March Madness
31/03/2016 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaThe serpent has been absent of late. Strange that in the days of having no internet and not even a computer, I was posting far more frequently.
There are just so many distractions these days the worst of which are the dreaded Dementors who paid a very unexpected visit.
March is usually a month that begins with a bang. It is a time of hope and promise as the worst of the sizzling stinking summer is over. There are weeds and seeds to be planted and numerous opportunities to indulge the inner emerald serpent.
Izzie was all chirpy and happy and got lots of stuff done and had all sorts of grand plans. But that all ended in the middle of the month when the weather gods promised and delivered a string of days with a 40 in them with the bonus of some sickly steaming humidity.
February had more than its fair share of 40s but nearly all of them were the dry kind of heat that just makes you thirsty and tired but not totally troppo and grotty. Even Astrofest on Saturday 12th was insufficient to distract this cranky scratchy serpent.
It was a trivial thing but in the midst of the mugginess my wristwatch decided to die. That should be no big deal as there’s always the phone for finding the time. But unlike the young things of today I do not have this infernal object permanently attached to my hand and would constantly need to be looking in my bag to find it. That’s where pockets would come in handy but I don’t have any of those.
So I was running around like a mad March hare constantly worried about being late all the time. Back in 2009 I had a watch die at 6pm on Christmas Eve so it would be another 4 days before there was even a hope of getting a replacement. By then I was so desperate that I went to the first watch shop in the city that I could find and forked out $100 for a new one. I had no time at all for the usual ritual of shopping around and visiting 10 different stores in order to compare prices.
Since then I learned that shops like Target have them in the accessories section and there’s no need to pay more than $25.
That’s just what I did on the Friday evening after work. I could have done so the day before the old grey cells were not even capable of such a simple and logical thought.
Even a couple of sunsets at the beach on the last days of the recent Sculpture by the Sea did not banish the creepy clammy cloaked creatures.
None of the usual weapons worked against them. Sunshine, star gazing and gardening did not banish them. Not even chocolate so the only alternative was to just wait and wait, be a small target and hope they would get bored and go elsewhere. Invariably they always do but by the same token they always return.
The clammy creatures finally departed on Easter Sunday. Which is just as well because a couple of days later the trusty mobile phone started crashing and finally died this evening. I’m pretty peeved at losing all my online Scrabble games but it’s not the complete catastrophe on steroids and end of the world it would have been if the beasties had still been lurking.
I could not help but think of the wise words of Anthony de Mello who claimed that one good way of measuring your spiritual/mental strength is to count the number of times in the course of the day that you become disturbed or upset.
Then there are the toasty glowing times when it feels like being surrounded by a teflon coated shield where an assortment of slings and arrows of outrageous fortune just bounce off and barely cause a scratch.
Maybe contrasting and comparing the two states and watching for the warning signs for each would be a useful exercise in observation and could provide some useful insights.
There are just so many distractions these days the worst of which are the dreaded Dementors who paid a very unexpected visit.
March is usually a month that begins with a bang. It is a time of hope and promise as the worst of the sizzling stinking summer is over. There are weeds and seeds to be planted and numerous opportunities to indulge the inner emerald serpent.
Izzie was all chirpy and happy and got lots of stuff done and had all sorts of grand plans. But that all ended in the middle of the month when the weather gods promised and delivered a string of days with a 40 in them with the bonus of some sickly steaming humidity.
February had more than its fair share of 40s but nearly all of them were the dry kind of heat that just makes you thirsty and tired but not totally troppo and grotty. Even Astrofest on Saturday 12th was insufficient to distract this cranky scratchy serpent.
It was a trivial thing but in the midst of the mugginess my wristwatch decided to die. That should be no big deal as there’s always the phone for finding the time. But unlike the young things of today I do not have this infernal object permanently attached to my hand and would constantly need to be looking in my bag to find it. That’s where pockets would come in handy but I don’t have any of those.
So I was running around like a mad March hare constantly worried about being late all the time. Back in 2009 I had a watch die at 6pm on Christmas Eve so it would be another 4 days before there was even a hope of getting a replacement. By then I was so desperate that I went to the first watch shop in the city that I could find and forked out $100 for a new one. I had no time at all for the usual ritual of shopping around and visiting 10 different stores in order to compare prices.
Since then I learned that shops like Target have them in the accessories section and there’s no need to pay more than $25.
That’s just what I did on the Friday evening after work. I could have done so the day before the old grey cells were not even capable of such a simple and logical thought.
Even a couple of sunsets at the beach on the last days of the recent Sculpture by the Sea did not banish the creepy clammy cloaked creatures.
None of the usual weapons worked against them. Sunshine, star gazing and gardening did not banish them. Not even chocolate so the only alternative was to just wait and wait, be a small target and hope they would get bored and go elsewhere. Invariably they always do but by the same token they always return.
The clammy creatures finally departed on Easter Sunday. Which is just as well because a couple of days later the trusty mobile phone started crashing and finally died this evening. I’m pretty peeved at losing all my online Scrabble games but it’s not the complete catastrophe on steroids and end of the world it would have been if the beasties had still been lurking.
I could not help but think of the wise words of Anthony de Mello who claimed that one good way of measuring your spiritual/mental strength is to count the number of times in the course of the day that you become disturbed or upset.
Then there are the toasty glowing times when it feels like being surrounded by a teflon coated shield where an assortment of slings and arrows of outrageous fortune just bounce off and barely cause a scratch.
Maybe contrasting and comparing the two states and watching for the warning signs for each would be a useful exercise in observation and could provide some useful insights.
