bell - a verbalization of consciousness

Comfortable

Yesterday day, was sort of weird. I couldn’t really focus on my studies. I got up early and had been reading all morning. I had a philosophy paper due at 4:30pm, it was noon, and I was stuck in this mental rut. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it. So, I emailed my professor and explained my mental predicament. I was trapped in this feeling of stress and this is not a comfortable place to be. It wasn’t like the assignment was difficult, it was just that I’m sitting at this computer in this lab with no windows and no other people … I just needed something different than ‘this.’ I decided I wasn’t going to finish my assignment today. My week had been so busy, it was friday, I had no class, and I needed to just be ‘easy.’ So, I sent him an email, told him I’d be sure to email him the assignment over the weekend (along with the next assignment as well since I’ll be in Louisiana on its due date) and went home. I sat in one place for the first time in at least 3 weeks. Went out and tossed some plastic, had practice, ran 3 miles and then showered up for my night.

Last night was great. I went to Vagina Monologues. I then went to the “Cave” (pretty much the only ‘hangout’ on campus). I had an awesome mint shake and watched some bands play that were incredibly entertaining. I came home, hung out until 1am with some housemates, restrained myself from going partying and cleaned my room! It was fantastic. I put on some chill tunes, cleaned up the dirty clothes, did the laundry, cleaned my sheets, reorganized some furniture (always key!) and compartamentalized the junk on my desk so that it was capable of study. I don’t know what it is about cleaning (and I don’t do it very often) but having your room, your place, clean and organized seems to open up your life a little bit. It’s as if, “Ok, my room is clean, now I can begin to accomplish stuff — where’s that homework! I’m ready.” At 3:30am my housemate Linzi came home from some salsa party and we chatted for an hour and a half (she was a little tipsy, but the convo was good). I fell asleep in warm, downy fresh sheets to ‘pharcyde’ and warm thoughts. I woke up this morning feeling even better. It was 10:20am, my plan was to make breakfast, kick it over to a coffee shop and really crank out some homework. For some reason, I’m really excited about it. Gettin’ focused sometimes (especially in the right environment) is feels great.

Looked in my cupboard and I really had no breakfast foods available. I cut open a papaya (yeah, after Costa Rica, I’m addicted to rich fruits) and started thinking about it. Well, it was 10:30am and that’s pretty close to lunch and lunch is an excuse to make dinner food, so I made spaghetti. I made a red marinara sauce with corn and tuna and I knew I would be pleased. Everything in the last 14 hours had been so comfortable. And then the greatest thing happened. So, I’m straining my noodles (and these are those cool sprial noodles I must add) and my phone rings. I run over to it — its my dad.

“Hello,” I say.
“Hi,” he says. He asks me about the car. I just got an oil change and he wants to know how much it costs — for comparison sake. In Wisconsin oil changes are dastardly, and we agree I got a good price from a good man in Tacoma. We started talking about semi-synthetic oil and the impotance of not mixing the different types, etc. etc etc. It was then that the greatest thing happened. I felt as if the convo was coming to a close. He seemed to have gotten all the info from me that he needed, mixed in with mandatory advice, which is usually the extent of our discussions. In my more mature years of existence he and I have never been really close. It’s sort of this routine of bringing ourselves closer and then pushing ourselves apart. It’s seemingly very unstable. I think our household in general fits much the same description. Don’t get me wrong — it’s fully functional. If you need something, it’s taken care of. If you need to get somewhere, you’ll get there. Every member of the family is involved in organizations and school functions, smart investments have been made, college is part of both my and my sister’s future, family vacations are/were taken, we have a dog - etc. The family is perfectly functional, … there’s just and absence of ‘joy.’ Of sincere, unconditional joy. I’ve seen many a family that fail to be quite as functional, but that flourish in joy. And I’ve often wondered who was better off? I think about all these things when i talk to my dad (well, my step-dad, but virtually the same thing) and today was no different. So, the oil discussions died down and slow, short pause started to emerge but just before it got awkward my dad says, in a calm collected tone,

“So, what else is new?” My heart skipped a beat. He was genuinely interested. I can tell these things, especially after 14 years of having conversations with him where sincerity and genuiness are often absent; I could tell that he wasn’t on the phone and multi-tasking. I wasn’t just something else to do. He wasn’t focused on some other activity and trying to talk to me at the same time. I wasn’t on speaker phone, it didn’t seem to be a balancing act of holding the phone and weaving through traffic, and my dad didn’t seem to be whisking through the house on a daily cleaning-frenzy with a bottle of windex in one hand, paper towels in the other and the phone sandwiched between his ear and his shoulders. To be honest, I didn’t know what to say. A thousand things ran through my head… I just wanted to talk to him for hours — tell him everything. It was if his listening was like opening the flood gates to my thoughts. I wanted to share so much stuff. I wanted to tell him about my drive from Wisconsin through madison. I wanted to tell him how Anna was doing and what Kevin Wright was up to. I wanted to tell him about Denver and Reid’s house and visitng Trangy in Boulder. I wanted to tell him about Izar and her whole situation in Boise. I wanted to tell him about my first few days back at school, the situation with the team and my goals and fears for our season. I wanted to talk for hours about the tourney at Stanford and my encounters with a wonderfully mysterious Gambler - I wanted to talk forever, but all I could say after a long pause was, “yeah, I’m just sort of getting organized with my life here, and cleaning up stuff.” We agreed that this was a good thing, and proceeded to say goodbye. Even if we didn’t get to talk for a really long time, and even though the transcription of our conversation on paper would look no different than past convos, this felt like one of the best talks I’ve had with my dad… certainly in a long time. Right now, things feel comfortable in life. I don’t know what else to say .. maybe, ‘happy valentine’s day, self. And, thanks for making it special, dad.’

Posted by bell at February 14, 2004 12:49 PM | TrackBack