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I am feeling quite out of sorts. I have a thesis proposal I need to read tonight for a graduate student, Rosa, and I am having a challenge focusing on this 50 page document. I feel unmotivated and I do not understand why today, why this week? I tried to spend the day organizing and getting ready for the start of the new semester, but the work was tedious, slow, and felt unproductive.

I have not been exercising again. I know that the lack of exercise is likely contributing to the malaise, but getting the inertia up again for the task is difficult. For me, I think the lack of a normal weekend (recall, I went north for a conference/workshop ALL DAMN WEEKEND) makes for a very challenging workweek for me. Not challenging in what I CAN DO, but challenging in terms of throwing off my whole routine.

I am not sure if it comes through in this blog or not, but I am a person who greatly enjoys (probably craves) predictability and routine. I am a person who when I deviate from routine, will find it challenging to feel centered and at peace. I have lots of ideas, but nothing I feel motivated to do. So, I putter, I feebly work at organizing, I try to plan, try to make things nicer, but the energy is low and the success is scant.

I have been finding solace in my pipes more frequently than usual this week. But even that has been undulating. Some bowls feel akin to the typical, anticipated pleasure, but many feel as empty and vapid as if I had not put the burley tobacco leaf crumbles in or ignited the bowl.

I have been listening to the 1965 Broadway Soundtrack of "Man from La Mancha" quite heavily this week. Even it leaves me feeling melancholy. Richard Kiley's voice is excellent, the entire cast is exceptional. I was trying to win my mind over again to believing in the "tilting at windmills" as is the credo of this play. But to no avail.

If I do work, I feel tired. If I do nothing, I feel antsy. If I try to play, I feel wasteful and anxious. I felt shaggy and haggard, and hence went to the barber to receive a haircut and beard and mustache trim. My normal practice would be to visit the local pipe shop in that part of town that I do not get to other than when I receive my trim... but today I did not feel inspired to do so and simply drove home to wash up after the trim.

I have also been listening to hours of classical music on NPR this week to no benefit. Typically music has a way of soothing my soul and lifting my spirit. I think back to last week when I visited the priest and barred my soul to him about my sadness, my sense of ambiguity and my sheer and utter wretchedness. The visit felt cleansing and relieving but did not change anything long-term. I really do not know what or why I am feeling such a sheer and blanketing ambiguity about everything. Here are the contenders of possible reasons:

1. Am I still working through the grief of my Mother's passing?

2. Am I experiencing some sort of mid-life crisis?

3. Is it Seasonal Affective Disorder that I am experiencing?

4. Is this simply who I am?

5. Am I clinically depressed?

6. Am I just a worrywart and make my own problems?

7. Is this simply how one ages? (Grows more curmudgeonly and gruff?)

8. Is this a temporary lull and I will soon be back in top form?

9. Do I think too much? (Do I think too little?)

10. Life seems so much more ambiguous and unreliable. Is it really so, or am I just perceving it more accurately?

I do not know. I do not know how TO KNOW anymore.

PipeTobacco