It’s been an unusual few days. My arms are still outstretched and grasping for something to steady on and my eyes are still jittering back and forth in the wake of being spun up and down and all around.

On Friday we had an opening brief due. We were running down to the wire, or really more like down PAST the wire, and I could do nothing but wait for my part of the job. Do I even need to bother noting how maddeningly stressful that is for a worrier like me? I couldn’t DO anything to make it go faster, I could just pace up and down the hall uselessly waiting for pages to be shoved out the crack in the office door for proofreading much like an expectant father must wait for a pair of scissors to be shoved into his hand so he can finally be useful. Then exhibits, copies to code with proper weight and type and color of paper for each different section, binding, packaging, certifying, et cetera.

It was one of those tornadoes that, when finished, but a few minutes hence, already seems decades ago.

Saturday we went to Costco just exactly when they opened for an eye appointment. I had never been to a Costco for opening before. Have you?

No?

Well, then let me ask you this: Have you seen Shawn of the Dead? You know the opening credits when they have all the shots of real, ‘live’ people going through the motions of their daily lives with slack jaws and deadened eyes? That’s the joke, right? That we’re all already zombies anyway?

That’s what Costco opening is like. I don’t think there was some specific sale or special item on sale. I get the feeling this is a normal weekend opening. And we were a few minutes early, sitting in the car waiting. We’re out in the boondocks of nowhere, some industrial-ish street on which is some random car garage, a little farm, and little else. Suddenly, cars start showing up. They park randomly, sprinkled throughout the parking lot, and the boy comments that he would bet his life that Oprah has recommended parking far from the entrance of stores to increase daily exercise. The people emerge from their cars and walk towards the still-closed doors. Literally. Tens of people zombie-ing slowly toward a closed door from all different directions. Most grab carts. And they form a hoard of people at the entrance, still-sleep-crusted eyes fixed on the doorway. It was utterly horrifying. I know, I know, if you had a dollar for every time I said, “utterly horrifying” but people, I am not kidding. It had none of crazed energy of a crowd waiting for Christmas sales (its own breed of horro). People just shuffled to the door and stood there, waiting for the blood fest to commence. God I wish I’d had my camera.

After witnessing that atrocity, we went to our favorite breakfast spot, which I have already explained has great food, but is mostly great because it’s tiny AND the only place in the whole city that doesn’t feature an hour-long wait during any remotely breakfasty or lunchy hours on a weekend. It’s routinely empty, which means not only personalized and prompt service, but a lack of the normal restaurant din that requires shouting to be heard by the person next to you.

But guess what? Some asshole decided to grant them Restaurant of the Year and now…well, now the damn cat is out of the bag. So our breakfast spot is now overrun by all these green-behind-the-ear patrons who are stumbling in and gazing around and wreaking havoc on our peaceful weekend brunches. ::Sigh::

So, then, we went to see Up. Have you seen it yet? Great movie. Adorable and wonderfully done. And so hellsof sad. I haven’t been that emotional in months. I’m not exaggerating either. ::SPOILER ALERT:: Even after the happy ending, my lower lip was inadvertently pouting with every word I tried to utter and the lump in my throat remained, cracking my voice as I tried to talk about the happy parts to recover, “Haha…Squirrel! Haha…Point! Haha…::squeak::” The opening montage took enough of a toll, but then at one point, when Kevin was being dragged off in the net, the little boy behind me asked his mom, very alarmed, “What’s happening!? Why are they doing that to him?!” and then after she shushed him he announced, “I don’t like it! I want to go!” I was right there with him. And I wanted to turn around and say, “Hey kid, let’s go get a coke and wait out this scene…I can’t handle it either.” ::SPOILER END::

These stories are neither here nor there.

But they don’t even cover the birthday and funeral. Or two birthdays and two funerals if you count tangentially related ones. Plus a wedding if you reach back but a week.

Too much rollercoaster.

Good thing Spring is chugging along and tying me back to the ground with bands of vibrant color every time I threaten to float away.

Ms. Moot is unable to come to the computer right now. She is vacationing. It is glorious. Please leave a message and she will get back to you as soon as she can…SUCKERS!

Excerpt from the deposition I was lucky enough to be charged with poring over today:

A: We turned left.
Q: Okay. What you just showed me, it looks like you’re motioning — motioning to the right.
A: No. The stop sign would be right here. You pull out and you go left. That’s what I’m saying — or right. Sorry. Right.
Q: So you made a right turn?
A: Right. Right.
Q: Okay.
A: It’s a right turn. You’re right.

Get it!?!!!? He’s correct, the turn is to the right! TWO meanings for the word RIGHT! FASCINATING!

And if you’re still reading, imagine that sort of mundane miscommunication and hilarity for over a hundred pages… Go ahead. I dare you.

As a kid, I might have seen a traveling carnival in passing, its lone ferris wheel towering over the frenetically flashing lights and screaming children, and I might wonder if it was as romantic as it seemed. I’d never been to a mini carnival before and as such my only frames of reference were the movies or stories of the world’s fair from quaint-er days.

Now I am grown and I live in a place where the waterfront has a carnival every other weekend in the summer. Last week, we had forgotten it was parade season and went down to walk down along the water, which runs along the backside of the carnival. The eight foot tall hookers were out, waiting for the sailors to dock. We saw seventeen year old uniformed ride operators, sitting glumly chin-in-hand behind the chain link, waiting for shifts to end. I noticed that the rides all rest on rebar jacks placed seemingly precariously on stacks of wooden planks, much like the wads of napkin we shove under table legs to steady them. We saw four year olds sitting in the painfully slow moving plastic canoes looking perplexed as parents made high pitched cooing noises from behind camera lenses. We saw all the things you would expect to see. We even saw the albino kid regaling his fellow carny workers with stories on a smoke break.

