be tossed around all night. I usually wake with her right on my shoulder breathing at me. Then she lightly taps me on the face. I always imagine her trying to steal my breath like that story people told about cats trying to steal a babies breath in their crib. It’s a terrible wives tail. It’s a terrible myth about cats. Or it’s a terrible truth about them. But she always puts her paw right on my mouth and taps it. Maybe she can see me breathing and cats don’t breath with their mouths open and she is curious. Curious like a cat. I forgive her for her temper after the mat removal. But I think she needs her nails trimmed now. Which I will have to google. But I am not googling eyelashes today.
Life feels like it’s just catapulted to a stop. They have made some restrictions to lessen the spread of this virus that keep people inside. My dad still lays in the hospital with this non virus struggling to breath. They have tested him twice. Both negative: could there be two false negatives? If so they should doubt all tests results all over the world. They want it to be this virus because its easy. Not easy but easier than harder. My dad doesn’t know easy. The staff are becoming close minded to other diagnoses. It’s all they can see because it’s all they can hear. He is there to keep them guessing, like good doctors should. Keep them on their toes. Make them believe that not everyone will have this virus and die. He is there to give them hope. He isn’t a simple cut and dry case. He requires some thought. They don’t have to try to keep him alive they just need to keep guessing why he is trying to die. Is he? Is he just tired? He has fought so hard all his life. Who was he fighting? Was he fighting to live or die? Once I was asked if there was anything he couldn’t do? My answer. He doesn’t seem to be able to die. Google won’t know these answers either. Same as eyelashes.
I just have two routines now. 3 days of connecting and staying in with my kids. Teaching them, walking with them, sleeping in a little hiking, baking, reading…anything I want. Except shoe shopping. You can’t shoe shop really now. Or they don’t want you to. I also don’t really need or want to shoe shop. I just sort of do since no one really wants me to. Which is just how I am. I’m told not to and my level of interest in doing heightens. Like that they say no cosmetic or elective surgeries. So my thoughts went to all the cosmetic surgeries I might want, like maybe eyelash implants? Or any sign up surgeries that aren’t necessary. Which I can’t really think of one I would want to do. Maybe having my jaw broken and reset? It’s kind of not necessary I would be electing to do it. And I can’t now. Or a massage. I can’t now. I don’t like to be touched by strangers but am now curious about it, curious like a cat. What about a tattoo? I don’t need one but now I can’t get one. I can go on for days of the things they don’t want you doing that now I want to. Then I have 4 days of as close to my old routine as it can be. Eat, sleep, work. Not that order. Or maybe that order depending when I start. No googling eyelashes or cosmetic surgeries.
Can I trick myself into believing I am just not on my original path right now? Can I create a story in my head that lets me feel like I was forced off my trail and forced to wonder through the woods off of one? I was forced. The rules said get off. My problem is it is like when I see this in real life. End of trail. Dead end. Trail ends. That’s when you have to turn around. Not keep going. That’s also why I prefer a trail that does not do this. I need to keep going or come circle back to the beginning. Or hop in a car and be taken back. Now I’m just stopped. I’ve spent a couple of weeks staring at the sign in my head. The end. Yet I look beyond and it is not. There are no signs saying I can’t keep going. It doesn’t say do not go ahead, private property, it’s not a drop hundreds of feet down. It’s just more of the same without a clear foot path. Is that an end? Or a beginning? These aren’t questions for google like eyelashes aren’t.
Someone has to do it. Trail blaze. It was always my favorite work. Trail work. Being part of where a path can and should go. Thinking of the many steps that will follow once it’s clear where it leads to. I don’t like leaving a trail even to pee. I don’t like the thought that all the little creatures have felt safe knowing the path is way over there so they can habitate safely beyond. Although I’m not sure bugs know these things. But I don’t know what bugs do and don’t know so I’m not just going to guess they know nothing. Plus many bugs aren’t ancient creatures to the woods just a few days alive then not. This doesn’t justify crushing their home with my feet. It is all the more reason not to. If I just had a few days to live and I spent most of it building a home I would be furious if it was smashed. Again, who knows if they can get furious. This train of thought is going to grow way too big. I’m not googling bug feelings or eyelashes.
So for now I’m trying to convince myself I stared at a sign that told me I had to stop. Then I questioned what it really said. Then I lightly moved past it. Then what? No clue. It’s the adventurous part of not knowing. It’s unknown. I usually look for an animal path. A deer path or a way with little thorns. I don’t always get to decide. I try to stay a true direction so I don’t loop myself naturally. I have no internal compass. I barely have the sense of an external one. I don’t have a natural sense of any direction ever. Sometimes I can pretend I’m standing in my old living room looking directly south but that actually doesn’t work unless I’m actually in this room looking south. I can always find the sun. But it’s too far away and never seems reliable to me. I naturally loop. I’ve done it. I’ve come full circle lost once. I naturally veer left. Which could naturally be any direction. Except right. I naturally seem to get to water or drainage ditches that I figure will always lead me out. So where will I get to? Nowhere or everywhere? Can’t google this. It’s not mapped yet. Like eyelashes. You will get no answers. Or too many.
I will not google eyelashes, anything about eyelashes. I will not research eyelashes. I shall not. Will not. Could not. I will not. Said Sam I am.
I am curious about the word google. Curious like a cat but not curious enough to google even why cats are curious. Or do cats have eyelashes? I’ll just whisper softly to my cat and hold her down and look for her eyelashes after I finish removing her matted hair. I’m just curious in general, why that word? It’s like the word dictionary. It is one single word that is all consuming of all words. Like google, it’s all consuming of all things to consume. Even the word google will consume you. All google searches take you to the virus. It’s consuming.
Aspenleaf 