Leave the familiar for awhile.
Change rooms in your mind for a day.
Hafiz

... or a year. 


Langourous refers to a certain kind of mood everyone gets in sometimes—when you'd rather lie around thinking than doing work or having fun. When you're languorous, you're tired and maybe a little depressed.
Vocab.com

Languor: 1. weakness or weariness of body and mind, 2. listless indolence or inertia.
Merriam Webster



To hear the ex tell it, my year in the 808 has been an absolute boondoggle.
A nonstop bonbons-with-people-waving-fans-on-me fest. 
Not to burst his narrative but it has, to the contrary, been a paradise paradox. My temporary soft-air, mountain, ocean world was spun out of its orbit, rendered adrift, when my two youngest teens opted to go back to NorCal in December. Needing a handle, as it were, I wound down the LLC I had started last fall with a friend (which didn't pan out for myriad reasons) in favor of a full-time job outside the home* for the first time since 2001, the last time I had to be at a desk by 8a, fully awake, interacting, adding value (whatever that means). I was pregnant with my second of three daughters then. It's easier now because ... no diapers. I wake up at 6a, adhere strictly to the morning routine, help women, work out at lunch, help more women, walk with purpose to to catch the 5:08p express bus, take in the arresting elements through the tinted glass at 50 mph with fellow commuters who, it turns out, I like to chat up when I'm not reading a book (a book!) because they are nice and pleasant. I collapse into bed by 9p, too tired to read, but not too tired to watch compelling television—hello, highlight of my week: Handmaid's Tale.
("Your job, the TV, the parade of out-of-town guests are all distractions which help you cope with not being with your teens,"
says my always-right therapist, matter-of-fact).
 While it has decidedly not been the year of living languorously, it has been a year of
discovering and dwelling in new rooms of my mind ...
of non-attachment ...
of embracing the unexpected ... of letting go ... of longing and living, off-kilter.
And remembering that what goes around comes around, eventually. 

  



*Fiction lede ...
She worked her ass off inside the home for 13 years while her husband globe-trotted. She worked ad hoc part-time jobs after their third was born but never took tennis lessons or worried out loud (much) about making her acupuncture appointments, 
which made her privileged but not entirely insufferable. 

Having spent some time, now, with domestic violence survivors, having heard their stories, held their hands, sat with them while their ex-husband was being sentenced for sexually abusing their daughter (aka CIC, child in common), having referred to them in my notes as VIC(S) to depersonalize it in order to deal with it because it's so fucking pervasive and incomprehensible... having explained that their current or former intimate partner (a cop, a teacher, a boss, a drug dealer) shouldn't be controlling them, intimidating them, threatening them, hurting them like that ... having met them where they are (many aren't ready to leave; they see real and perceived barriers; they are in pre-contemplation, they are worried about the children, the family pets, the finances), having let go of attachment in favor of holding their space and co-carrying their burden ... .

I need my new salve/obsession—this particular gifted Irish singer songwriter—to sing his gospel to each and every brave person who has had to ask for help in a domestic violence situation. 

From NCADV.ORG ... the stats are staggering: 

• On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. During one year, this equates to more than 10 million women and men.1
• 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have been victims of [some form of] physical violence by an intimate partner within their lifetime.1
• 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men have been victims of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime.
• 1 in 7 women and 1 in 18 men have been stalked by an intimate partner during their lifetime to the point in which they felt very fearful or believed that they or someone close to them would be harmed or killed.
• On a typical day, there are more than 20,000 phone calls placed to domestic violence hotlines nationwide.
• The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500%.
• Intimate partner violence accounts for 15% of all violent crime.
• Women between the ages of 18-24 are most commonly abused by an intimate partner.
• 19% of domestic violence involves a weapon.
• Domestic victimization is correlated with a higher rate of depression and suicidal behavior.
• Only 34% of people who are injured by intimate partners receive medical care for their injuries.

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