I Had Myself A Jen-Yoo-Wine Tantrum
Yesterday I wrote in my journal —
“Have to admit, this morning I’m a little bored by this kind of writing, a little tired of it. My bony ass is resisting more sitting, and I’m not interested in recording little details about yesterday, details I have been logging since the pandemic was declared ten months ago, so as not to forget. No interesting conversations at work that I can recall, either. Just go, put your head down, work, come home, day after unremittingly similar and tiresome day.
I’m sick of POTUS 45 news, the Capitol, the COVID, the winter, the early sunset, coming home from work and showering, having that usual glass of wine together, calling my ninety -three-year old mom every fucking night, sitting in this chair every fucking morning, looking at my phone, swiping it, wiping my ass, getting coffee refills, checking the Have-A-Hearts for mice, making my overnight oats, writing my blog post, laying out my clothes…on and fucking on.
I know John Burroughs said to see something new, take the same path you took yesterday, but this is ridiculous. Enough already.
I’m sick of these goddamn masks, sick of zoom, sick of takeout instead of sit down, temperature taking, reading about the pandemic deaths and cases, not seeing my grandchildren, not meeting friends for a beer or having a dinner with a few, my ass hurts, I don’t want to run this morning, I’m sick of scrolling through Netflix and Amazon prime.
Have I mentioned that my bony ass hurts while I’m sitting here?”
I had myself a jen-yoo-wine tantrum, right here, pen in hand. It felt good to let it bleed, to give myself permission, to use all the swear words I wanted.
I kept writing and complaining and before long I was back on Denali, remembering the tediousness of making and striking camp every night and how long it took. God, that got old. It took the romance out of high-altitude mountaineering.
But, without it, there was no sublime, no lifting our heads to see the flight of Trumpeter Swans higher than the summit or black ravens punctuating the great white silence. Without the endless days on the rope, counting steps and slogging, without digging every time you had to take a shit, without placing wands for a safe perimeter at night. No way to be in this hostile wilderness. No heart-aching beauty without the tedium.
I kept writing and then heard a still small voice saying something like “Stop, be quiet, listen into the silence and the dark. It invites you to come closer, it wants to show you more.” That last sentence, I remembered, is from the song “Perhaps Love,” recorded by the duet of Placido Domingo and John Denver.
It invites you to come closer, it wants to show you more.
There’s more here, it suggested, just under the tantrum, the portal by which you have entered a more sacred space.
What’s there, I wondered, and just decided to live into that question.
And then I wandered out to the kitchen, to get dressed for my run, and I noticed the paper whites she bought because she knows I like them. They have started to flower out and she tied some thread around the stems to keep them from drooping.
I ran toward the river, turned east where the morning clouds were bruised, just before sunrise. I saw the wind in the crowns of trees, felt the cold whisper of river wind.
And I kept running.
