The thing I’m finding out about my brain, is that left to it’s own devices, it really doesn’t have my best interests in mind.
It’s Saturday morning and we’re sitting up in bed drinking coffee. My spouse Janyce got up first in the dark and came back with a tray from the kitchen with the coffee pot and two cups, setting it down on the bottom edge of the bed near the windows.
I have my laptop open on my bent knees looking at a google map. Outside the window is a mass of deep green blocking my view of the neighbors yard, all waxy maple leaves slick with rain against wet black branches.
“Hey, remember we were supposed to go to Cuttyhunk?” I say and hover my finger over the mousepad highlighting the island on the map. Janyce leans over to see my computer screen.
“Look there’s the Avalon Inn. Let’s see the availability,” she says.
“Well I’m not surprised,” I say. “Of course, there is nothing. Everything is booked well into fall this year.”
The other day, we were both standing in the kitchen and she was at the sink washing dishes. I was reading her the forecast for all three days of cold rain over the holiday weekend.
“Remember that Memorial Day barbecue when I first had the house?” she said.
“It was so cold and rainy that year and we all had to be inside and I had to cook the burgers fast out on the deck and run them in to the dining table. Remember that, before we were together? We still had fun.”
“Mmhmm” I said, looking out the window in dismay at the un-mowed lawn that is nearly up to our knees in weeds this year.
“I’m sorry, but I lost two of my guys over the pandemic and I can’t get to your house this year,” said my lawn guy when I reached out to him in email way too late.
It’s been over a year now of everything turning on a dime, so you’d think I’d be more acclimated to the changing of plans. The thing I’m finding out about my brain, is that left to it’s own devices, it really doesn’t have my best interests in mind.
I read somewhere recently that you need to hack your own brain often. Unless you're a naturally sunny personality, which I definitely am not, you need to keep tripping it up, throwing it off-balance, giving it something novel to focus on.
“Hey, listen to this little hack,” I said to Janyce the other day.
“You write down various activities on strips of paper—small projects, chores, and little simple pleasures, too, like playing a vinyl album cover to cover or eating a creamsicle. Then you put them all in a hat, and every night, at the end of the workday, you have to draw out one activity and do it.” I said.
“I’m in!” she said.
I have to keep reminding myself that this is how it works for me. Choosing a theme to plan a birthday, or making up a challenge to get through a long road trip. When I was in high school, I used to play a game with a friend of mine who had his license before me. He’d pick me up in his car and we’d drive down some unknown roads for an hour or so until we were thoroughly lost and then we’d say, “Third restaurant we pass, we have to stop and eat there.” We did a lot of laughing, we ate a lot of bad new food, too.
“Okay,” I said yesterday morning to Janyce. “Change of plans. What if we make a fire and move the furniture around, and make those Moroccan carrots with the barley. Day drinking with the fig vodka? Movies and movie snacks? Invite some friends over? I’ll even make individual popcorn bags!”
“I’ll get out the Greek cookbook for some keftedes,” she said.
I hear my son Connor now in the kitchen with Janyce, who is getting started chopping carrots for our North African and Greek inspired meal later.
“Where’s mom?” he says.
“She is the bedroom not writing her blog, because she has nothing to write about,” she says. “This is my life, Connor.”
I hear the two of them snickering together, more muffled conversation, and then my son’s footsteps as he approaches the bedroom and knocks on the bedroom door.
“Hi honey,” I say.
“You writing your blog?” he says.
“Yeah sort of. But I really don’t have anything to write about,” I say. “What are you up to today. You know it’s going to rain and be cold all weekend, right?”
“I’ll just put on sweatpants and a sweatshirt and get out there throwing some disc. It’s all good, mom.” he says.
And it is. It’s all good.