I am back from Hades*. Literally. There is a short explanation that accounts for the long absence from my blog: I was working out of town for two months. The longer version involves subplots of exhaustion, a wild and muddy excursion to Arizona way back in February, several short but repetitive bouts of unwellness, not having internet in my own home, and just general lassitude.
Unfortunately, at this particular moment I am wondering if my time in the real world is up and I’ve been sentenced back to Hades for a season...it is HOT here right now. Yes, I know I live in Southern California, but it’s not supposed to be like this. Not now. The temperature is nearly 90 degrees (definitely more in my upstairs apartment), and I believe that yesterday the humidity level was languishing in the single digits--let me reiterate a sentiment from a previous post when I stated unequivocally that “dry heat” is still perfectly miserable and to be avoided at all costs.
There is one thing today that makes up for my general dissatisfaction for living in this corner of the country: I live in a really cool neighborhood. I am at this very moment sipping on a delicious iced mocha (soy, you betcha) that I procured from the coffee house right around the corner from my humble apartment. This makes my life infinitely better than it was half an hour ago. The young man who made it for me obviously loves his job, and told me that he was doing “just fantastic” despite the fact that he works in a cramped space superheated by a large espresso machine. It was plain to me that he wasn’t being nice because of some corporate/managerial-imposed directive; he honestly just enjoys connecting with people in a genuine way.
I adore living in a community where every business is privately owned (excepting the Starbucks that wormed its way into our lives last year), and many of those business owners live here, too. I can walk to several restaurants, a tiny neighborhood market, a postal/copy store, a pet store, a homemade ice cream place, a small concert venue, a bunch of book shops, several bars, three different cafes; just about anywhere within five to eight minutes. When I’m feeling down it really perks me up to recount the benefits of living right where I do. Next week, for example, Normal Heights (that’s where I live, you know; isn’t that delicious irony?) is hosting its annual Roots Festival, a small music-based street fair that celebrates blues and folk music. And it all happens half a block from my front door.
All in all, I’ve been in a very contemplative mood lately. This has perhaps more than occasionally morphed into a downright funk, but that deserves some real glossing over. Maybe it’s my age; is it too early for a mid-life crisis? How about simply a life crisis? Figuring out what to be when I grow up and finding a meaningful niche in the world for myself is becoming increasingly more urgent and yet more elusive every day. What the hell IS the meaning of life, anyway? Right now, the best I can do to assuage my metaphysical angst is to assure myself that life isn’t a test--no German judge is going to be holding up a score card to dash my spirits if I don’t do it correctly. I’m responsible for my own happiness, right? While I know that I’m not experiencing anything novel as a human being with all this speculation and psychological hand-wringing, writing it down somehow makes it less bleak and imposing.
I suddenly realized that I have failed in a big way to offer any meaningful details about my previously mentioned blog hiatus. I’m thinking that I need to save that for another post. For now, I am content to just stick my toes in the shallow end of my little blog pool and test it out--tomorrow or the next day I will splash on over to the deep end and give you all something a little more substantive to chew on.
*Hades: El Centro, California, a desert town that smells strongly of feedlots and boasts of no cultural diversions more exciting than a huge air-conditioned mall and a drive-in movie theater. They don't even have a roller rink anymore. That was where I was working during all of February and March.
