A Different Spirit

One client presentation today. Two document tasks due tomorrow. Lots of reviewing research studies and preparing fieldwork documents for next week. Dayjob duties. Been itching to sit down and claim a large chunk of time to finish hand-painted tokens for friends across the seas. There is also the painting I want to make to gift to a Japanese couple who have only ever shown me kindness and consideration when I was still practising kendo.

On the other hand, I enjoyed an out-of-town slumber "party" with a kindred spirit on Monday (the party mainly consisting of a movie marathon with a lot of Daniel Henney in it), and I am looking forward to a long overdue lunch with a dear friend tomorrow (which will include some calligraphy tip-sharing). There was also a Christmas "party" yesterday afternoon with a friend and mentor, during which I was told I am about to "seek my destiny" in 2017, and I received a book of collected quotes on LOVE by Paulo Coehlo. 

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I am not fully feeling the so-called holiday spirit. What I am feeling instead is like being on a boat tossed about by a sea that is about to shift tides. The sky overhead is a map of dark grey clouds pierced through by swords of sunlight. There is a scent of lightning and a scent of rain, and of course the scent of the sea. The wind flirts with the water, and I am cold.

I am not sad, nor am I happy in the sense that one is supposed to be during these times. I am in suspense. I am in the middle of a daydream. I imagine : sitting amidst trees, a poetry book in hand, reading aloud in response to the rustling leaves. Or walking along a blank beach that is the opposite of tropical and sunny, just water and sand and only pale blues, beiges, and greys, and I am the spot of colour in my bright floral dress that jolts the scene like a first love.  Or I am in a coffee shop in a foreign country surrounded by quiet strangers, and I am painting in my sketchbook, and I am writing poems. Or I am in a second-hand book shop in yet another foreign country, and the books are all written in a language I cannot fully understand, but I love the paper and the scent of ink and years, and my fingers trail on the spines and come away trailing ghosts, and the ghosts will whisper to the people I come across as I walk on the street until one of them hears, listens, and looks.

Right now I am feeling sleepy. This morning I woke up and fell asleep. I dreamed I was running in the rain. Then I dreamed I was a flower rising up from a crack in the pavement, opening into the sky, and I was thirsty.