Re-Awakening

What a funny feeling -- four weeks off-blog, and now, the ironic sting of returning to this virtual world of real people...  a feeling that this corner of my life has dropped out from under me.  Now there's that expected-nevertheless-surprising squeak of the gears as I try to slide my way back in.

Winter is here, rain is not (not in Israel, not nearly enough of it), but the microbes are back in full, and my two-week battle with bronchitis was there to prove it.  Tune in for my forthcoming work, An Ode to Rythromycin.  

No question, this was my psycho-somatic response to the usual stress at work and the unrelenting scrollbar of daily activity, against the ever-nearing backdrop of our country at war.  The verdict is quite clear:  if I do not learn to pace this hectic life-schedule multi-tasking thing, I will inevitably engage in a forced vacation, and last week was it.  I was in bed, or flopping over onto some sofa or other, for the entire week.  Did not recognize myself.

Even odder, for the duration of that week, nearly everything was input.  Instead of writing (or blogging, as noted), I read.*  Instead of practicing therapy at work, or art in the studio, I went over books and articles about therapy and art.  And I ate regular meals, ones that I had taken time to prepare.  A-B-C's for most, a notable accomplishment for me.  I barely opened the computer, and within three days found myself drowning and spluttering in an email effusion that nearly required a Cyber Coast Guard bail-out.  No blogging.  None.  Not even blog-reading.  It was the printed word, read off of authentic, bleached tree-pulp products.  

Freedom, in an odd way, but also a strange pang of loss and absence... and a return to my original question:  

How does everyone find the time?  

Please, send the magic pill on over.

Keep the balance (or -- you've been warned -- your body may do it for you),

ALN

____

* Namely, אישה בורחת מבשורה -- Until the End of the Land (2006) by David Grossman (I only found circumstantial evidence of its availability translated in English), and How Doctors Think (2007/2008) by Jerome Groopman.  I have thoughts on both, but not for now.