Chicken Glitzle

I wasn’t going to write this week. I had made peace with that, or as much peace as a woman can have while digging around in her bottomless purse for an inhaler while trapped in the fast lane (metaphorically. mostly.). However, despite the lists piled around my ears (not metaphorical, these), I can’t seem to close my computer right now and dash away. Perhaps it’s best to go with instinct on this one.

So here’s the scoop—The sky has been falling steadily on us for the last several weeks, and sometimes miracles are the projectile du jour, and sometimes bad news pelts down like a hailstorm of cinder blocks. I’ve done a lot of ducking and a lot of internal pep talking, but mostly I’ve been working my brain down to the bone in an effort to help us survive the next month or two. It remains to be seen if this will make any difference or not, but I have to try.

The worst thing for me about living each day “di corsa”—on the run—is that I check out of my own life. I’m not the marathon runner in our family, but I imagine that this is what it feels like to get into that mental groove and see nothing beyond but a finish line. I have my blinders on and my focus given fully over to effort, but the glaring problem in this scenario is that I don’t see a finish line. I only see a falling sky.

I am probably employing just a tad more drama than our situation actually warrants, but I’m surprisingly bad at Zen when worries compound and I can’t get out of the fast lane to examine them properly. I’m distracted and rushed and knotted up and pretty thoroughly disconnected from All That Is Important.

So I’m skipping town. I’ve been invited by none other than my business-tripping crush to be his date at a banquet on Lake Como this weekend, and I’m going to put on my best impression of elegance (maybe in the back of the closet?) and pretend to be a celebrity for one glitzy evening, and hopefully, as the mood shifts from Chicken Little to Cinderella, I’ll be able to plug back into my own story.

And if it doesn’t work… well, every banquet needs a drama queen, right?