Wednesday 26 November 2014

Don't you just wish it was still summer?

summer I lost another follower on Twitter today. No big deal I'm sure and yet I don't have so many. If you ignore the follower gatherer bots, you know the ones that hope you'll follow back so they can add another notch to the headboard there aren't that many real people who take the effort to notice my feeble efforts and I'd prefer not to let them down. So I'm going to take it as a hint that I'm not making enough effort myself to get out there and interact. It's true after all.

This thing of shutting up shop at the farm for the winter is a problem. Such small projects as I call my own are put on hold. Each year it becomes harder and harder to re-involve myself in the spring because of the expectation that the break will come and progress will lost again. And in the autumn and winter I've very little to occupy my mind, in fact, I spend most of my time trying not to think, not to dwell too deeply on the meaning of life because there are no answers and that's frustrating.

Anyway, after a couple of months when I had literally stopped, allowed my seeds for saving to rot, barely left the building, written nothing, drawn nothing, painted not at all, failed even to keep a tidy house or do more than the bare minimum in the kitchen I'd decided that probably it was too late for me to try to be more successful in life, that the best I could hope for was to be some sort of kept housewife and just give it all up to protect my sanity. To redraw my horizons at a very close and safe distance and not worry about the wide world beyond. Because to make a change might damage the few things left I do value, my marriage, my small family of humans and cats, the comfortable aspects of my life.

And then, goaded by the needs of polite society I was enrolled into a gathering of friends, where I promised to cook (it was my turn) and the party would be in our home. And that was a plan which didn't progress until just a few days before everyone was due to turn up - because it all seemed so pointless and my concentration was so poor I seriously considered calling it all off or going to a restaurant to avoid the effort.

It was unavoidable though. When finally the pressure of time and obligation became strong enough something had to be done and for 48  hours more or less continuously, we cleaned and tidied and planned and shopped and cooked and entertained and I was fine, absolutely fine - competent, efficient and meeting my own expectations pretty adequately. Everything worked out well and it was enjoyable, really enjoyable, even the work.

So, now I know, I'm not intrinsically useless but lacking direction and ambition. So now, with little to distract me I'm back to worrying about that.

And I wish it was summer.