“The Rule of my life is to make business a pleasure and pleasure my business.”

Aaron Burr

 

I’ve been treading water in an ocean of melancholy for about a month now, and I’ve been on a quest to track down the source of my blues.

After some sleuthing, I discovered that it wasn’t one single thing. But it originated from one single thing – or lack of it: Pleasure.

For starters, I miss my alone time.

Since November I’ve been sharing my digs. I sincerely enjoy the companionship, and am enormously grateful for the financial relief that comes with sharing living expenses. My housemate and I have managed to navigate the small space pretty well and not get too much into each other’s way. And it’s really nice to have someone to talk to whenever I get home. Which you don’t get when you live by yourself. Unless you have a pet, but they speak a different language, and you can’t always translate without a whisperer.

Still, I miss having all that ‘with-myself’ time. I relish the memories of those not-so-distant moments of quiet so momentous that I could hear the swish of my blood pulsing through my carotids. It’s a delicious pleasure to sit in contemplation or reflection for hours and not be disturbed by footsteps or interrupted by questions.

I notice myself these days sitting in my car a lot, parked in parking lots and parked in lots in parks, and in front of my house when I can (I’ll explain in a bit), trying to press out a bit more alone time.

This is no surprise though. I knew this would be a big adjustment for me. I now realize that the word big was a big understatement.

Secondly, I am not a fan of routine and sameness.  I get bored easily. Yet oddly, I’ve realized that even though my life is stupid-crazy busy, it is surprisingly routine. I haven’t rearranged the furniture in my home since I moved in nearly two-and-a-half years ago. I’ve been taking the same (quickest) routes to work each day since last September. I’m predictably 5 minutes late to just about everything. I wear my hair the same nearly every day. And hanks to my weight gain, I’ve worn the same five tops, same five pairs of pants, same two dresses and a skirt in rotation for pretty much the last five months. This despite the fact that half of my wardrobe spends its time in a storage facility half of the year.

I am routinely NOT working out.

I’m too busy to watch TV, but if I miraculously end up with an errant 30 minutes, I find I’m watching the same shows again and again. I can spit verbatim every word of every episode of every Bugs Bunny cartoon ever made. Ditto for my favorite Britcom Are You Being Served.

And no matter how hard I try to go to bed at a reasonable hour, I still fall across the bed at the crack of piss every morning.  What am I doing up so late/early? What else? Working! Thankfully, I find great pleasure in the work I do, but it’s still work.

And speaking of piss, or rather, being pissed off,  I have the nerve to rant if I can’t park in my usual space directly in front of my house. I don’t understand why my new neighbors are still alive. How is it they’re dodging the eye daggers I throw at them every time they park in ‘my spot’? Reason says that I don’t own the street or that spot, so I should just get over myself and just go park the damned car elsewhere. I sent Reason to play in the traffic.

I gather I’m stuck in a groove. And to quote the P-Funk master himself, George Clinton, it’s knee deep.

And here’s the big ah-ha. Most of my time is spent working, teaching, promoting, prepping, and performing. I am nearly always in ‘doing’ mode. I rarely give myself playtime, or pleasure time, or time to just – Be.

Not good.

Me fix.

I’m evicting the blues, and inviting the pleasure principle to come and stay. Gonna revisit the stuff that I once found fun and pleasurable and reintroduce it into my life. Stuff like long late night highway drives with the stereo blasting. Playing deejay in my living room and dancing until as James Brown once sang, “…your feet get dusty and your body gets rusty.”  Gonna do stuff like plow through the stack of magazines that have pitched a tent at the foot of my bed. Singing some of the songs my Mama wrote for me when I was a kid. Coloring, or making craft projects, which means decoupaging anything (I’m friggin’ dangerous with glue and paper)! Impromptu clubbing to check out my favorite local musicians and artists. Long soaks in the tub.  Sleeping naked between freshly washed and scented sheets. More hugs, and cuddling – with my stuffed animals, with real animals, with human animals. A nightly glass of wine. Hot yoga. A scoop of Taharka’s Jazz Man Blues (Jasmine and Blueberry) ice cream (so effin’ good it should be illegal). Talking more with my family in Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and California.

I’m reclaiming my pleasures.

But I’ll need to recruit a few friends to help me because like nearly everyone else, knowing I need to change is one story, actually doing it is another story. I’m triumphantly ensconced in my melancholy.  Which equals inertia. Which equals comfort. A sort of inverse comfort zone. But as Conversations with God author Neale Donald Walsh has written, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”

What about you? What do you do for fun? How do you unwind? What brings you pleasure? Joy? How can you add a smile to your own face? What areas of your life need weeding. Or watering?

I know. It’s easier to talk about it rather than do something about it. I say we begin by doing ourselves first. Because there’s always be more to do. There will always be more to do.

Think about this though: Before you take your last breath, will you regret not working more, or not playing more?

I think of the transition of the dear soul that incarnated as Prince. I knew nothing of him other than what I’d seen and read and heard, but by the accounts of those that knew him best, and judging by the stupendous amount of art he created for himself and so many others,  he lived an amazingly full life. He reveled and lived in his self-made pleasure zone. He worked, he played, he loved, he gave. Fiercely. Passionately. Generously.

And I want that for myself. To dream, work, love and play as though I’m on fire, as though there’s no tomorrow. I want pocketfuls of plentiful pleasures.

I gave my family my final instructions years ago. They are to cremate me (like Prince), scatter my ashes just off the shores of Bermuda, then throw a memorial party. And upon entrance to the party, there is to be a banner with my name and picture on it, along with the following caption: She Lived and Died with No Regrets – Only Pleasures!