PANIC AND RECALIBRATION

A rainy day here in Brooklyn. I have spent it in utter escapism, reading the crack-cocaine-fucked-up-marriage thriller, Gone Girl. That's what happens when you live with a librarian ... you can mainline the stuff.

Well, that fun is over and I suppose I should shuffle back to some sort of reality or usefulness. I can start by treating you to fresh pictures of Emmylou who is delighted to have me around.  

Lots of head pets while I was drinking my morning coffee ... and the jaunty bent ear from squirming under my fingers.

I took the train down as the Honda won't be fixed until next week. I had gone to the trouble to read Proust for my Brooklyn book group and as I had been one of the proponents of reading it (well, those who attended were all up for it), I didn't want to miss the discussion. Proust is not an escapist read and I wanted to hear what the sage women thought.  (All in favor, and ready to push forward! Next meeting is in two weeks I think, but we only have to read about 100 pages.)

Here's the view from the Brewster platform.

                                                                              

Nothing quite like a train track heading off into the distance. 

I wanted to see Emmy, of course, go to the therapist, and catch up a bit with Melinda and John. I was so sleepy last night, though, that I did not spend much time talking with Melinda last night. She came home from work early today as she is not feeling well, but I was nodding out with my book addiction by then and really couldn't stop until it was all over but the creepy residue of the narrative.     

Emmy was happy to curl up on the bed for the marathon reading. 

Yes, it is strange and a bit trying to be here. I am okay when I am just hanging in John and Mel's apartment, but when I step into the hall, I want to collapse into tears. 

I am still shocked and confused by my place in life. That would, perhaps, account for my lapse of care that resulted in a car in the woods and not knowing how to move forward with my life. I am still gut shot, the sound still ringing in my ears, the gunpowder smell of inexorable events lingering in the air. 

Folks ask me if I am sorting through my belongings to downsize. And while that needs to happen, I have no idea what kind of life or situation I am preparing for. What criteria? Where? 

And then when I try to put it together with any perspective, I am stunned again into the moment after, before the pain has set in entirely, in those seconds of panic and recalibration.