Turning Forty

The boy and his dad and his dad's best friend went camping this weekend. I'd planned on cleaning up the house and getting some projects done plus painting and writing. That didn't work out for various reasons--dogs running off, a visitor from out-of-town, much needed mom/daughter time (we were bad and shopped)--but it was still a good weekend.

With a milestone birthday coming up I've been feeling weird. Not mortal weird--that happens all the time and I'm used to that. Not crisis weird either. If I had a word for it I'd name it but I don't so I'll just make one up. I feel dooblesh. Dooblesh involves sensations of wasted time or time going by too quickly interspersed with a craving simultaneously for healthy food and chocolate. Dooblesh has me yearning to write but, despite having time to do so, I end up on the couch with my daughter watching I, Robot. Later I watch an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer while munching on squash, chocolate, chicken strips and drinking a glass of wine. I get a bag of popcorn but I end up not popping it. I wash one pot and give up on the rest of the dishes immediately. I stop by my barely-begun self-portrait--watercolor on yupo, of course--and pick up a brush, but then put it back.

It might be turning forty, or it might be autumn. Autumn is the wandering. I got a good whiff of actual crisp morning. It's on the edge of uncomfortable to sleep with the windows open, though it's better now that I've added a second comforter to the bed. I'm wearing sweaters. I'm both restless and aimless, something that happens pretty infrequently. I'm usually simply one or the other. Restless Kami does chores, or paints, or gardens. Aimless Kami does sudoku or writes or gardens.

Hmm. I'm seeing why I garden a lot.

It's a good time to go on vacation, but I'm woefully unprepared. Programming Hell happens this coming weekend and I'll be in Canada for it, something I dread. I'll have to put together instructions for the convention's programming staff, CC everyone and hope that the critique sessions, manuscript crit and submit panels, hands-on mini-seminars and the open read-and-critique sessions all end up where they need to be with the people who want to be involved with them. On the 26th, I'll consider it out of my hands. We won't be gone yet, but I'll be too busy prepping to spend any time dealing with convention stuff. My focus will shift to the family, and sleeping in, and wandering.
Oh yes, this is good timing, unintentionally so but the chance to drive away from it all when the wind and the chill and reddening of leaves all play a traveling tune is magic. My feet can skip to the music and the landscape can move all around me, taking me everwhere, which is sort of like everywhere but quieter and less fussy. My family and I will adopt gypsy hearts, or maybe we'll become something even less tame and more playful, otters with wings or things with starlight shining in our eyes.

Rory's encouraging me to bring along paper and paint and brushes. That's going to be a big bag, but I think he knows that. Good good. They can plant me in a park or a garden somewhere and go play while I drip and stroke and splatter and flood colors onto paper. I like the idea of them having fun together someplace as much as I like the idea of being alone for a while among strangers in a strange place. Maybe someone will come up and talk to me, or maybe they'll avoid me, not wanting to disturb a work in progress even if it's weird art that doesn't suit their tastes. Meanwhile the fam will be mom-free. Everyone needs a break from the mom now and then, just like the mom enjoys an occasional break from them. I wonder if it's possible to be non-mom-like around them, and for them to be non-husband and non-child-like around me. I think it might be too intense, or a difficult or silly game that leads to secret names, asking questions and spying, or something unexpected and silver-bright.

It's late, and I'm not forty yet. The morning alarm is set, the dogs are home, clothes are tumbling in the dryer. It's quiet and I'm the only one awake. I'm definitely doobleshing. I thought that the restlessness was wearing off, but it's not. I really want to get up and try painting again. I thought maybe the aimlessness had gone, but I have a feeling that I won't actually paint. I'll look at the painting, and pick up a brush, and then think better of it and move on. I don't mind so much. I don't mind feeling dooblesh. Windy impulses will carry me along until I get blown up against the bed (out of the gutter, you!) and then I'll sleep, one dream closer to forty.