I've been feeling pretty mopey they last few days. No real reason, just bummed. I had this exchange with my husband yesterday:
Sarah: I'm feeling kinda down. I've been listening to The Cure a lot lately.
Husband: Oh God! Don't do that!
His exclamation was too funny; he knew right away what listening to too much Robert Smith can do to your head.
I also had a dream last night where I was trying to find a date for prom. Every boy I ever had the hots for in my life made an appearance in the dream, and every single one of them rejected me for a date. I think that says a lot about what's going on somewhere in my subconscious too.
My bio of George Washington wasn't doing much for me either way, so I left him right as the Revolution was starting and switched books. I was given a book called Stolen Angels at the miscarriage support meeting, so I thought I'd give that a try. And while I was heartened to find that many of the stories had elements that were similar to mine, I found myself coming away from the book armed with knowledge I didn't want to have. I found myself daydreaming stuff like, "When the next baby dies, I will do X differently." Not exactly positive thinking. So I set that book aside for a while too.
I picked up A Short History of Nearly Everything, and a wave of peace rushed over me. I had forgotten how calming it is to read about the universe. How much it puts my hill of beans in perspective. How much comfort Sagan's cosmic calendar brings to me.
I read this paragraph with wonderment:
Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favored evolutionary line, but you you have also been extremely - make that miraculously - fortunate in your personal ancestry. Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result - eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly - in you.
I want to participate in "life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material" too. But today I'm centered enough to realize that it's miracle enough that I'm even here, and that my desires are tiny on the scale of the cosmos.
And no more The Cure for a while.
Posted by Sarah at July 1, 2008 10:24 AM | TrackBackVery cool quote. Talk about things that put your whole existence into perspective. I never thought about my life quite like that, but had been on the cusp of a similar idea just like that before. Weird, but that was a "pick me up" quote a little. How can I be sad (because the last few days I've been pretty down too) when someone tells me how miraculous it is that I even exist? Nice one.
Love the quote. :) Boiled down to my rural upbringing, "A lid for every pot..."
So funny you mentioned the Cure. I listened to them last night in the last leg of my walk. Maybe that's why all my muscles feel mopey today??
Posted by: Guard Wife at July 1, 2008 11:26 AMThat's an awesome quote, I really like that. I'll have to check out that book.
Posted by: loquita at July 1, 2008 07:23 PMSo The Smiths are out too? ;)
Posted by: Jacki at July 1, 2008 09:01 PMHa! Yeah, I'd definitely stay away from Morrissey as well.
I love that quote. You sound like me. I always have 4-5 books going at once, depending on my current mood.
Sounds like you're recovering well. That's good to see.
Posted by: Tonya at July 2, 2008 11:09 AMI meant to tell you before, but I didn't realized I had only delurked the day you posted, that it's incredibly cool how synergetic our partners can be. (I think that's the right word.) Mine would call from those looong training times apart and ask what I would be doing. Watching the entire 1st season of Grey's Anatomy in one sitting of course. His reply? You're crying aren't you! How many times have I asked you not watch that crap when I'm not around?
Posted by: Darla at July 5, 2008 02:08 PM