Regularity

Oh, sweet routine, safety of demands! Sometimes just knowing there are 'responsibilities' awaiting me gives me a place to rest my head. I had a great Friday, as Fridays go. I had payroll done by 8, even all the accompanying reports. My in-box was empty. The phones and my co-workers were quiet. The business across the street had their holiday lunch today, and I was gifted with a plate of delish Italian food, all sorts, and a huge dessert plate of Tiramisu. [I LOVE tiramisu, I don't care what the correct pronunciation might be!] My buddy Greg made my bank deposit for me AND brought me back a huge diet coke. You see? A good day, a really good day. But still the end of a long week, made more challenging because I have been sloooowwww again and I'm just maxed out on blog-surfing ... cross-eyed doesn't begin to cover it! I was so glad to come home. SO glad! I was so glad to have those small, mundane details to attend to -- dishes, move laundry from washer to dryer to loveseat for folding, clean the litter box, play with Zoe and a mound of wax paper wads (her favorite). Other days, I tend to resent all of those things -- my martyr self becomes a little too pronounced for even me to tolerate. [One of these days, I'm truly going to art myself a 'Martyr Stick', all wild colors & flowing ribbons & glitter, and present it to myself on appropriate occasions -- that might begin to cure me!] Today, Fridays, or when I'm really really mentally spent, collapsing into the rhythm of chores is just sheer bliss. It's all about balance, I suppose -- art a little, do a dish or 500, fold 3 loads of laundry while bee-bopping to a James Brown hits CD, clean up after my feline litter launcher. It's release of a very standard sort, rote if I let it be, but on Fridays I find myself focused on what I'm doing because I WANT the other parts of my mind to shush for a change. Rarely do I 'art' on a Friday (well, usually I'm in bed by 7) ... but tonight after chores I managed a few journal pages and my first run at my first response to the 'Illustration Friday' challenge: BACKWARDS. Quite fitting for a Friday!

But now? I'm through. I'm 'closed' (my Friday phrase) ... Zoe is in my lap purring and I'm writing here, instead of in my journal. Soon I'll drift toward the bathroom for a hot bubbly wash in the tub & a few chapters of Poemcrazy, then my pillows and I will converge and, with this calmed-down regulated mind of mine, I should be able to sleep. Tonight I want to dream of sledding, or doing 100 flips on a high bar like I used to be able to do when I was 12 (oh! the bruises I had on my arms ... round & round & round 'til most would upchuck, but I wanted to beat my own record, every time!) Tonight, I'm thankful for my wee kitten who scatters litter all over the studio, for my husband who comes home at lunch and hurriedly fries himself some bacon and eggs but always leaves the eggshells in the sink, for my sons who start the laundry loads in the mornings after I've already been at work for an hour.

Regularity - a sure cure for the wildly exhausted Friday mind!