insert joke about resting
TOPICAL: this is part of The Cycle of the Seasons series
Tell me you’re exvangelical without telling me you’re exvangelical: you’ve successfully forgotten how to Christmas, but unfortunately, jokes referencing a translation of the book of Genesis come to mind FAR too quickly. I think I ruined the joke.
This is the third or fourth day in a row that I have been trying to find time to read a specific book (Stardust by Neil Gaiman, a used copy I bought from the local library), and failing to find that time somewhere. I did finally do an extra load of dishes. I also did a load of laundry and played Stardew Valley some more, but my mind is so occupied with all the things to take care of right now that I keep forgetting what my plans are in the game and I end up wasting game time trying to remember what I was doing. It feels like what this year was like.
Oh, and I requested cinnamon sugar doughnuts in my grocery wants list — group shopping lists are one of the best community living tips I could give — and I ate two of them in quick succession even though it would have been nice to save five for later instead of four.
Some of us spent time last evening having a rueful laugh about people that we know who’ve honestly wanted to try communal living but ended up with problems that felt unsolvable. The thing about living in community is that you are going to get on each other’s nerves. There will always be something that happened that no one can recall happening, or an item is lost but turns out to have been put away in a place it doesn’t belong, or a person who doesn’t buy groceries has drunk all the milk. If you, as a group, don’t have a strong commitment to working out your problems willingly and without your ego taking center stage, it’s next to impossible to live in any kind of harmony as a group of people. Community living sounds beautiful until it’s hard, and then it falls apart so easily and with so many outward spirals of harm if there hasn’t been any foundational work done ahead of time.
Speaking of books I have been wanting to read and not getting to read yet, I have Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World, and there is a part of my brain’s CPU runtime that is completely occupied with being aware that I have not read this book yet, because it feels like a very important book and I want to have already had the privilege of reading it.
Anyway. I have been experiencing a lot of sensory overload this week, and looking for ways to comfort myself where I can. Hence, a lot of Stardew Valley, and also many bread products, and small naps. I took a short nap after dinner because I couldn’t seem to think — my brain might have been wrapped in fuzz — and I woke up feeling weirdly disoriented. I know it’s still today, but I feel like I don’t know where I am. Maybe I’m in a video game, wondering why I went to this area of the map. What was I going to do? Will I figure it out if I look in my inventory again? Oh hey, a doughnut!
The end.
May the things that comfort you be within reach.
— Nix
P.S. This was incredibly disjointed. Welcome to my mind, I suppose? Eek.
Our days traditionally begin at sunset. The darkness is all around us but we are safe here together inside these walls that we have fortified with love and with sacrifice.
featured image is a photo by Jovan Vasiljević on Unsplash
