GUEST POST: A Slap In The Face From The Collective Unconscious

(I am swamped in work up to my eyebrows, not to mention dealing with some problems with one of the Threadless designs. Maybe more about that soon. For now, a guest post that has been waiting in the wings for a while. Enjoy!)

The collective unconscious has apparently decided it was time to give me a good slap in the face. A couple of days ago, I was feeling like I was getting sick. I felt like I needed a boost, so went to the Zen calendar for a motivating quote. (You are on your honor with this, just like choosing a fortune cookie. You open the calendar and take what you get. No do-overs.) This is what I got:

“The trouble with you is that you think you have time.” ~Zen master

I kept pondering this, circling the desk like the lion tamer waving his chair at the lion, and wrote nothing all week. So, still feeling sick, I came home last night, Friday, and found the mail had not yet been delivered. I fell asleep waiting for the postman to come (I have to walk across the street to get the mail, so couldn’t change into my pajamas), then went out to find that a book I ordered had arrived days ahead of time, and I thought it would be a good, kinda-sick-but-not-totally weekend for reading.

First, though, I watched television. I cried all through the vampire show, Moonlight, because it was so sad, and because I don’t understand what would be so bad about being immortal and having super powers. (Then I would have time…)

Then, I read the book, “Lean Forward Into Your Life: Begin Each Day As If It Were On Purpose,” by Mary Anne Radmacher. It is an inspirational and motivational book. (You have to understand that I have not been able to settle into any reading since last weekend when I finished the book “Engleby,” by Sebastian Faulks, featuring the male narrator/murderer with the personality disorder, with whom I found myself in total agreement.) Pretty soon the book also had me crying. The author is an artist/writer whose work is featured in a catalog I look at whenever it comes. Though I’ve never bought any of her work, it always catches my eye, and I think often that it would be so great to have that job. I guess I realized while reading her book how hard she has worked to have that job, and how much my own pursuit of a writing life has fizzled since the days when I dropped my son off at school and broke the speed limit getting home.

I suppose it is good for all of us to have a weekend once in awhile for self-interrogation. A time of solitude when we can ask ourselves the hard questions, shed a few tears for old beliefs that we are leaving behind, and begin the work of redefining our truth.

I intend to use the remainder of my time this weekend doing some hard introspection, pen in hand, working on a book review of “Engleby,” and looking for a place where I can have that calendar page laminated.