Airing Out
It's very difficult for me to keep my mind clear these days.
It's not that I spend an inordinate amount of time on Facebook, or Twitter, or tuning in to whatever the outrage of the day/hour/minute is. I read the BBC, the NYTimes, Vox, the Economist. Sometimes I'll indulge in Jamie or Samantha. I listen to NPR. Snopes has reasserted it's usefulness in my life.
I resent the misguided fear and anger, bitter self righteousness, willful arrogant ignorance that projectiles out of mouths, into airwaves, and out across the world. The noise seeps into my brain. I lie awake in the third hour of the morning, haunted and taunted by visions of the ranting narcissists of the day.
I want them out of my head.
In some way, I feel like a teen who suddenly is told that they have to do laundry from now on. I resent that now I have to clean up after myself and others. I know that if I ignore the growing funky smell of my unwashed clothes it will not go away, I will simply get used to it until I don't notice it anymore.
But then one morning I will wake up, and have no choice but to wear my filth out in public.
Maybe by that point, I will have forgotten that I stink. So that when I look around at the repressed disgust and pity on the faces around me, I'll wonder what their problem is.
Saving grace: a child who shares a simple, straightforward observation with the confidence of fearless youth and asks "Why are you smelly?"
My girls are my totem. I remember them, breathe deeply, and clear my head.
Time to do the laundry. Or just dance in the rain for a while.
It's not that I spend an inordinate amount of time on Facebook, or Twitter, or tuning in to whatever the outrage of the day/hour/minute is. I read the BBC, the NYTimes, Vox, the Economist. Sometimes I'll indulge in Jamie or Samantha. I listen to NPR. Snopes has reasserted it's usefulness in my life.
I resent the misguided fear and anger, bitter self righteousness, willful arrogant ignorance that projectiles out of mouths, into airwaves, and out across the world. The noise seeps into my brain. I lie awake in the third hour of the morning, haunted and taunted by visions of the ranting narcissists of the day.
I want them out of my head.
In some way, I feel like a teen who suddenly is told that they have to do laundry from now on. I resent that now I have to clean up after myself and others. I know that if I ignore the growing funky smell of my unwashed clothes it will not go away, I will simply get used to it until I don't notice it anymore.
But then one morning I will wake up, and have no choice but to wear my filth out in public.
Maybe by that point, I will have forgotten that I stink. So that when I look around at the repressed disgust and pity on the faces around me, I'll wonder what their problem is.
Saving grace: a child who shares a simple, straightforward observation with the confidence of fearless youth and asks "Why are you smelly?"
My girls are my totem. I remember them, breathe deeply, and clear my head.
Time to do the laundry. Or just dance in the rain for a while.
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