Rituals

 

PCS Scale Today = 8.

Today is very windy, cloudy, and cold.  It is a day of that very damp sort of cold that seems to push deep inside a body.  The temperatures are below freezing, and overnight we had a glazing of ice on the roads and about an inch of snow.  I did not yet run, because I had to get to the U very early to take care of some important survey work I had forgotten to bring with me to the U yesterday, and needed some of the U equipment to finish up the work.  So, I arrived on campus at about a quarter of an hour before 7am.  I will have to force myself to run my needed nine miles when I am done working late this afternoon.  

My mood is a bit "on-edge" at the moment.  Nothing is inherently wrong.  It is just that I am feeling out of routines and out of my patterns and rituals of a normal work day.  This semester, I normally do not go to the U on this day because I am involved in teaching my LARGE classes that were required to go online due to no space for adequate social distancing.  So, after coming to the U, and working for a few hours, I had to rush home to my set-up for my on-line classes (I could do it technically from my office, but all my various supplies are organized for these classes at home, and my U office equipment has also been a bit "sketchy" the last few days as the U works on some infrastructural "improvements".  So, I went home.  

On the way home, I stopped for a rare treat, one that I have not had since the pandemic.  I purchased through the drive-through window of a Starbucks on my route home, a small Matcha Green Tea Frappachino  (with skim milk and no whipped cream to try to keep it reasonably close to being healthy). It is sort of a "pseudo-healthy" variation on a milkshake, but is the flavor of matcha green tea, which has a very pleasant, earthy flavor to it.   It actually felt quite decadent, and with only ~190 calories, not *horribly* bad for me.  

Today, in regards to my pipes, I have still been feeling a longing for the more hedonistic aspects of what I enjoy from my pipes and pipe tobaccos.  The deep, slow, methodical smoking of a pipe and the gently calming way the pipe smoke quiets and relaxes my mind is what I was desiring in a very strong fashion this morning.  It was what my mind was desiring, and yet I was also missing the ritualistic "fussing" that is inherent in preparing and indulging in a deep, slow, methodically smoked pipe as well.  The filling and tamping of the bowl's chamber with the crumbles of tobacco, the the ignition of my Zippo pipe lighter by the roll of the flint wheel with my thumb.  The drawing of the flame into the bowl of tobacco, and the flavors, textures, and feel of the thick, palpable, almost chalky smoke... and of course the feelings brought by the tobacco smoke's beautiful elixirs upon my thoughts, my emotions, and my psyche.  The "ritual" of the whole event, the whole package has been what I have had as a desire since awakening. I have felt the lack of, and the desire for this ritual of pleasure since awakening.

I have a project I *should* be working harder on.  It is the revision of a course book I wrote and I am supposed to be writing, editing, and expanding upon it for this fourth edition.  But, I have had very little "muse" in terms of my writing focus.  Earlier in the semester, I forged strongly ahead in this work through about the first 1/3 of the text.  But, since that time I have been a proverbial sloth in my efforts. I need to get the gumption up to jump back into this, so that I can meet the internal deadline I have set to be well ahead of the publisher's deadline.  

Then again, I *should* be working hard on a grant proposal application as well.  Yet, I seem to have an even more challenging writers "block" towards this writing effort than I have even for the revision above.  

I think I am allowing much of my available time to be frittered away by more eagerly working on massaging my research student's writing efforts (like for their talks/posters at the regional meeting last week), on editing and massaging the two Honor's Theses that two of my students have that will be due at the end of the semester, and on a whole helluva lot of fussing with electronic minutia in the virtual classroom to try to make it more meaningful and more equivalent to "face-to-face" teaching.  All of those things *are* important.  But, I think I am perhaps using them as a way to "permit" a feeling of accomplishment in my actions by working MORE on these easier efforts and in effect allowing my slovenly, slothy habits to continue unchecked in the other, also important work.  

I will be listening to yesterday's Capuchin Mass when I run later.  I hope the Mass provides me with  helpful guidance for me to work towards being a better version of myself... the way I believe I can BE with more thought, more careful and purposeful effort, and  a stronger resolve to be better than I am.

I am still also trying to coax my wife into making a more firm decision on what she would like in her next vehicle.  She, is, however, rather undecided still.  

PipeTobacco