I used to have a saying, can’t remember if it’s entirely or only partly my own:
Lethargy rules
for all I care
Original or not it’s certainly a fair description of my present state of mind. Can’t dig up the energy to do very much at all and when I do it’s shortlived and done in a half-hearted manner.
Very soon now, unless things take a turn for the better, I shall start on my winter dose of Prozac to keep the black dog away. Or at least safe in its kennel.
Speaking with Graham this morning about his three fine blog entries on the Muse trip I said: ”Just shows that going out is good for us. Even a vicarious adventure like this one.” He did not disagree.
I’ve rather wasted my summer, sitting here looking after the house and keeping Dolly company. A couple of small projects and a layer of dust overall is all I have to show for it. The dust is disappearing in fits and starts now, but the lost time is something I’m unlikely to recover.
The fact of the matter is that I’m perfectly content and of an equable mind-set at home but I don’t enjoy going out on my own. I feel safe and comfortable in my own home. Out on my own I feel exposed and, let’s face it, alien. An stranger in a foreign land. On several levels.
Nothing new about that. When Graham comes home things will pick up, and stay picked up, but I suspect that in my later years I shall tend more and more to enjoy a reclusive life. It’s not so bad.
~~+~~
soft grey September morning
the comforting smell
of fresh toast and coffee
~~+~~
I think I will probably become more reclusive as I get older. I tend to be that way now and it’s only my part time job that forces me out of the door most days, that and taking my elderly dog for her little walk in the morning.
There’s worse things to be.
I don’t enjoy going out on my own much either, John. Oh, I do go… I have to. But I’d much rather have Jimbo along to share things with. When he’s working and I have to do the shopping, it feels strange and I hurry it along.
Good idea ’bout beginning the Prozac early. Just might do the trick, eh?
John, with the grey, rainy summer you had, I’ve been debating whether to write to you privately about starting your Prozac sooner rather than later. I’m glad to read that you’ve come to that conclusion without my meddling. It’s quite a disrupted year you’ve had.
A man who can be content with his books, his cat, and his own company is one to be admired, to my way of thinking.
The older I get, the less I venture off also.
Same as Allison, if it wern’t for working part-time, I do believe I could spend my day happily around the place, possibly in my slouchy wear, and not a care in the world of keeping up with the world’s pace.
I imagine a lot of that feeling comes from being an only child, I was used to entertaining myself, and loved it, when I was home alone…
I’d say reclusive is not a bad thing, as the saying goes “I like being in my own little world, everyone knows me in here”
If I were not employed “outside”, I would leave my road once a week to shop and go to the library. Other than that, I would be quite content with a stroll with my dog, looking at the flowers in the fields and the sparkle of the ocean.
Hugs to you dear you. Yes, you have been far more reclusive than ever before this year. What does Graham say?
I like staying home alot. I work, and when I don’t I enjoy my books, computer, animals and naps. Its not such a bad thing as long as you are happy with it.
Ayuh! Recluse would be my middle name if I didn’t work part-time. I’m pretty good at entertaining myself.
*^_^*
Do think about doing some little jaunts with Graham when he returns; just marking time is all well and good for a while, but a poet needs to stimulate “the little grey cells” with new vistas and potages, now and then.
Happy Trails! ~ Sil
I guess I can better understand now the reclusive nature of elders. I’m there.
While I might like to go out and do more there are body parts protesting.
Wow John, it looks like you and all your readers are people who enjoy their solitude more than most.
I’ve been taking the six-mile gravel road trip to town regularly once a week and grudging any time I had to go twice a week. Now I’m trying to organize things so that I can go in once every two weeks.
I hope we don’t all need Prozac.
I cannot financially afford to become a recluse, but if I could, I would. The occasional speech to garden club members, a la May Sarton in her later years, would suffice to keep the smell of humanity a closer memory than that of distant childhood. Of course, then my vast public audience would miss me (or would they instead mail me Prozac packages with good wishes for my relationship with the silence of what books and mental tributaries say to me). I enjoy the outdoors, rain or shine, but people oftentimes ruin the terrain. I snap a lot of photographs, but prefer to edge my camera’s lens around the protuberence of human creatures in favor of life forms whose only attitude involves the urge to survive another turn around another corner. Give me solitude, or give me money to afford the same!
You are not really reclusive if you chat pleasantly with people all over the world every day. You do that with your blog. You don’t have to go out and about to stay connected. I always marvel at the way you make the ordinary everyday stuff interesting to read. I think it is because you write beautiful sentences. Keep on keeping on. Your readers need you.
I’d also noticed you seemed more reclusive, and well, down, this year. I started reading your archives from the start and the difference was obvious in the tone of your writing. It made me feel sad. I’m sure it is just age getting on with us all, but I don’t think it helps having Graham away so much either. I know when my boy goes away he takes the light out of the day with him.