A yearning, found nearly hopeless but not quite.

The escape is simple: create.

I distinguish myself from the rodents who run amuck in their wire cages by creating. Thoughts, words, ideas, dreams. These fluid graces that permeate the human experience by inviting the mind to escape, or rather, enrich it.

However, it seems that creativity necessitates that thing which our modern lives best thieve from us - our time. My question becomes how does one reconcile these seeming polarities? And that is where I am stuck.

Because I can think for myself as I type and scan, drive and wash and sweep. A lack of daydreaming is not the issue. The issue is that I do not find the time in order to capture these daydreams, nor that to challenge them. They just are. They just exist. So then, to what end? They just...are? I suggest that dreams, thoughts, and ideas are meant to be discussed, encouraged, or provoked. They are meant to be used as fodder for conversations, bricks to lie relationship foundations. Ideas and visions give us something to talk about with one another, whether we agree upon it or not. 

And so a person who does and does without the creating bit, without this showing of one's soul in tangible form, seems to have missed something very important about life at its very core. 

They seemed to have, in fact missed it altogether. That part that makes us distinctly human.

So let's take a secretary (or Administrative Professional, if we like that better) and put her behind a desk for 40 hours a week. Say she's ambitious, she starts a business and does that on top of her full time job. She's married, has a dog, and there are responsibilities to uphold. In order to do all of this she sleep a full eight hours every day. 

Which leaves her an average of 4 hours a day (after accommodating getting ready in morning and cooking dinner at night) with which to create. One can argue driving takes up a quarter of that, which may be fair.

But that still leaves 3, and if cut in half to accommodate errands and the like, 90 minutes. An hour and a half, on average, each day to create. Energy may be lacking but one could argue that the creative process recharges the mind. 

And so. 

A few thoughts on the advantages of an office

Today was an accomplished one. Perhaps it's that type of measure in my mind - whether I feel as though I've "done" something - that I need to stop. But until I can forcibly retract this need to feel productive I will still base the merit of my day upon how much I did.

Once I understood basic loans terms like down payment and PMI, or how significant the "flood zone" was, it doesn't seem that finding a house could be that difficult. But what I have learned is that timing is everything. And so part of my productive day included me driving by the only house in the area we like that is in our price range. Horrified at its obvious lack of curb appeal, I forced myself to drive by it several times. I slowed each time and strained my eyes to see if I was really looking at a half-brick facade behind the car port. Eventually I had to drive away and leave the beast alone because the neighbor was starting to squint her eyes too hard at me. If we're to be neighbors one day, I'd better not appear too eager too soon.

So there was that.

The rest of the day consisted of me smiling and scanning documents at my desk like any good secretary (or is it PC to say Administrative Assistant these days?) would do. The list of tedious projects grew like a plant with just the right amount of sunlight and water until I broke down and went for a walk around the block. I caught my second wind and all was well again as I sat to finish the excel spreadsheet that details contracts signed in appropriate months.

Running my wheels like a small rodent in its cage has become natural to me now. Well, I can't really say natural - perhaps the better word is routine.

And so.

Pleasantly, perfunctory

These calm nights are the ones we look to for reprieve. These calm nights are the ones we hoard in our back pockets and walk around with in the middle of next week's transcript. These calm nights remind our spirits that rest rejuvenates.

That rest rejuvenates,

as we are able to reflect,
re-imagine,
retreat.

It's remembering that I can scoop a part of my spirit and bring it closer to my mind, that these two parts of me are not, in fact, separate. That after all this work, all that time, so many hiccups, that I am still Laura. And given enough times like these to chip away at all of the external debris I've gathered along this route, I am still Laura at the end of this night.

With my husband reading his book over there by the light source. And the dog with his cocked head on my arm. With this patchwork blanket across my lap and its felt side down so that my legs burn with heat, with the silence between us all acting as a basin of peace, with my head against the recliner.