chronic

a fragment has been showing up in my head, not unlike a banner trailing behind one of those little planes at the beach,

coming

and going

coming and going

hello goodbye!

the fragment is this, "chronic dissatisfaction."

i see it all over lately; once i named it, i apparently invited it into my consciousness. i'm not naming my own condition--this is one of those things that you can only see in other people (possibly because you are in denial, but what do i know?). for whatever reason, whatever possible flaw in my gaze, i feel negativity more acutely wherever i encounter it, and i seem to encounter it everywhere.

this is not to say that i am bummed out, only curious. i hear reports from journalists and bystanders that the Japanese people nearest the earthquake damage are largely keeping peace, lining up in orderly queues, and giving courtesy where wild self-preservation might be expected.

i'm not sure what commentary to make on this pairing of observations.

more observations:

:: after going to great lengths to adopt two rabbits from a rescue shelter this month, so my girls could experience family pets, i had a complete panic attack. i actually cried. i did not sleep the night i brought them home, and the more i looked at their furry cuteness, the more i hated them and their bunny smell. it occurred to me that this was an anxiety i'd never felt when my baby children came home from the hospital. i took them back the next morning. (the rabbits, not the babies.)

:: my two friends whose turn it is right now to suffer the hardest buffetings of fate are also the most outwardly cheerful, positive and helpful.

:: my sense of entitlement knows no limits. i am afraid of what i don't see in our food, in our grass, in the air we breathe; meanwhile, scientists speculate about california's fault lines and how major our major earthquakes could really be.

:: i hear about educated americans, not getting the $pay-back$ they expected after years of college expense and toil, jumping ship and leaving the country...and their debt... behind.

:: my daughter gets angry at the word, "no." i understand that, and keep saying it. her heart races and her skin turns red. how hard life is.

:: i am content. there are moments of deep contentment, and even small thrills. i snatch them greedily. i don't expect more, but sometimes i long for another extraordinary opportunity like the ones i've had and sometimes squandered. i think it's good to long for things.

for example, i long to be a Decemberist. i love the music. i love the music. i want to burrow my way inside it, to be at the very center of it. you know this feeling: almost hating something because you love it so much that you belong to it. you need, but cannot be, inside of it.

chronic dissatisfaction.