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I?m sitting in the dark in my office. The only light is the computer screen and some candles. I can hear the toads singing in the ponds just outside my windows, and covers from THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS is playing. Covers by Marilyn Manson and Fiona Apple to name two. It?s the second disc of the set of the deluxe sound track of the movie. The covers are even more fun that the originals by Danny Elfman. (By the way, what a great last name. Probably sucked in elementary school, but for those of us with an imagination, it?s just too cool.)
This blog will probably go out to you days from now, because I?m writing it on the eve before the final prep for tour. The last minute clothes to try on, and decide what?s going and what?s staying behind. Tomorrow is the last day to do laundry, so whatever we want dry and ready to pack, we have to decide now. I always hate that. Left to my own devices I way over pack. Jon has natural packing genes, his mother packs well, too. Charles, if he ever packed badly, was trained to think less is more by the army. I?ve found that all the ex-military people I know pack well, tight, and travel with no complaints, for the most part. They?ve had worse accommodations, and flown on planes that will rattle the fillings out of your teeth, or so I?ve been told.
I am a big baby when it comes to travel. My idea of being deprived is a hotel without twenty-four hours room service. But in the end, it all comes down to insecurity. I want to pack and take everything with me. What if I need it? As our friend, Richard, who has traveled internationally for months at a time, said, “It?s not like you?re going to the middle of nowhere. What you leave behind, you can buy there.” Spoken like a good traveler, and a boy. Girls back me on this, some clothes you can?t buy “there”, and make-up for those of us who have allergies can be downright problematic. But other than a few outfits and nonallergic stuff, Richard is right. He really is. I know that. I believe that. So, why am I sitting in the dark, listening to music and toads, by candlelight?
Because, when the stress gets high enough I resort to type. I find the dark soothing. I like the sounds that happen at night outside. You?ll go blind working a typewriter by candlelight, but computers make their own light. I am strangely calm, very unusual for me right now.
When I was a little girl I was afraid of the dark. But I haven?t been afraid of the dark in years. A wise person said, that there?s nothing in the dark that isn?t there in the daylight. I know from experience that daylight works just fine for violence. So, I sit in the dark, and let that tension ease. That tension that makes the chest tight and the breath come shallow. Dark and cool, and suddenly I can take a deep breath. I can go to bed soon, and climb between the cool, clean sheets, wrap my warm husband around me, and we can sleep. Sleep, perchance to dream. Sleep, and hope not to dream. Let me take this dark peace with me, and wrap it around us both, and sooth the nerves that frayed as we ran back and forth today.
I sit in the dark, surrounded by music and the singing of toads. Candlelight flickers around me, and I?m reminded that being “normal” is, maybe, not what makes me feel peaceful. I?ve been trying to do all the things that everyone else tells me will ease my tension, but it hasn?t worked. But this works, this dark out pouring of words. This strangely intimate dark. Take a deep breath, and let it out, breath in the peaceful dark, and leave the frantic day behind.