Uh oh

a few more loads but that's it

I can't seem to wake up. And, I don't mean in the "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention" way the Occupy movement would have me wake up. I mean, literally. I cannot wake up. I know I've talked about having a general feeling of malaise and feeling under the weather. That remains. I'm just so damn tired. Groom asked whether I've been anywhere tropical where I may have contracted a sleeping sickness or brain fever, but my life isn't nearly that glamorous. Also, I'd like to think he would have noticed if I had taken off for a few weeks. Maybe not.

I never did anything physical yesterday, other than to assist Groom as he was assisting me with the bricks. At 3:00 in the afternoon, I went to bed. I got up again around 10pm when Groom came home from his fishing trip and then I was back in the sack until nearly 10:00 this morning. Whatever I'm fighting, I can't seem to shake it.

So, I'm taking it easy. HA! As if I'm not psyched to take it easy.

Today, I figured I would wait for the thunderstorms to pass before mowing the lawn for a few hours. Not gonna happen. Then I thought of jumping on the elliptical. Maaaybe. I also considered hopping in the car and driving over to our family place in Damariscotta and grabbing a canoe and getting some...I'm exhausted just typing that. 

Instead, today will likely consist of wrapping myself in a blanket and sitting in a comfy chair next to an open window. For what it's worth, exercise has never made me feel this contented and it's because sitting under a blanket with a full breeze conjures up two distinct memories or...sensations or...what have you.

I remember as a kid, I would travel to the Cape with one of my dad's former students--he taught high school math as a youngster and remained friends with some of the girls in his class. This woman would rent a cottage with her mom and they always brought me along for a week or so in the summer. I'm sure it was because I was the last kid still living at home and my dad wanted the house to himself for a week, but I had a special bond with this woman regardless of my father's motives.

i took this picture last year, but you get the idea

When we weren't combing the Yarmouth Christmas Tree Shop for the perfect placemats, I would curl up on a nylon-strap chaise lounge in the backyard. I had a penchant for classic novels, stemming from reading "A Little Princess" (in which heroine Sara Crewe's father dies of a brain fever contracted in India), and that evolved into a desire to learn as much as I could about everything to do with British society prior to World War I.

I don't remember why I was reluctant to go inside and get warm during those days on the Cape, but I do remember my dad's friend would come outside first with a blanket and eventually with a flashlight. She never made fun of me and she wouldn't ask me to come inside unless it was mealtime or bedtime.

The other memory involves hunkering down in our lake boat and covering myself in life jackets as my sisters and brothers insisted on taking a few more spins on their water skis while I shivered and complained. Why that makes me feel so contented now, I have no idea. But, I still love sleeping on an open boat under a blanket and I absolutely adore the sound of water splashing against a hull.

Interestingly, when I was "trapped" on the boat with my sisters and brothers when I was a kid, I would imagine I was warm in the car and the splashing water could be raindrops on a windshield. These days, I imagine the water on a car windshield to be water on a hull.

Wow. I am really screwed up.

My point here is this: I never exercised as a kid. I didn't play sports, unless you consider a weekly street hockey game in the 7th grade "playing a sport." I was never on a high-school team, except for a brief stint on the track team but, as I've mentioned before, I gave that up because the coach gave me the creeps. And, to be perfectly honest, I would walk rather than run when nobody was looking.

What I'm trying to say is, if I had grown up more active, instead of merely running to catch up with the older kids when they took off to play kickball up the street, I wonder if I would find the same comfort in getting exercise. If exercise felt the same way I feel when I sit by a window like a fictional Victorian heroine fighting consumption, I would definitely engage in it more.

But this right here right now, with the blanket and the warm coffee and the book? It's pretty nice. And it's a holiday, right?

Uh oh. Welcome to my Slippery Slope, which in this case is not a fallacy.