I see the sun is coming down to greet you

[dolorosa_12]

This has been a rather bad brain weekend, for three reasons. First, because I'm an immigrant, I have a trauma response to paperwork, and although this iteration is fairly straightforward (renewing my Australian passport), my mind immediately started spiralling and catastrophising, which it will unfortunately continue to do until the new passport is in my hands. Second, Matthias had to go quite suddenly to Germany, and I hate being alone in the house at night. And finally, I made the somewhat unfortunate decision to binge-watch the first two seasons of The Bear in their entirety for the first time — an absolutely excellent show, but it's basically Untreated Anxiety: The Miniseries (I immediately and inevitably had a nightmare about working in a dysfunctional high end restaurant).

My solution to all this has been to keep busy with what I'd term 'maintenance' of various kinds.

I went swimming on Friday afternoon, to my two hours of classes at the gym yesterday, and back to the pool again first thing this morning, where the lane was blissfully empty and pierced with spears of sunlight. I did long yoga classes every day, including one this afternoon that made me almost fall asleep on my bedroom floor. I dusted every wall, ceiling, and hard surface in the house. I washed all the windows on both sides. I got overexcited when it was cool and cloudy on Saturday, and batch-cooked a bunch of stuff that's far too wintry for the current weather. I made rocket pesto, pickles, and pickled chili. I cleaned my fountain pens. I did lots of laundry, and hung it outdoors, swaying gently in the breeze. I lay in the bath and reread Callie's Castle (Ruth Park), a sweet little children's story about a preteen girl's need for physical and mental private spaces of her own, at that point in life when the whole world seems intrusive.

In general, it's working fairly well to still the sea inside.

When none of that works, I resort to the big guns: Her86m2, a cottagecore content creator living in rural Germany who makes voiceover-free cosy little videos of her daily life. It's all obviously a very curated portrait of her life, as these things tend to be, but it's my version of soothing balm for the mind, there are hundreds of videos, and it does the job.

I'll finish off this post with a couple of links. I'm not sure how many people here on Dreamwidth bought clothes from eShakti, but it's worth noting that the company appears to be in serious trouble, while still taking orders and money and refusing to fulfil them.

Finally, via various people, a friending meme:



Picture by Jess Bailey on Unsplash

Do you get that end-of-summer, back-to-school feeling as an adult? Looking forward to a fresh start, perhaps with some more DW friends? silviarambles is hosting a friending meme!

Back to School Friendzy - 2024

Comments

[dolorosa_12]

Thank you! I'm feeling a lot better now, although with lingering worries.

You're welcome re: the friending meme.