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October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween

And I think that's about all the holiday joy you're going to get from me. Just posting here took as much festive energy as I could muster.

It's not that I don't like Halloween. I love the holiday. It's that I've had two straight weeks of rehearsals, those this week being 5-6 hours long, culminating in our opening performance last night which had a decent, but not amazing house. I'm tired. I'm sad. I'm cranky and anxious and my head hurts. I have to clean the house today, and when that's done, I have a bunch of stuff that needs grading, and when that's done--but no, I doubt that will be done before I have to go to the theatre.

Please don't get me wrong. I am really enjoying the show. I just don't want it to be winter yet, and I don't want Poly to be dead, and I don't want to clean the living room. It will be the first time I've done any serious cleaning in the house since he got sick two weeks ago, and frankly, the mere thought of getting my shit together depresses me. There's just so much clutter that's built up here in the last two weeks, as we rushed from rehearsal to hospital to rehearsal to hospital to classes to rehearsal to rehearsal to rehearsal.

Plus, neither Dave nor I have been able to get a decent, uninterrupted night's sleep since about two days after Poly died. Because Imogen has started grieving. This takes the form of her standing in Dave's office or the basement stairwell or the living room--someplace really echoey--and letting out the most frightful yowls, as though she herself is dying. And she doesn't shut up. Did I mention that she begins this nightly activity shortly after we turn out our lights to go to sleep? And continues at intervals All. Night. Long.

I do not understand this behavior. I didn't think she even liked him. And we're trying to figure out whether getting up and bringing her to bed to cuddle will help ease her suffering or whether it will teach her that this is an acceptable activity. Because we don't want to encourage it, believe me. (It doesn't help that calling her name accomplishes absolutely nothing. If she sees one of us, her yowls immediately shift to "Hey! I'm here! Pet me!" calls, but she doesn't respond to just our voices.)

Katala doesn't seem to have noticed. Or perhaps she just doesn't care. She and Poly never really interacted that much. Q is also grieving, but she's doing it by being clingy. When I'm home, as long as I'm sitting down, she's sitting or lying on top of me. Imogen has been doing some of that too, but Q is attached to me like a furry black limpet. Thank goodness her tail is still up when she walks around the house. When Sunny died, that adorable little flag drooped for months.

So anyway, that's the mood in this house. Lost, sleepless, gloomy. Augmented by the grey October skies. It's very strange to move from this atmosphere to one of upbeat comedy and then back again. To be honest, I'm a little afraid of what will happen to me when the show is over. Dave goes straight into rehearsals for a show he's directing (which means he hasn't had a moment to himself since we got back from Hawaii, and won't until the week of Thanksgiving), but I will have evenings of three cats instead of four, and though I've tried to let the feelings cycle through when they want to, I'm not sure I've had much time to really sit with the reality of it. It's still so easy to believe Poly is just sleeping in another room.

However, life goes on, and in a little over twelve hours, it will be November, and NaNoWriMo will have begun for another year. I want to participate, because I think it's good for me as an artist, but I have absolutely no idea about what to write. None. At all. Twelve and a half hours from now I should be sitting here starting a story, and I don't have one. Not a first sentence, not the first glimmerings of an idea. Nothing. I haven't had an idea all year, either. Usually a story comes to me in August and I have to spend two months trying to figure out how to keep it alive without actually writing it. This year? Nada.

So I'm trying something new. I'm going to do the exercise I led all last fall and again all last semester. I'm going to go into my imaginary studio, the creative space in my head, the one that all of my Imagination students created for themselves and then worked in all semester (I've had mine for several years now) and I'm going to see what comes up. I'll hang out there for a while and we'll just see what happens. Even if all I do is describe the space in detail, at least I'll be writing. I think something will come, though. It always does in the studio, even if it's not at all what I'm expecting. But then, that's the joy of playing in that space.

* * * * *

I'm feeling a bit better now. I got up to use the bathroom and that turned into getting myself some coffee, changing out of my pajamas, cleaning up some things in the living room/kitchen/my office, snuggling with Imogen, turning the heat up from 68 to 75 (because I want to, so there) and putting silly blue and neon pink snap-on extensions in my hair. Suddenly things don't look so insurmountable, and I think I have an idea for laundry hampers that are much more interesting/appealing than either piles on the floor or the plastic basket with the broken handle. Maybe I can get the living room cleaned today after all.

Posted by sally at October 31, 2008 10:07 AM

Comments

Blergh...I just can't do CRAP when I'm thoroughly distracted by a messy house. It sounds like you get the urge to clean when faced with creative choices, too.

I haven't decided if I use cleaning to avoid dealing with making art, or if it truly is too much of a distraction for me to create freely.

You? Vaccuuming is always cathartic for me. I actually like vaccuuming. The thing I can't STAND is mopping. Which is why I haven't done it in over 8 months. How gross is that?

What's your hamper idea? I have stacks of the ugly plastic baskets in the laundry room. I need more room, I think. I'd like pretty, lined baskets, but don't think they allow for any air circulation. That leads to stale, mildewy, gross clothes. Yuck.

Posted by: OohLaLaura at November 3, 2008 07:58 AM

My laundry hamper idea? Great Big Flowerpots. Pretty ones. Like, four of them so the laundry can be kind of sorted already. A heavy and expensive solution, but so much more attractive than anything actually designed to hold laundry.

I would think that baskets lined with fabric would breathe just fine. It's when you line them with something like plastic that things molder.

My favorite cleaning activity? Cleaning the kitchen. I always feel so much better when the sinks are scoured and shiny and the countertops are uncluttered and clean. It always gives me the oomph to tackle another bit of the house. Which, if I'm smart is usually the bathroom because a clean bathroom also gives me the strength to go on.

Posted by: Sallyacious at November 3, 2008 11:10 AM

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