I Keep Thinking

That's the real problem, isn't it?  I just keep on thinking.  It sometimes gets in me trouble.

I keep thinking I ought to write...something yet I feel particularly uninspired to do so.

I keep thinking I ought to start those Christmas gifts. Still, there lay the yarn and thread and fabric waiting patiently to be crafted into something useful and, generally speaking, warm or at least decorative.

I keep thinking I ought to clean out my closet. But, that would mean I would have to clean up the stuff in front of the closet door so I can get the door open.  That feels like two chores instead of one to me.  So I put it off.  Again.

I keep thinking that I'll stop at the garage and have them listen to the squeaky noise the brakes on my car are making these days.  I usually think that as I'm pulling into my driveway and going into the house after work.

I keep thinking I'll try that new recipe I found a few weeks ago.  But first I need to clean up the spilled and burnt on apple pie filling in the oven.   Bah!  Oven cleaning is for the birds.  Not to mention that I have to decide if I really want to learn to like eggplant or if I just like the idea of learning to like it and really just want to continue growing it because the plant has velvety, soft leaves, the fruits are that lovely, shiny aubergine color, and the flowers glow with an ethereal, purple light that I find rather enchanting.

I keep thinking that if I just wait long enough, the right answers will come to me like a gift from the universe.  The answers to what you may ask?  Well, that's part of the problem...or so I keep thinking.

It's a familiar litany for me. The things I think I ought to do or say or be and the mental retorts that keep me from doing or saying or being the way I think I should do.  It's a melancholy thing that happens in the autumn.  But it also seems to me that I have a little more than usual to feel melancholy about this fall.

Don't get me wrong. I do like this time of year with the harvest and the changing colors and the smell of wood smoke and the crisp, fallen leaves.  I like the chill in the air and the rediscovery of that hoodie I bought a few summers ago in Colorado and forgot all about until now.  But, it's easy for me to get lost in the flow of the season and start to wind down myself. 

Maybe it isn't all bad this slowing and withdrawing even ever-so-slightly from the world.  In spite of what the internet and the news media tells us, it's not actually necessary to be productive at all times, is it?  By taking time out just to breathe and exist we are not inadequate parents, lousy partners, lazy employees, or just bad people in general.  We are not doing it wrong.  Living a life of balance is definitely desirable if not absolutely crucial in our society today.

Or so I keep thinking.