It would be ok if I were dandelion fluff.

I know that when the thought of doing a Sudoku even crosses my mind lightly, that I must be feeling pretty unanchored. And it wouldn’t have crossed if there were a decent crossword puzzle in the house. Turning my attention to numerals shows a certain amount of desperation.

Limbo always gives me an unnerving, unsettled feeling. There is the whole gestalt of Jeff’s health issue of the last several years, lately with it’s repetitive pattern of feeling like we’re teetering on the brink of a possible answer only to have the Wizard say, “go away and come back tomorrow.” There is the equally annoying repetition which involves an envelope arriving in the mail, my address handwritten by me, with a small note inside stating that my submission does not meet someone’s present needs. That brings its own cyclical form of feeling adrift without a tether. It was lovely to have such a sense of purpose as I had while composing my first fiction, but now that I must write with the bubble popped it can be hard to feel purposeful. Then, when loss of purpose is compounded by lack of quality, focused writing time, I’m really scratching blindly in empty air for something nice and concrete on which to grab, just for a few minutes of feeling grounded.

Crossword puzzles may not be everyone’s opiate, but they seem to work for me. And are a heckuva lot healthier than opium. I guess. Even when your drug of choice is word games, you somehow are still very aware that there is a reality from which you’re deliberately escaping.

I think I’m ready for my life-altering, mystical, transcendental, ineffable experience please. Such things are rarely vended on request, I’m quite aware, but I can want one. And I can want a trip to the Scottish Isle of Iona. Neither Iona nor transcendence are terribly likely to happen this week, but they’re worth keeping on the wish list.