Hammer Time

Don't ask me why, or even how, but I pretty much cleared the rest of ToDo, all this morning. The stairway threshhold is down, the business receipts are sorted, and both the electrician and a carbon footprint assessment are scheduled. New clients, too, and loads of graded essays are in the hopper. I even started a new book - one page only so far, and I have no idea who these people are or where they're going, but I do know they're the cherry on the cream of my Thursday sundae.

It's weird, though. I'm feeling so ... disconnected, for the entire week, as if I'm more hammer than participant - a tool for a purpose rather than a woman with an agenda or even an emotional stake, in anything I do (including the novel). I don't feel this way often, thank heaven, but when I do I've found the only cure is to keep on tapping and slamming until it blows itself out - usually with much ripping of shrubs or clearing of surfaces involved (depending on the strength of the drive). And since I will start a new list as soon as I get off this page, take a walk, too, I'm hoping that will be soon. This is (honestly) a little scary.

In the meantime, I plan to keep pounding away at whatever I can. Life is too short to keep buying into the hourly dramas, alarums, and view halloo of CNBC, the Republicans, and The Weather Channel. My world has shrunk so that I am both the only catastrophe worth worrying about and the only hero. Life is just too crazy outside these walls. Here, at least, I have some power, and here I can tap back into the flow of humanity by regaining my confidence, and my connection.

I'm more than willing to be involved, after all, even in that irritating, hypocritical, and absurd stream of finger-pointing and blame washing rampant against our psyches right now. Maybe I'll learn to report the news instead of pass gossip and speculation around like a warm potato, something which most reporters seem to have forgotten. Maybe what I learn in here - the calm place where all I am is doing - I can use to remind myself (and others) that what we see on TV is illusion, even if it's fact. Maybe, just maybe, I can still change the world.

One nail at a time.