Daily Archive

There must be something heading my way, because lately I have been holing up and taking refuge in repetition.

That usually means change is coming, and I must get ready, which means resist with most if not all fibers of my being anything that makes any day markedly different from any of the ones before.

As soon as my time is my own after work and/or school, I make the same breakfast for dinner (varying only the cheese, or the jam, never both), I watch L&O:SVU, and I knit.

Elliot Stabler showed up in my dream the other night, on the run from savage drug dealers. I sheltered him from their hot pursuit and comforted him with meatloaf (not a euphemism), among other things (euphemism confirmed). Natural consequences, I do believe.

Eventually I know I will run out of episodes. But I also know that this too shall pass. I have done things like this before, not exactly, but close.

I do things like this when I feel fate gathering up the forward corners of my life, preparing to snap it like a clean sheet.

Every night for the past several, until last night, I’ve observed the same ritual: as early as I can without feeling ridiculously old and decrepit, put on pjs, floss, brush teeth, steam face, get in bed, put this song on repeat,
and poke this guy in the face:

It doesn’t take many pages/fingersweeps for my eyelids to droop and my head to grow heavy and that’s my signal to douse the Fire and surrender to sleep.

Hence, the past several nights. The only thing different about last night was that due to exigent exam circumstances, the sequence was not activated until close to midnight.

I don’t think I made it through one page, and Emmylou got left on repeat while I dreamed.

So all day today it was in my head, accompanied by thoughts of people who might be my Gram, or my Johnny. The song says “and”, but I don’t know that that’s an option any more than my being anyone’s Emmylou *and* his June.

I was raised not to think much of Swedes but I have devoted considerable effort to leaving such narrow mindsets in the dust.

Clara and Joanna do sound quite hopeful, and quite sure that it is possible for two seemingly mutually-exclusive manifestations to be single-sourced.

If I had to choose I would rather be both, but maybe not to the same person, even at different times.

There is such a thing as being, or wanting to be, too much to someone. No matter how evenly the weight is distributed.

I think I have been at least one person’s Emmylou, and I know I’ve tried to be various people’s June, with varying yet persistently low levels of success.

I read something somewhere sometime about the idea of having a marriage for each stage or 10-year span of life.

Not serial monogamy, necessarily, but reassessment at agreed-upon junctures to be sure that both parties are getting what they need, and continue to do so as circumstances evolve. Marriage as a growth proposition. I liked that idea.

Yet to put it into practice. Maybe my Emmylou days are over, but at least I know they weren’t wasted.

Grams have come and gone, and I’ve felt more drawn to each of them than to any prospective Johnny, despite (due to?) the aforementioned attempts at being June.

Who I’ve tried to be is not who I am, and I couldn’t be happier about that.

I ponder all of the above, and I listen to this, and I read this, both of which delight me all the way to the core (different sectors though), and I think maybe readiness is something I’m made for and change can be too.