Just before it was dark, as they passed a great island of Sargasso weed that heaved and swung in the light sea as though the ocean were making love with something under a yellow blanket, his small line was taken by a dolphin. He saw it first when it jumped in the air, true gold in the last of the sun and bending and flapping wildly in the air. It jumped again and again in the acrobatics of its fear and he worked his way back to the stern and crouching and holding the big line with his right hand and arm, he pulled the dolphin in with his left hand, stepping on the gained line each time with his bare left foot. When the fish was at the stern, plunging and cutting from side to side in desperation, the old man leaned over the stern and lifted the burnished gold fish with its purple spots over the stern. Its jaws were working convulsively in quick bites against the hook and it pounded the bottom of the skiff with its long flat body, its tail and its head until he clubbed it across the shining golden head until it shivered and was still.
The old man unhooked the fish, rebaited the line with another sardine and tossed it over. Then he worked his way slowly back to the bow. He washed his left hand and wiped it on his trousers. Then he shifted the heavy line from his right hand to his left and washed his right hand in the sea while he watched the sun go into the ocean and the slant of the big cord.
Santiago needs to eat. That's why he hauls in the dolphin and kills it. The old man has no idea how much longer the battle with the fish will last. It could be hours or days. And he is in a boat in the ocean, with no land in sight. So he has to keep up his strength somehow.
It is late Wednesday night. I just got home after a long day of work. I'm pretty really beat. For some reason, I packed all my evenings with events this week. Concerts. Astronomy presentations. Author Readings. Science presentations. I do this kind of intensive scheduling at least one week out of every month. Not by design. It just happens.
So, I find myself trying to practice a little self-care, like Santiago in the above passage. He knows he has to eat and rest. That's how to survive in a society that thinks downtime is a luxury instead of a necessity. Americans just don't get the impulse to withdraw and be alone. There's this constant push to strive and achieve.
I'm not saying ambition is a bad thing. I am literally the posterchild for Overextended. It has something to do with my need to please. To say "yes" or "no problem," even when there are claxons going off in my cerebral cortex and entire nervous system. I'm a very ambitious person, in my job and artistic life.
Yet, there is a price for this lifestyle of overachievement. It's called exhaustion. It happens to me once every couple of months. I find that I simply cannot function. I need to literally lay down on my couch and take a twelve hour nap. Practice a little selfcare. I think I am reaching that point soon.
Please forgive me if this post seems short and a little indulgent. My cup runneth over. And over. And over. And over. Perhaps, by tomorrow night, after the fourth program of the week, I will carve out a little "me" time.
Translation: Saint Marty will take a nap.
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