Vacuuming up the tiny pink and blue pieces from the Game of Life, sprinkled like chaos on the floor, I feel like God or some higher vengeful being. I listen as they rattle up the pipe, through the tube, before being spat into the belly of the machine; the clear perspex, there to demonstrate the ‘cyclonic force’ of the suction, shows a quick coloured blur before the figures are enveloped in the dusty surrounds, to wait until I choose to rescue them (or not).
Sometimes, when my period is early, it comes as a relief. Bodily quirks and quibbles – the tiredness, the wretched fit of pants and bras – are magically explainable. The hormonal torment lingers, however, or seems to – it’s hard to pinpoint where that ends and the other – General Sadness – begins. At such times (this being one, which you’ve probably already figured out) I’m becoming increasingly uncertain as to how to write (no, blog) about it.
I don’t really want to float the idea of ‘self-consciousness’ here, but perhaps that is part of it. Or a defensiveness that I’m seeing many bloggers have up as shields these days, as they battle for who wrote first about what subject, who broke what news, who is being nasty. Not that discourse isn’t important, and friendships are worth maintaining. Loyalties are important. But other relationships can feel like the Godfather’s kiss. Reserves of strength required to remain on course are larger than first envisaged.
And so, if you’ve been sucked up the vacuum, as I have been, let’s hold hands and enter the tumult together.
photo credit: jmoneyyyyyy
