Barefoot on the balcony
Ann-Mi is not inspired tonight, but she is determined.
I'm outside, sitting at the balcony, barefoot, with my feet propped up on a cushioned chair, and with my laptop propped on my knees. The empty box of leftovers is sitting on the table next to my blue, disc-shaped earrings. Under the table, a fluffy chubby cat is watching me intently with green grape-colored eyes as I type. Her nose wiggles whenever interesting breezes waft by, and her ears seem irritated from the sound of my nails on the keyboard as they keep swiveling around. The sun is setting, and the air is getting a bit cooler, but the tiles she is lying on are still warm from the evening sun. Her whiskers twitch. She is sampling life with her senses.
I don't take the time to enjoy things anymore. I adhere to a dull routine: work, eat, sleep, work eat, sleep. It's a routine, a very dull routine, which I should break. Occasionally I do break it, but all too often this consists of coming home from work and going straight to bed instead, or maybe stay up late watching Inspector Morse. During the weekends I either stay home alone while my husband is at a night shift, or then we go to the north to visit his parents. Both are nice, but never quite succeed in chasing worries and thoughts about work from my mind.
When I look back on life and compare where I am now, I feel I am happier now, but I am less satisfied with myself. I miss crafting, drawing, painting, and writing. I miss dancing, and taking walks in the forest when I feel I need to let off some steam. The further I move away from my roots, the more I become set in my ways. Maybe when a tumbleweed stops tumbling, it loses its purpose. Or maybe it just loses bits and pieces of itself and becomes something smaller and less interesting with time.
Speaking of tumbling, I'm moving again on Sunday. I calculated that this will be the 15th time I move. I move an average of about every two years. This is the first time that I am moving to a home that will be my very own home (together with my husband, of course). Perhaps as a protest against all the anonymous white walls that have surrounded me in most of my homes, I have had the bedroom walls painted blue, and I plan to paint a mural in the room that I have claimed as my own. I was told it would be too dark, and not nice, and that I should stick to white, but there is no way I will tolerate white bedroom walls any longer... and frankly, I think it looks good.
I pretend my room will be an "office", but I think I want to change that label. I don't intend to sit there and be serious. I intend to stand and paint, sit and sew, draw, play games, write. I want to be inspired in it, and I want to get out of this rut. I am afraid that my "office" will become a storage room, where I occasionally sit and work from home, and collect things on my desk that have no place.
I want to paint a wall like a birch forest, and hang ideas from the "trunks", perhaps on clothespins strung up between the trunks.
When I move one more time, I will change things like I have changed the bedroom. I will take up dancing, I will take the time to live again, and I will make the time enjoy the things and people that make me happy.
But not tonight. Now I've worked, I've eaten, and I will go straight to bed. Tomorrow, I will perform a different routine; my packing routine: I will listen to the "Grosse Pointe Blank" soundtrack and pack until my back aches and my things are in boxes.
It makes me feel like the junk lady from Labyrinth. (And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you need to go watch Labyrinth now!)
I'm outside, sitting at the balcony, barefoot, with my feet propped up on a cushioned chair, and with my laptop propped on my knees. The empty box of leftovers is sitting on the table next to my blue, disc-shaped earrings. Under the table, a fluffy chubby cat is watching me intently with green grape-colored eyes as I type. Her nose wiggles whenever interesting breezes waft by, and her ears seem irritated from the sound of my nails on the keyboard as they keep swiveling around. The sun is setting, and the air is getting a bit cooler, but the tiles she is lying on are still warm from the evening sun. Her whiskers twitch. She is sampling life with her senses.
I don't take the time to enjoy things anymore. I adhere to a dull routine: work, eat, sleep, work eat, sleep. It's a routine, a very dull routine, which I should break. Occasionally I do break it, but all too often this consists of coming home from work and going straight to bed instead, or maybe stay up late watching Inspector Morse. During the weekends I either stay home alone while my husband is at a night shift, or then we go to the north to visit his parents. Both are nice, but never quite succeed in chasing worries and thoughts about work from my mind.
When I look back on life and compare where I am now, I feel I am happier now, but I am less satisfied with myself. I miss crafting, drawing, painting, and writing. I miss dancing, and taking walks in the forest when I feel I need to let off some steam. The further I move away from my roots, the more I become set in my ways. Maybe when a tumbleweed stops tumbling, it loses its purpose. Or maybe it just loses bits and pieces of itself and becomes something smaller and less interesting with time.
Speaking of tumbling, I'm moving again on Sunday. I calculated that this will be the 15th time I move. I move an average of about every two years. This is the first time that I am moving to a home that will be my very own home (together with my husband, of course). Perhaps as a protest against all the anonymous white walls that have surrounded me in most of my homes, I have had the bedroom walls painted blue, and I plan to paint a mural in the room that I have claimed as my own. I was told it would be too dark, and not nice, and that I should stick to white, but there is no way I will tolerate white bedroom walls any longer... and frankly, I think it looks good.
I pretend my room will be an "office", but I think I want to change that label. I don't intend to sit there and be serious. I intend to stand and paint, sit and sew, draw, play games, write. I want to be inspired in it, and I want to get out of this rut. I am afraid that my "office" will become a storage room, where I occasionally sit and work from home, and collect things on my desk that have no place.
I want to paint a wall like a birch forest, and hang ideas from the "trunks", perhaps on clothespins strung up between the trunks.
When I move one more time, I will change things like I have changed the bedroom. I will take up dancing, I will take the time to live again, and I will make the time enjoy the things and people that make me happy.
But not tonight. Now I've worked, I've eaten, and I will go straight to bed. Tomorrow, I will perform a different routine; my packing routine: I will listen to the "Grosse Pointe Blank" soundtrack and pack until my back aches and my things are in boxes.
It makes me feel like the junk lady from Labyrinth. (And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you need to go watch Labyrinth now!)
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