unsettled

my mind has been racing, and the world has been a blur. lynn went away on a business trip on, let's see, thursday... so i've been managing things, taking care of the kids and such, pretty much on my own. today, we went to a birthday party at build-a-bear, then to the "beautiful park." yesterday, the kids went to expression sessions over at the contemporary museum of art in makiki, and built sock puppets (of, ideally, arctic animals, since that was what the story theme was). all in all, the kids have been really good, but i HAVEN'T... i've been a somewhat unfocused parent, just transporting the kids and summarily issuing orders. i hate being like this, but somehow, i am very temperamental; as willow says, "do you have a temperature today?"

ideas circulate through me like wine. restless, pointless ideas. i am reminiscent of the writer in sandman's "calliope," granted "ideas in abundance" from the sandman, so many ideas that he eventually goes made and scrawls them on walls with his own bloody fingertips...

i need to settle down, focus, integrate. i actually returned to an old practice of counting my breaths this morning, and it seemed to calm me down somewhat... as soon as i strayed off on a tangent long enough to break my count, i just "returned to the breath" and started back at 1.

there's a good deal of panic, and a good deal of reason for it, in a lot of things. a lot of signs, etc. even myself, pretty oblivious (perhaps on purpose) to everything, even i get worried now and then. but i still operate, function, even if i am a bit jangled. there are always things to do to keep you from really worrying...

... regarding "centralized life..." there really is a resistance to being centered. a centrifugal force. the only way to get to the center (the operational axle, the eye of the storm, where everything is "easy") is to BE the center. trying to get to it is as ridiculous as an ant trying to crawl his way to the center hole of an LP spinning at 78 rpms... BE a center.

if being a center becomes habitual, something, there is some accretion, something adheres... or that is the hope. perhaps you build up inertia or something. and if you have enough of it, YOU are a center of power, and the universe, with all of its myriad influences and forces, starts to turn around YOU. that's the ideal, that's the plan, anyway... but first, it's a matter of resisting all externalizing tendencies, and just centering, feeling, being.

i need to settle, integrate.

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