Stormy Weather

Back when I lived in Denver — all right, it was the Nixon administration, but who’s counting? — I exulted in the typical summer weather pattern that I have never encountered outside that homey metropolis along the edge of the Rockies. Every late afternoon, clouds roll in from the mountains. It rains gangbusters for a while. Then it’s all over, almost invariably in time to treat everybody to a Cinerama/Technicolor sunset of the sort that only a high wall of western mountains can provide. Denver has its weather-wise downchecks, but summer rainstorms followed by Cecil B. DeMille sunsets make up for any number of shortcomings.

Those recurrent summer showers provide me with a metaphor for the mental weather that is part and parcel of my daily life. On the whole I’m blessed with a steady, balanced personality. According to the four Greek temperaments, I’m a sanguine leaning towards pragmatic. Maybe that doesn’t make me the most exciting guy on the block, but it definitely makes me stable. Yet I have my weather patterns, and when the storms come, they drench the landscape with aversion. My downpourings of vitriol are invariably sudden, just as invariably brief, and fade away quickly.

Nothing worth remarking in any of this. However, I’ve just ploughed my way through a variant on the basic theme. My aversion-storm added hail and sleet in the form of a wide stripe of paranoia. I was struck through and through with suspicion, distrust, dissatisfaction. There has been no particular reason, save the ordinary stresses of a sleepy summer vacation ending in the commencement of an uproariously busy school year + season.

Why did I let it get to me? Why did I endure several sleepness nights, running ridiculously overcooked scenarios in my mind, having panic attacks over situations that are less likely to occur than the reincarnation of Solon the Lawgiver? More to the point, why couldn’t I just cry foul and put an end to it? But I couldn’t. The storm had to run its course. A few words from colleagues, a few implicit reassurances that nothing was anywhere near as fraught with disaster as I was imagining, and the disturbance came to an end. This evening I have been in draining mode, lubricated no doubt by a bottle of my favorite red wine blend (Hartley-Ostini Hitching Post Red, $17.99 at Mollie Stone’s, San Francisco) and cushioned by a fragrantly appealing home-cooked dinner. I’m a practiced pro at coddling me. There’s no question but that the storm is over. It took about twenty-four hours to work itself up into a solid blow, lasted about twenty-four hours, and is now draining away over just about the same time period. By this time tomorrow night I’ll be back in perfectly balanced sanguine-pragmatic trim, maybe just a teeny-tiny bit hung over.

A trivial factoid, witnessing an ostensibly insignificant coincidence: the sliding door to my bathroom in my century-old Victorian picks up a slight airflow from the house next door, thanks to the vagaries of plumbing and house-framing that results when houses are modified, expanded, and renovated over a long time. I’d love to trace the actual origin of that airflow some day. I bring this up only because major foundational work on said next-door house has resulted in periods of opening, replacing, and re-sealing sewer lines. Every time one of those lines is open I pick up eau de sewer from the frame surrounding my bathroom door. The odor isn’t enough to reduce me to gagging, but it has been just sufficient to irritate and offend when I’m near the bathroom door. But the work is completed and all sewerage sealed. The offensive odors are gone for good. I hope.

Did those sewer-ish odors trigger my paranoia attack? Nothing is more ominous than indoor potty-sewer odors, after all: they presage jackhammers and shovels and unthinkable disruption and a horde of Darryls making mincemeat of one’s peaceful home. Even though consciously I knew better, my subconscious was flipping into overdrive. Yeah, they’re working next door, it says, but they’re going to break in here with their jackhammers and power tools and shovels and they’re going to invade my sanctuary and Darryl is going to stomp all over my clean floors and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. They’re coming, I tell you, they’re coming.

Paranoia, as I said. Thank heavens it’s just a lingering memory. I’m fine now, really I am. Really.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.