Doldrums

I'm not suffering from any real stress, but I'm struggling with a large case of anti-sociability, I think I might have just made up that word, nope just spelled it wrong is all. This week hunkered down and stayed home. Fighting something I can't put my finger on, but happy to be in my home with all my favorite things while gardening, painting and writing, although writing has been elusive. Elusive factored in by my restlessness. Restless and antisocial.

I have been out though, fighting the home bound happiness. Knowing I need to be social. I have been to Issaquah to get a book. "Written in my own hearts blood." Four long years of waiting for this book. Maybe my reluctance to write comes with the wish of wanting to be able to write as well as she does. The worry as I read my words that they are goofy our missing something. While hers are eloquent and deep, full of meaning and wonder.

Last night was date night and we made burgers and then walked down to the theater and watched Maleficent. The scenery in the movie was beautiful and I enjoyed the movie and that Maleficent was a good person at heart. After the movie we walked up to Marko's against the constant Spring wind for cocktails and conversation. Nick needing his own outing after being forced into anti-social by the trouble he made for himself. The outing to the bar, was lackluster and not fulfilling. I'm trying to find the word for it but cannot find it yet, perhaps later it will come to me.

It's dark when we leave, and still the incessant wind whips around corners and steals your breath. We walk home cutting through the lot next to the museum and then take the alley guided by the light of the almost full moon.  Walking in the dips and ruts, steering ourselves around the trees and bushes to catch Wick and Stephan's shadows in our yard peeing. As we ourselves are talking about peeing in our yard on the walk home through the back alley. Laughing at the coincidence and at catching them with their pants down. Nick joins them peeing and then we join them in Wicks backyard for a fire and another beer.

I stand at the rock fire pit and stare mesmerized into the flames, Wick has built it into the side of his yard tucked under a hill. The protection of fence and walls does not stop the wind and it sprays embers in fitful moments. I love a good fire, but fighting the desire to go on home and skip this moment of socialbility. Then I find myself in a conversation with Stephen that opens the floodgates of creativity and the love of writing. His major in college was Literature.

In the morning after the fire. I'm writing and warming up with my blog to get to the serious business of working on a book. I write through the day and my man comes home and finds me writing and watching ESPN. "It's so sexy that you are writing and watching ESPN." That makes me smile because I have also watched a boxing match on my laptop and the about sends him into ecstasy and suddenly I have worked through the doldrums.

The doldrums is a colloquial expression derived from historical maritime usage, in which it refers to those parts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean affected by the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a low-pressure area around the equator where the prevailing winds are calm. The low pressure is caused by the centrifugal force from the rotation movement of the Earth which is most important at the equator, which makes the air rise and travel north and south high in the atmosphere, until it subsides again in the horse latitudes. Some of that air returns to the doldrums through the trade winds. This process can lead to light or variable winds and more severe weather, in the form of squalls, thunderstorms and hurricanes. The doldrums are also noted for calm periods when the winds disappear altogether, trapping sail-powered boats for periods of days or weeks. The term appears to have arisen in the 18th century – when cross-Equator sailing voyages became more common.

Colloquially, the "doldrums" are a state of inactivity, mild depression, listlessness or stagnation.