“You are doing it all wrong.”
I go through distinct phases of my week/day/life when I can clearly hear myself telling this to myself.
It might not matter exactly what I am doing — anything really from cleaning the house to baking a chicken — but the message is clear: you are doing it wrong.
Do you hear it sometimes too?
—
I’ve gone through all sorts of phases in my relationship with my “inner critic” (as Julia Cameron calls her). By now, though, I am 42 and I know myself pretty well. I don’t even refer to “her” in the third person anymore. I know exactly what is going on.
I just wish I knew why.
What sets it off? What’s the reason that I go for days/weeks at a time without tripping over these self-flaggelating scripts, then, suddenly I hear it.
Why today? Is it just the weather? Because I didn’t sleep too well? Something I ate?
—
I pulled at the crab grass in the backyard today, even getting at some of it from the root. I spent at least 15 minutes picking at the weeds before I stopped and examined the bare dirt.
I thought: I wonder if the grass can even get up the momentum to fill in this space before the crabgrass takes over again.
I sighed and tossed the weed back on the ground.
—
White pine arms droop down,
Catch summer dew, unfazed by
Deciduous grace.
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