I give up, Winter, but I still want you gone!

05Mar10

Today, I sat in the sun.  I just sat.  I closed my eyes, zipped my coat, tugged my scarf snugly about my neck and sat on a rock.

The mercury did not rise above 42ºF today in Tennessee.  The wind continued to sneak in and steal away the warmth and optimism in my jacket pocket like it has every day for more days than I’d like to remember.  But, I saw the sun.  It is still out there, folks, a bit unfriendly at the moment, but perking up.  For a few moments today, the wintry shadows that have clung longer than any weatherman or groundhog could have warranted stepped aside for the sun!

So, in honor of some sunshine through the shadows, I decided to give up.

I decided to give up hopeless arguments.  I decided to give up doubting.  I decided to give up perfectionism.

See, this semester I have been uncharacteristically mediocre.  I may get the second ‘B’ of my life (I know, right? silly), I have been a so-so friend, I have embraced a whole new level of procrastination, and I did not have nearly enough adventures to sate my wanderlust.  I always thought mediocrity would kill me.  And, while it still might, there are discoveries which can only be made through passivity, through sitting in a rubber tube (not worrying about the extra thigh jigglies from skimping on your gym routine) and floating down the lazy river.

Laziness is uncomfortable.  The body is not built to be idle.  The brain is not meant to be waveless.  Humans are wired for action, desirous of responsibility, insatiably hungry for purpose at all ages and stages of life.  So, when the soul works itself from lethargy into internal chaos, needing something, anything to call its own, some of the best ideas are born.

Time to put the sloth in the zoo.

The sloth in each of us possesses untold power.  We have frightening potential just waiting to be discovered, waiting for us to finally slow down enough to see it hiding in the tree, gesturing slowly towards the little distractions, the beetles, that don’t even have their own plaque at the zoo.

Travel Noodle sprung from a primordial ache, a longing for purpose, a skitzy whim that gathered momentum wrapping itself up in html along the way.  I had no idea what this would be.  I had no idea what it could be.

I know, I know, this is just another heads-up-post.  I wish I could offer more stories, or more advice; but, I am just starting to see the sun, to really define this project.  Travel Noodle is like a bear cub born in the winter time, barely out of the womb and still in hibernation.  But, spring always comes.

Spring always comes.

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