Sunday: Thoughts from Lake Wobegon...kinda.

The morning air is cool, and the sun light is just starting to clear up the early morning darkness...the twilight. It's the level of light that begins to bring back the lines and colors that the distant buildings and hill foliage from the night's blurring moon light. It's early...5:43 AM. As is the case as of late, I worked my way out of bed attempting to not move my head too much; my neck was tight and its grip on my head had already began a what will be come a mild headache.

I reach for them with my fingers mildly rubbing my thumb against the other finger tips reviving them for a short task--finding the muscles buried deep in the base of my skull and neck. A mild attempt to coax the muscles into releasing just enough to avoid a headache. I know which ones to get to, and I think I know why they are going ballistic today, but it doesn't matter why more than how do I get to them and get them to let go before the day goes to waste. I know the answer, but I'm just to physically tired from yesterday's activities and my own therapeutic method of anxiety reduction. What's funny is I help people with the same problem, headache, everyday. I guess my own experience of them, headache and migraine, help me understand what people experience, and necessarily, how to 'fix' them.

After a few moments of hitting the right trigger points, I get up and begin to look for my clothes. Trying to go back to sleep was futile at that point. I had an agenda I wasn't sure I'm was going to do anything about, but I want to. I want to everyday that I wake up in my own bed and even other beds, but I don't. I stick to the plan: Eat. Get out the door. Coffee. Start typing. Watch the sunlight come through the window if it's not already up. Relax...hopefully. Tell myself that everything is fine. Gym.

This is all true. It's the ritual I go through some mornings more than others because I apparently suffer from anxiety (self-diagnosed). What should be a normal enjoyment of a good day often leaves me mildly anxious about what's around the corner. That could be the Catholicism ingrained into my psychology having been raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. In St. Paul, most of the population is Irish Catholic and feel that they're constantly in a balancing act between the good things in life and what "God" dictates as necessary cyclical punishment so as to not enjoy life too much because we might forget that there is a hell. Hahahaha. I didn't even hear that on a Prairie Home Companion, but it sounds about right as I think about all the stories of Lake Wobagon.

The coffee is smooth. The sun is cutting into the room, and from where I'm sat, I can see the cars go North and South. I smile. A few people come into the place with the look of wonderment on whether they came into the right place or not. I guess they were looking for something other than coffee at a few minutes to 7:00 AM. I go back to minding my screen. A few of the old men that I sit with from time to time stumble into the place and into their respective seats; they're early. Soo early that their minds hadn't quite turned on but their bodies brought them there on auto-pilot from all the years of doing the same thing. "Morn'n Doc. How ya doing?" Joe asks but looking at one of the two girls in the line. His mind may not be on but his 'young-girl' radar' was. LOL. "Fine. Fine," I say while holding up my cup of Joe to him. "Funny they're both named Joe," I think to myself.

I look through my phone picture gallery. I see a number of pictures from yesterday's events. A small girl and her mom that I've been getting to know. I think of how really blonde she is and her green eyes and wonder how she got those features considering her dark haired mom and lighter browned haired father, but there she was..almost an alien making faces at me. I guess at 6.5 years of age, the run-time on the energy battery has a half-life of 24 hours a day. I see pictures I took of the ocean, a few random selfies, and a misplaced picture of me and a different blonde girl with green eyes, and I stop to focus on it for a moment. I just saw her yesterday. We would've run smack into each other had I not stepped aside to let another couple walk by me at the gym. I smile and keep looking through other pictures of the week wondering which one to put into my blog if I get motivated enough to write one. I should. I'm over-due. I look out the window again to see if I see anyone or thing that will give me a clue on what to do next. I guess it's gym time.
There it is.