Perpetual motion, like a spring wound in a heavenly kingdom. I can feel potential building, the tension of seasons, of thrilling decisions, of a grand tipping point somewhere near, almost as touchable as the closest horizon. Somewhere soon I will find a solution, the magical arrangement of pieces that will let it all out, create an escape for the pressure, allow me to blossom into the next incarnation of exquisite useful flower.
My internal barometer is, in part, my hair. The farther I neglect the colour, the more I know something needs to change. Now, for the first time in many years, I am only negligently dyed off my natural red blonde. Another is my music. When was the last time I practiced the saw, running rills, songs, and scales meant only for me?
David comes home, our lovely neighbor Randa in tow, “Why do you have a colander on your head?” “Oh!” I say, disingenuous, whisking it off my head, “I had company.” I spend eight hours on the bus every weekend, waiting in travel to see Tony or to get back to Vancouver in time for work, and close to five hours every week waiting for Michael, who gets out of the office around an hour after I do, so we can travel home together, but to myself I only seem to find a handful of ten minute increments where I can feel creatively infected, ripe with the mental control of whispering ghosts, where I have space enough to make.
This selection of habits grew so slowly, so organically, that it was confusing me, how little time was suddenly available. It wasn’t until I counted the hours on my fingers, waiting at a street corner for a light to change, that I realized what started as moments few enough to blink away has expanded, accumulated into enough minutes to fill an entire day a week of my eaten time spent stilled, ineffectual, accomplishing nothing, creating nothing, being merely a body, adding nothing to the world but a physical space.
This, among other things, perturbs me at the level of bone.
To that end, however, as I cannot afford a tool with which to fix this problem, and the other things are other stories, what colour should I dye my hair?