And so, the effect of returning to work this week is obvious in so far that I have had very little time to do all of the creative things that make this life worth living. No longer the days where I could choose to both write and draw and read and take a long walk and watch a good (old) movie all in the same day for many days in a row.

"What gives... what helps.... the intuition
I know, I'll know
I won't have to be shown
the way home...

The destination known
only by the one
whose fate is overgrown...

A love is not complete
with only heat...

And it came - a heatwave
A merciful save
and you choose
you chose
poetry over prose

a map is more unreal than where you've been or how you feel

and it's impossible to tell
how important someone was
and what you might have missed out on...

and did I and did I..."

A lovely song ("Intuition") by Feist playing in my head phones soothes the work day away. There is much more to the song, and in the missing lyrics is perhaps the more important message of the song. I discovered the song a few days after writing the opening chapter of my novel and was struck motionless with how it's lyrics so perfectly matched the chapter. It is the first chapter. Perhaps I will add it to the beginning.

It's impossible for me, after six weeks of being away from the office (while still enjoying the benefits of being salaried and thus getting paid even though I wasn't there a single minute of those six weeks), simply impossible not to feel the aching pit in my stomach beginning the moment I get into my car, long before the sun has awaken, growing throughout the day into a dull ache and then finally subsiding only after I have parked the car and walked into my "home." I have not written much more than a couple of pages this week, drawn once, and read myself to sleep. Gone are the days when I have the choice between one and another.

I do worry, however, of the day when I stop feeling that ache in my stomach when I arrive at my bill-paying job... Feeling a sense of comfort in something you don't actually love can only mean the loss of one's soul.