Periwinkle

   I'm having trouble writing. My morning pages are non-existent and posting here falls off my radar (that's what I get for gloating).What I can tell you is that I took this photo while walking the dog. A walk that should've been 20 min but turned into 40. A walk that took me out into the neighborhood during dinner hour. Evening, the light hanging on so long these days.Which, if I think about it, has thrown me off completely. I feel like I can't sleep, our bedroom's east-facing windows are a flick of a switch spotlight at 5:30am. All day, I'm unsure what the hour is exactly, and I always think it's 5pm when it's 7pm.---I let the dog lead so I don't have to think. Every day I'm thinking and typing and talking and leading so much. I crave quiet. I want a blank space.I keep seeing the color periwinkle - in the flowers, in the sky. Lavender blue. ---My therapist points out that I put a lot of pressure on myself. I know it, but I don't know how to stop. "I strive without knowing I am striving," Kira writes in Hungry Ghosts of Not Good Enough. I understand.Even as I write this, H is asking what I'm doing, when I'm coming to bed. He whistles scales, plays a game on the iPad, takes the dog out again. I feel guilty I'm sitting in the glow of the computer screen again, wishing instead I went to bed hours ago.---On my walk there is a woman singing opera in her home. At first, I think it's a recording, mingling in with the baseball game in Spanish coming from a neighboring home. But no, it is a live voice, with pure tremolo and arching melodies, inching higher and higher. I am reminded about reading Bel Canto. It was recently, but for the life of me, I can't recall when.I am struck by the singing, the soft temperature of the air, the way the dog doesn't pull to move me along. I listen. And I make a note, to come back here and tell you this small story, of wandering my neighborhood, of stepping away from the striving, of hearing music and being more in this world.Happy Thursday xo