Just me, myself and a whole lot of snow

I sit down to write today as Mother Nature blows off a little steam outside. (I have now witnessed the definition of blizzard conditions - not a goal I ever aspired to, believe me.) But as the storm rages outside the window, just within, my life is as calm as it has ever been. In fact, despite all the snow-induced cancellations, my day-to-day activities haven’t really been drastically altered because I don’t wander too far these days. I will refrain from passing judgement on this - as that is one of my new mantras - and there are oh, so many feminist jokes I know my brother would love to insert here just to get a rise out of me - but reality is the upheaval created by my change of career, change of city and change of living arrangements has all been followed by an intense and enduring calm.

And while I am thankful, I do feel a bit like a stranger in a strange land - that land being myself, undistracted and undisturbed. To be perfectly honest, I’m not quite sure what to do with me. In having the luxury of time to very simply live and reflect, I’ve been waiting for my profound purpose to hit me upside the head. Something abrupt, you know, to get my attention. I thought the power of the universe would have more of a ‘straight between the eyes’ approach, but amazingly the quiet just continues.

Being the busybody that I am, I’ve had some difficulty settling in to this type of routine and believe you me I’ve attempted to distract myself with the mundane duties of suburban life. (If I could gain status in society by number of visits to Target, I would be golden!) But I needed it. Desperately. (The quiet that is, not the latest slotted plastic spatula.) The clutter and noise had seeped from the streets of Manhattan into my head and was wreaking havoc. Now, you city folk, don’t get me wrong - I will always love New York City and may even change my tune at some point. However, I used to think and argue out loud that ‘life’ was keeping me from my music. I was just too busy paying rent, ya know?

Well, I took that line of defense away - I’ll do anything to win an argument, even with myself - and it turns out I was wrong. Life is nothing but choices and I think I knew that all along. Turns out I’ve been the one keeping myself from my music. And we could do some significant psycho-analysis here to determine why, but I’ll spare you. We can instead sum it up to say that the clutter is gone. And now, ye followers of the blogosphere who put up with my philosophizing despite an inexcusable gap since my last rambling, I put that hat back on, pick up the hypothetical suitcase, and set back out on the journey with one less excuse to hide behind. The constant remains - the music cannot, must not, be denied.