I'm back in the US, and I don't know what to do with myself. I've started reading a couple of books at once, I watch movies and spend hours on the internet, but I'm restless. I think I should be moving more physically, but have no motivation and feel sleepy for no good reason. I should do something creative. I should make that bag I bought fabric for. I should go outside and explore the forest. I should write creatively, draw, sing, dance, work out. I should. But I don't. Why? Why do I refuse to do things I know will help me to feel better? The more I think about what might be wrong with me, the less I seem to know. I miss Europe and my girl. I don't feel like I can talk about it to anyone in my family because they haven't really been abroad for anything like how long I was in Berlin. I keep forgetting how miserable I was in Berlin for a while there in the winter. But even remembering that now doesn't help much.
I'm reading The Annotated Hobbit, and it makes me want to go out and travel, walk through the woods and make campfires. I haven't wanted to camp since I tried it once close to ten years ago now, when I was still in the Boy Scouts. But now, if I could have long-bearded and friendly companions, a not-too-pressing objective and plenty of food supplies that I didn't have to carry myself, I would be glad to go. Maybe. Since I am so unwilling to get up and go out of the house, even to clear my head of this fog which has fallen in the space between my ears, how willing would I really be to leave?
The thought occurs to me that maybe what I need is to empty my mind of everything. Meditation or whatever. Might work just to sit outside and watch the trees. Look for pileated woodpeckers. Listen to the wind through the trees. That kind of thing. Maybe I'll do that now.
