Treading Water

I'm not sure how long this has been going on, if it started when I came back to the DDJ, or if it began a day or two before Christmas. I finally realized yesterday or perhaps Wendesday evening that my mind feels like an ocean at the moment. The resurgence of my dizziness this week certainly hasn't helped the sensation. I really want to write, I really want to read, I really want to focus on something for more than a few minutes and feel like it sticks with me. I'm treading water in the ocean of my mind, trying to toss my little life-saver-on-a-rope at the various flotsam bobbing nearby on the waves. The water is rather choppy, though, and one moment I can see something I want to snag, but then it disappears before my life saver can get there. Then something else will float into view, and it seems important too, and I toss out the saver--and come up empty. Meanwhile I tread water, expending nearly all my physical energy to keep from going under and using all my mental energy trying not to be bothered by the vastness of the ocean and the urgency of the situation (sooner or later, I won't be able to tread water and I'll have to use the life saver just to stay afloat instead of trying to grab something important). Sometimes I do just hang onto the saver and let the waves carry me along, studying the waters around me with each crest to see what else is in this ocean with me. I can see so much, but I can't reach it.

Ponderous, man, really ponderous.

Seriously, I can't seem to do much more than get through the day. I try to put my mind toward SoD or various other writing projects or just writing in general or even goals for 2006, but they seem to just slip through my grip. Putting this post together has been more difficult than I care to contemplate, and all I'm trying to do is describe my present inability to focus.

Maybe this is just a survival mechanism, keeping me from thinking too much about anything other than getting to the end of the day so I won't get upset about being back at the DDJ and being away from Drew. Maybe my muse needs time to recharge and has shut down more functions than necessary to keep herself sequestered. Maybe I just need to do some deep breathing and reflection to kick myself out of this. I don't know. All I do know is I'm ready to focus again, to ask myself a question and get a thorough answer, to write a chapter and feel immersed in it. I'm ready to snag a life boat so I can get out of the water and observe it and direct my path in it.