14 August 2008

Exhausted


Venetians have an expression:
El leto xe ‘l paradiso dei poveri.
"Bed is the Heaven of the poor."

In plain words, I am exhausted. I am worn out. I am entirely spent. It’s very hot and sticky here and, like Little Black Sambo’s tigers, I have run in circles around the tree until I have spun myself into warm butter.

For just a little while I need to stop worrying whether or not I will be staying here after September. I need to stop stressing about how I will be earning my living, wherever I may be. I need to stop informing every single person I meet that I’m looking for a job. I need to stop making lists, and then lists of those lists. I need to stop regretting certain mistakes I made here. I need to stop fearing I’m missing something that may never come again every time I close my own front door behind me. I need to stop doing “just this one little thing” in my studio when it’s already after 2:00 a.m. I need to stop staring at and undoing and re-doing and criticizing the work I’m producing. I need to stop wondering if it will ever have meaning and worth to anyone but me. I need to stop thinking thinking THINKING about the utterly incomprehensible behavior of a particular person I know here. I need to stop asking what in the world is the matter with me? and why has it always been like this for me? I need to stop all this non-stop doubting and fretting. I need to stop railing at the gods.

In short, I need to turn on the fan and go to bed.

That would be Heaven. I would love to go to bed early and sleep late. Then do it again the next night. And then maybe again the night after that.

But there’s no time for that now…