On feeling out of sorts

and the search for a regulated nervous system

It’s Sunday morning at the Cape house, end of September, and thinning clouds hang in the sky. I’m lounging on the couch with my coffee cup and my feet in socks propped up on the table. My spouse Janyce is sitting beside me with her laptop, entering my latest new password into her coded master list.

“Jim, you want coffee?” she says.

My ex-husband Jim just arrived at the kitchen island in his sweatpants and powder blue sweatshirt with the hood up over his head. The three of us are spending two relaxing weekend days together— or trying to relax, I should say.

I’ve been in a constant tizzy the last few days over technology. I’ve forgotten passwords and locked myself out of my digital life, yet my social iPhone scroll addiction has me hyped up on dopamine to the point that I can’t seem to finish a task, or a thought, without being whisked away on another tangent. I thought the beach would help and maybe it has a little. But I still feel out of sorts this morning. Antsy.

September on Cape Cod, Goldenrod, and one happy dog

I’m making the three of us frozen whole grain waffles and scrambled eggs swirled in a pat of butter in a nonstick pan. The Indie mix is playing quietly in the background. I recognize the song and leave the eggs to sit for a minute while I turn up the volume on the speaker.

“Hey, listen to this,” I say.

The band Lake Street Dive is covering Hall and Oates’ Rich Girl. I start doing a little dance on the wood floor, sliding in my socks while Jim launches into a monologue about the Beatles and some other music ephemera, talking nonstop to Janyce who is nodding politely from her spot on the couch.

“I wanted you to listen to the song, not give us a music lecture,” I say. “See this is why we are no longer married.”

“Uh oh, I’m going back to the safety of my spreadsheet,” says Janyce.

Jim brushes me off with a smile and a wave of his hand and I return to the toaster to retrieve the two popped-up waffles.

Last night, the three of us stayed in to watch a crime drama series called Annika on Britbox with the understated but hilarious Nicola Walker. It’s a fluff of a show, really. A dramedy with silly plot lines. But the Scottish countryside, the accents and characters, and the filmic device of having Walker talk directly to the camera makes it fun. I think I mostly like watching it for the questions she poses about her life and her use of literary stories and poems to figure them out. It reminds me a little of what I try to do with these posts.

“After our walk with the girl, I’m going to get going,” says Jim. He looks a little antsy too.

“We could watch another episode,” I say.

“Nah, I just want to get outside.”

The sun is out and the pull to be doing something productive with the day is weighing on all of us. I read a poem about Sunday and I liked the feeling it evoked. I remember that feeling, the calm of a completely unplanned and open day. Just wish I knew how to get that back.

Sunday

Source: Poem copyright ©2013 by January O'Neil, “Sunday,” from Rattle

You are the start of the week
or the end of it, and according
to The Beatles you creep in
like a nun. You're the second
full day the kids have been 
away with their father, the second
full day of an empty house.
Sunday, I've missed you. I've been
sitting in the backyard with a glass
of Pinot waiting for your arrival.
Did you know the first Sweet 100s
are turning red in the garden,
but the lettuce has grown
too bitter to eat. I am looking
up at the bluest sky I have ever seen,
cerulean blue, a heaven sky
no one would believe I was under.
You are my witness. No day
is promised. You are absolution.
You are my unwritten to-do list,
my dishes in the sink, my brownie
breakfast, my braless day.