Out of Obligation

They tell me shabbos services were unusually well attended even without an announced event.  I stayed home.  Or not exactly home.  It's been a tough week.  After giving platelets on Tuesday, I returned home despondent.  If not sad, though there was a touch of that, without motivation to do anything.  It lasted the rest of the week.  I went to an Alumni Sponsored event on Friday. Despite a few small chats, I felt no interest in mingling, or eating the croissant they provided.  I stepped away by myself, looked outward to the parking lot, puttered around the coffee shop inside the patio where my gathering took place.  

I have guests coming for the following shabbos.  Planning the menu, looking at cookbooks and online recipe categories, making shopping lists, selecting a final menu, these are the elements that ordinarily energize me.  I did them, but out of obligation to complete a task, less the usual joy I could expect from the effort.  

I made progress on bringing My Space to its optimal form.  But no pleasure from this effort either.  It was on my weekly list so I did some.  Looked at my garden in the backyard.  Watered herb pots in the front.  Again, no sense of pleasure.  All obligatory tasks.

Missed a treadmill day and two stretch sessions due to soreness, but did not feel accomplished from the ones I did.

Writing initiatives failed.  Neither my heart nor mind were dedicated to these important and challenging semi-annual commitments by midweek.

For shabbos, I defrosted and reheated.  

However, a small turning point entered on Saturday morning.  Going to my desk, I took up the tape recorder to assess my past week and the coming one, as I do each Saturday morning as I sip the first cup of the day's coffee.  I felt a little better.  I felt like doing something because there might be some pleasure from a purposeful undertaking.  My Eddie Bauer green canvas attache case, a favorite accessory, had been idle next to my desk.  I thought about making it my portable workspace when OLLI resumes, but with all my recreational items chronically unused on my desk, I opted instead to make this my recreational center.  At my desk I could take what I wanted, but also transport my recreation to different places.  My harmonica went in a small compartment along with its tutorial booklet.  My desk had two unopened packs of pastels.  One went inside.  And coloring pencils with its adult pattern booklet.  My case of drawing pencils.  My desk has a section for various types of papers.  I transferred a tablet of the most all-purpose option.  I keep some monofilament, a few fishing hooks, and some laces to learn knots in a plastic bag in my front line of site.  Into the attache it went.  And a small back-to school watercolor tin with brush.  And in a separate compartment a red folder with blank loose-leaf paper.  This attache already had pens and a highlighter in its dedicated compartment.  I added a mini-cassette recorder, leaving the two good ones on my desk.  So I had created recreational space.

Then a shower.  Then venture out to the daylight.  I wanted to go somewhere, someplace that gives me pleasure when I go there.  IKEA, Lancaster.  Another time.  I thought about going to the Christiana Mall, the regional magnet, where I hardly ever go, but after getting on I-95 I realized a walk through the Delaware Park Casino, another neglected place, would sparkle with lights.  So that's where I went, making the circuit of each of the two floors.  The horse races are free to watch but wouldn't begin for another two hours.  I watched people, watched the environment.  Mostly an older clientele, not that different from my synagogue.  People of color over-represented I think.  And handicapped spaces in the parking lot seemed about half the total of parked cars but the people in the casinos did not seem all that incapacitated.  There's something to be said about noticing people.

Now that casinos are everywhere, I thought about other regional gaming places I've been to, either to take advantage of cheap Senior buffets in the Poconos or Chester, or to find a place to be indoors like my last trip to St. Louis.  These casinos have a common culture.  I sat in a comfortable lounge chair a bit and just looked around.

Still not fully amused.  Since I am remodeling two rooms, I diverted myself to the nearby Container Store.  Never buy anything due to price, but going aisle to aisle impresses me with the creativity of the designers, as do the casino slots for that matter.  Something that suits every purpose, provided you know what the purpose is.  Things to make kitchens more functional, laundry easier, work areas to fabricate from neglected spaces then declare as MINE.  I sat in their desk chairs made of bungee cords.  Not something I want to do for an entire work day.  Bins of every type adaptable to My Space's renovation though above budget for that purpose.  The store most likely to convince me that what I wish to do is really possible to accomplish.

While not really wanting to go to Costco or Cabela's, to other places that infuse my mind with Maybe I Could, I saw a nook of a store across the street that interested me.  Lands End.  I'd never seen a dedicated Lands End retail store.  I used to get their catalog.  My daily attache case for work, a heavy navy model made of coarse canvas with my initials added, served me for most of my career.  And I once bought a suit from there many pounds ago.  And a lot of pincord button down shirts and a few dress pants.  Always reliable, always a good value even when priced above what a store might offer and shipping is added.  Major disappointment.  Scant men's section, no carrying cases, prices double what outlet stores charge for comparable things.  I drove on.

Busy highway but home and for the first time in a considerable number of days, able to do something because I wanted to, not because I had to.