Today’s post is brought to you by Claritin, Clif Bars, and the number 18.
I took a little therapeutic road trip this weekend, heading down to Kalamazoo to see some good friends and meet some of the fine folks at the International Congress on Medieval Studies (it’s a lot like Congress, except they get stuff done). I also learned that I am allergic to certain deciduous trees, which I suspect is their revenge for the cardboard forts I built in my youth. Driving tends to soothe me, at least until my pedal-pushing ankle gets sore (the Saturn SL2, alas, was not made for humans over 5′6″), and I find my mind roaming while I let my body drive the car. On certain country roads the mind is optional. This is also true of certain country blogs.
Over the course of two and a half hours, I concluded that I probably think too much. Since the trip marked a fine hinge for me–a week’s vacation preceded it, and the summer session follows–I spent much of the voyage south plotting and prognosticating. I like to plan ahead, and academic endeavor lends itself readily to the habit. I’ve got an article to work on, stories to write, poems to pen, and no lack of short- and long-term projects to assemble; during the last weeks of the semester I thought I might be headed for a cognitive logjam. A little road trip seemed like an opportune occasion to sort it all out, and on the way down I unsnarled the snarls and tidied up my mind.
On the way back, however, with nothing especially pressing to fill up my noggin except some fresh impressions, I actually relaxed. In retrospect, I realize it’s been awhile since I did.
Even now, with only the modest pressures of a six-week summer course before me, I’m a little keyed up. I really have no reason to be. Most of the tension I feel is the product of tightening my own springs, not a question of genuine exigency. Do I have pressures to face? Sure and begorrah…but no more so than most folks. Do I have ambitions? Boy howdy, do I! Maybe more than some folks. But do I really need to mob my mind by dwelling on every possible permutation of future concerns? Certainly not. However, even just sitting here, deciding what concerns I might jot down to clarify the case, dozens have thronged to the fore, begging for attention. In good sooth, they don’t really need or deserve it. Not right now.
Every once in awhile I think we all experience anxiety overflow, when all the worrisome matters that have bubbled beneath the surface abruptly boil over. This weekend, as I talked with my friend Kristin as we meandered among the medievalists, I actually felt the boil beginning: my voice was discernibly more strained, my face was flushed, and my gaze wouldn’t settle on any object (my eyes were open, but I clearly was not seeing). Normally a little venting in the vicinity of a sympathetic ear is healthy, except the stressors that raised the ol’ hackles this time around are ones that I have no control over…that involve a range of variables I cannot possibly account for…and that won’t materialize until 2009 at the earliest. That methinks is the kind of tension I can do without, and seeing it in plain view set me wondering about the possibility of uncoiling the springs as I rolled for home.
