A Monkey Mind

I want to get up and write, and want the first moments of loose alertness to be reflective of the dreams -- something about rocket ships underwater or polka-dotted elephants or watching a movie in the palm of my hand -- but nothing that bizarre has been in my mind for too long. Instead, I am again listing the projects that are late, that have crossed my desk later than expected or perhaps on time and which need editing but that instead there’s x or y or z to do that seem t o have little to do with accomplishing those tasks at hand.

Monkey mind, MT used to call this: the inability to control one’s own mind, or at least the inability to prevent it from thinking.

Why it thinks about work in the middle of the night too many nights in a row, including weekends, means something, but I’m not sure what yet. Certainly the answer is right here between the lines. Open your eyes while you’re typing, Katie! You’ll find the answer.

The problem with having a brain that can’t stop thinking about the stacks of work is how little space is left for creativity. Poetry? Music? Reading?

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I am on a mattress on a floor where a window is cut into the wall at the floor level the mattress mostly covering it. I can wrestle the palm of my hand between the mattress and window, push down the mattress,
and peer through a sliver of a space: my parents are downstairs, younger than I have seen them in decades.

Later, there’s talk of a globe I need to make. I am buying patches of green and blue and brown sheets of foam that I will cut into the shape of continents from memory. I can even make them up. I call my partner and ask if she would like me to pick up more supplies and she says that's not necessary. But here I am, already a the wall of options of blue and green sheets, the globe almost put together in my mind. Why did I bother calling her? I tell I am right here and will get the supplies right now. End of discussion. Never mind that I started this conversation.

There’s my scooter. It’s hard to drive like this. I go blocks before realizing what’s making it so hard. It's missing a handlebar.

In the middle of the night, I hear a noise in the hallway. Feet. I assume it’s one of my daughters but when I look toward the doorway, a tall shape is standing there, a silhouette in the darkness much larger than I am. Of course I’m already shaking before I realize that the door is actually closed, and the shape is clothes hanging on the back of the door.

It turns out I really can’t see very far without my glasses.

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There are solutions at hand. One of them is be able to get more done in the allotted time by not doing at least half of what stands in the way of accomplishing those tasks. The other is to get rid of the monkey mind and take my brain back. It is mine, after all.