It's a cool 94°F outside. I'm sitting in the Bat Cave with two fans blowing and a wet tank top wrapped around my head. I really don't need the wet tank top. The fans are enough. Like many Tucsonans, I keep hoping to see some rain. Sprinkles come and go, but so far I have not seen anything but dirt spots on my windshield. The ground is never wet. I know that is going to change once this monsoon gears up for real. Right now, this wind phenomenon is revving it's motor, testing its ability to suck water out of the Gulf and dump it on this desert.
How do people cope with the uncertainty of life? Is everyone going around saying prayers under their face masks like I am? No, because hardly anyone is wearing a face mask anymore. I was at the pharmacy yesterday to pick up yet another drug for my hypertension, and I counted barely a handful of people wearing masks. The people inside the pharmacy cage aren't wearing masks. They have glass windows between them and me. It must be nice to have the illusion of feeling safe. I've decided not to care. I will not succumb to peer pressure. My fear of getting COVID far outweighs my concern about what people think of me.
I'm trying to peer inside my head to discern what might be changing. That isn't possible, I know. You can't see inside your brain using your brain. I want to find the place where I've misplaced the thoughts that sum up my life and help me make sense of things. I know those thoughts are here somewhere, because I'm a strategic thinker. According to the Strengthsfinder, four of my top five strengths are strategic. I don't remember what the fifth one was. At least, I used to be a strategic thinker, before I tucked that ability into a box somewhere and then forgot where I stored it. Thinking strategically is now a memory, sort of like the memory of doing handstands or step aerobics. That is what I'm missing now, that ability to assimilate and summarize all the events of my life and the world into a single cohesive equation or directive that will let me know, finally, here is what it all means and here is what to do about it.
Meanwhile, since the strategic thinking skill seems to have deserted me for the time being, I have been exploring another skill, one I never had to develop because the boss driver in me always knew where the bus was headed. What do I call this new skill? I guess, being in the here and now. It's a new thing for me. Now I'm pulling off at every scenic rest stop, metaphorically speaking, to sniff some stupid flower or watch another dumb sunset.
In the moment! Who knew it could be so confoundingly unsettling?
There is a lag between the question and answer now, when I look inside my head. Well, I never used to have to ask the question, did I? I always knew who I was and what I was doing. So sure I knew. Now, I know so little.
I mentor many artists, as I've mentioned, mostly about marketing their art. In the thick of our conversations, I am fully immersed and present. I enjoy the brainstorming process, and I am pretty sure I'm being helpful. After the conversation is over, however, I return to my flatline state. When they send a follow-up email, updating me on their progress, to me, it's like the conversations never happened. I have to review my notes to remember what we said. I think it's because I really don't care much. Should I care more? After descending into the messy emotional bog of interacting with artists who think the world owes them a living, it takes all my energy to dig myself out after we end the video call. Oh, they don't say it like that, but I recognize my fellow kindred spirits.
