The Struggle is Real

Hoping for Ebbs While Surfing the Flows

Advertisement for Annette Kellerman bathing suits, on page 72 of the July 1920 Shadowland. PUBLIC DOMAIN WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Hello, Friend,

This is not a shiny happy essay about rainbows, puppies, and unicorns. I promise I’m trying to get back there and I will keep trying. We’re all just doing our best at this point.

I spent the weekend in an escalating state of existential angst. This is an ongoing struggle for me as of late. It ebbs and flows, and lately it is flowing more often and with increased velocity.

Are you feeling it too? The relentless waves of pressure. The joy being siphoned out of us. The ever present feelings of paranoia, fear, dread, and uncertainty.

The overall sense of…stuck-ness?

How does one move through this? How does one find equilibrium? Denial won’t save us. Obsessing won’t save us. It’s looking less likely that voting will save us. Protesting won’t save us if we’re all just sitting around waiting for someone else to schedule a protest every month or two. I’m quite not sure if it would save us if we did it more often.

I don’t know and who knows really and this is just my brain spinning out.

Out, out, damn spin.

I want to make art, but how do you make art when you can’t breathe?

I’m trying to find diversions. For the past year or so I’ve been pestering Mr. Potter about getting a pool. Half serious, half joking, but I’ve always wanted a pool. Honestly, what I really want is an ocean. I’d take a bay or a river or a lake or even a creek, if it was offered. These are just fantasies. I started looking at above ground pools last year. Tacky? Yes, yes they are, but what about a stock tank pool? Those can be integrated into the landscape and made to look a little less…tacky.

This past weekend my SIL found herself with an extra new stock tank and she offered it to us. How could we look a gift pool in the mouth? It felt like a sign. It’s been so hot! We spent a few hours on YouTube figuring out what we need to turn the stock tank into a pool. I’m ordering a rash guard and swim shorts situation with a goofy rubber swim cap with flowers like the kind I hated to wear when I was a kid way back in the 1960s. I no longer have any bathing suits, or as my daughter called them when she was little, babe-ing suits.

This is a temporary diversion. Living here is proving increasingly hazardous to my already compromised lungs. Another facet of the angst.

I ‘Zillow’ in various locations while dreaming of a wooded property with a couple of cute cottages and space for an art studio somewhere with better air where the dogs and Cowbert and Lambert and Mr. Potter and I could build an art retreat/escape. This is a fantasy like the ocean/bay/river/in-ground pool dream. If I could combine the water feature with the cottages, art studio, and land for the critters that would be the perfect dream. I can get lost in these dreams for a moment or two.

Then the sad thoughts start to seep in around the edges.

I think about the reality of what’s happening in this country and also my personal reality and how we don’t have the resources to support this dream or even a watered down version of this dream and I feel overwhelmed again.

I suppose this is how it will be for the foreseeable future. I’m just going to have to tap into the parts of me that have survived trauma in the past and keep treading water. Dreaming the dream and finding the good and fighting the sad thoughts with fantasies and momentary diversions.

Keep trying to make art. Keep writing, even if it isn’t rainbows, puppies, and unicorns. Keep my head above water.

Hoping for ebbs while surfing the flows.

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