What I saw that I hadn’t expected was the seedy underbelly of the carny world. The darker side of traveling carnival life. It seems the carnival workers have a taste for blood. And they’re not very good at hiding the bodies.

i.

From a very young age, my tummy reigned over every aspect of my being. I am an anxious breed. When my (oft unreasonable) parameters for acceptable events and behaviors are breached, my traitorous subconscious sends a signal to my stomach, which promptly ties itself into an ornery knot.

It just so happens that one such immovable parameter is the approval of others and compliance with expectation. Très boring, I know. More than that, such a drive for blind social acceptance is dangerous and a predilection which must be monitored closely (to avoid, oh, I don’t know, joining the Nazi party and other such oopsies).

It is partially due to this that I decided to move away from where I am from and find out who I might become and what tools I might employ without the push and pull of lifelong ties to mould and impress on my personality.

ii.

When people first came to be, as it is with other animals still, there was no work and play, there was only survive. For a lion, to hunt is not to go to work and to lie in the sun is not to play; rather to hunt and to lie are both to live and survive. So it was at first with man. To hunt or to till the land was to do what had to be done to continue living.

I recently read a book which stated convincingly (though admittedly with no supporting research) that the number of hours we require ourselves to be at work is a new concept and a fabrication of the Industrial era, namely a need for bodies to enslave themselves to the timeclock of vast commodity-bearing machines so that these machines could create Stuff so that our Economy could be Ever Expanding. Similarly, this book pointed out that the marriage of “purpose” and “occupation” is newer still than even our workdays. Defining our selves and our worth by our Job is entirely unnatural and, most often, quite detrimental to our content.

iii.

From a very young age, I had ideas about what I would like to Do. From three to present I have had at least fleeting dreams of being a butcher (odd for a future vegetarian, yes), chemist, marine biologist, architect, writer, teacher, actor, stage manager, editor, research scientist, blogger, housewife, engineer, auto mechanic, electrician, foley artist, sound engineer, and inventor.

But what I was really saying was that I wanted to feed people, or mix concoctions, or swim with dolphins, or gain recognition, or feel, or write, or stay in my pjs all day, or build, or draw, or change the world, or create things, or make music, or experiment, or philosophize, or hunt down information, or save the world, or some combination thereof.

iv.

And so I moved. I moved to a place where I was unknown. And I secured a ho-hum eight-to-five day job, doing none of the aforementioned things, just to prove to myself that I could stand it. And nearly three years later, through a quitting spell and a subsequent call to return after sabbatical, I am still here. And the truth is that staying terrifies me, even more so than leaving (this from a stomach knot who hates change). Because if I am what I Do, then I am nothing.

But despite my Job, the move has allowed me mould myself and to think. And in doing so, after twenty-five years of yearning for Balance and Content, it seems I have found what might create it.

It seems I might be quite happy with a simple life: with a clean house and a garden and a dog and a boy and a kid and hobbies and lots of good books and stimulating conversation with friends over potluck dinner parties. And, understanding the need to find a place that is intersected by our current society and the extent of my desire to remain a part of it, also some Job cobbled together out of several flexible-hour-ed, self-employed gigs. This is the very picture of my Contented life. Of my Balanced life.

But not of a successful life.

What is success? Who defines it and to what end? What would my successful life be, and would it come at the expense of balance and content?

v.

Because the fact remains that I am ashamed to show my face near my old life. That my pace now seems sluggish and lazy compared to what I was before.

The fact remains that this weekend when we took the boy’s mother to see a show, as with every time I see a professional production, the sound of the orchestra tuning and the sheer sight of such a large theater made some part of me yearn to be a part of something so big. The manic ups and downs of the kind of hyper-reality one must live to immerse herself in such toiling called to me like a siren, pulling me toward the romance of such a hectic life.

And when I opened the program to see an acquaintance of mine playing the lead role, I felt threefold more foolish. I considered all the people I know of whom the mere passing thought makes me feel small. Those who Do big things. Those who get up onstage in front of thousands upon thousands of people. Or create a nonprofit in a third world country. Or are piloting new alternative energy devices. Or work in the capitol building of this vast country. Or are in labs testing drugs to battle disease. Or just finished their novel to acclaim, or are preparing for the red carpet opening of their latest film, or have just penned the last note of their opus.

I am both blessed and cursed to be in the company of such talent.

I tell you, I have no desire in the world to keep up with Mrs. Jones’ wardrobe or credit limit, but I would tackle her to the ground for a chance to get my hands on that CV. It is so painted with drama and intrigue and heaps of stories worth telling which never, ever fall short of expectation. And no story worth telling ever began, “She was content and balanced. And so she remained.”

And I just don’t know how to quash the part of me that believes to the core that you’re nothing if you aren’t struggling against something. And it is not enough to fight the silent battles people fight every day. Battles like not shaking the baby at four a.m. while running on less sleep than ever before, or working well into your seventies to help your family survive. These are the silent battles (and truth be told, some of the biggest), and I wish I could say that it would be Enough to fight the silent battles that my own Content life would bring. I wish. But some part of me dismisses the mundane struggles and insists that I must fight something loud and something epic. I don’t even know how to WANT to kill this value that’s been so ingrained as a virtue. I don’t know how to be content with Content.

And no matter how many times I sit myself down sternly and explain to myself that a constant drive for MORE recognition and MORE excitement and MORE knowledge FASTER is no different than the insatiable hunger for MORE STUFF that has so robbed us of our time and joy and undermined our values, family, and environment, my thick, daft stomach just can’t accept it and every time I ruminate on a simple life, the knots return.

vi.

Last night I watched The Third Man in which Orson Welles’ character states jovially:

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

It’s the same principle, applied to individual life in the stead of a full fledged society, and the question still stands…which would you choose?