Pablo Picasso: Weeping Woman (1937)
"I most fear any sense that I might prove myself the master of this experience rather than its unwilling apprentice"

Say what you will about focus, but I come today to sing the praises of DistRaction as one of the more under appreciated treatments for serious distress. They might insist that one must eventually face trauma head on and fully integrate its lessons, but reckoning need not occur immediately or necessarily permanently. It's not chicken shit to sit a spell with an upset, nor does it necessarily qualify as dysfunctional to defer dealing with it until some seemingly more convenient time. Some integrations seem to need some aging before they can be savored. Others come without handles and simply cannot be grasped at first. Under these and many other conditions, a decent DistRaction becomes a godsend. The form of DistRaction probably doesn't matter, at least not at first. A binge-watch equals a good book, a previously-scheduled commitment serves just as well as sudden snow squall, anything at all capable of drawing away full attention for a while might work.

The Muse and I and her visiting sister Donna are living out of boxes this week. Two weeks after losing my daughter, I doubtless carry innumerable issues left to grieve over, but the painters had been scheduled and so in they came disrupting almost every shred of normal routine in this house. We've been chased out of every room in turn, forced, or so it seemed, to vacate every routine for the duration, culminating yesterday with the temporary loss of kitchen privileges. The stove and dishwasher stand taped within plastic film, with every cabinet and drawer hole securely taped off and ready for painting. We're washing dishes in the master bathroom sink, though that, too, will be draped and taped later this morning. The Muse's basement office remains intact, though even my afternoon nap seems threatened for the next few days. There's almost no place left for very much of any of us to stand until this intrusion's finished, thank heavens. There're another one or two DistRuptions scheduled to closely follow on the tail of this one, if this godsend ever ends.

Unable to even brew coffee here, my primary concerns seem reduced down to something resembling bare survival. This moment will eventually pass, I guess, leaving whatever issues I carried into it intact, and excuse me if I catch myself reveling in that. I consider this big fat DistRaction a gift. I'm certainly not ignoring my responsibilities. I'm feeling some days overwhelmed by them, but absent my baseline normal, I've got an awful lot of small shit to deal with at the moment. The big stuff will just have to wait its damned turn. I know it's going nowhere and neither am I. We'll eventually find the time to bushwhack each other face to face. That just seems inevitable should I somehow survive these current self-inflicted ordeals. I have a thousand details needing my immediate attention, and I suspect that attending to those might well ease the load I'm deferring by attending to them, if that makes any sense or even if it doesn't yet. It might, couldn't it?

I suppose that DistRaction could become one of those attractive nuisances, or even a habit, a curious lifestyle choice walling off better options, but I feel in no danger of tumbling into that trap. I'm just minding this gap, hopefully absorbing something useful for eventual resolution. Nothing seems more tragic than the notion that anyone must immediately and fully face anything or forfeit any hope of eventual integration. Full resolution might never arrive, and life, as previously understood, might just have disappeared for good this time, but the good in that disappearance won't likely appear at first glance, no matter how dedicated and sincere that look. I most fear any sense that I might prove myself the master of this experience rather than its unwilling apprentice, so I can safely practice some studied foot-dragging and even insolence. I hopefully retain access to adequate DistRaction to ably assist my passage. I'm not aching to earn style points with this one.

©2021 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #HeadingHomeward, #PureSchmaltz