Quieting down

Some days, like today, seems there’s nothing but noise in my head. Just stray bits of fuzz, flies buzzing, engines idling. A very big crowd of people in a stadium all talking at once, not really paying attention to the game that they’re there to watch.

At work, I was trying to troubleshoot technical problems long distance, with an international team across multiple time zones. Noise to signal ratio is pretty high in those scenarios.

Then I was trying to organize some ancestry documents and put them into a family tree. The docs were filled with a lot of names and dates related to people I don’t know. As with most historical records, errors and contradictions fogged the facts like a layer of sludge in water.

And then I had to work on my tax return.

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I got an extension to file because there was a circular reference in the tax code that screwed me up.

Today I had to open up that red folder marked Tax Return with all those pieces of paper I got in the mail. My brain was already so tizzied, it was as though I were seeing it all for the first time.

On top of this, I was using a new tax return software. Although it was much better than my previous tax software, it was still a learning curve. Took more than a dozen trips to the Help center and two emails to support to figure out some steps.

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When I stopped, it was after 7:30. I had to eat dinner very quickly so that I could get out for a walk before dark. I ate manchego cheese, salami, and corn on the cob with butter, relishing all the fat, hoping it would lubricate my mental machinery.

Then I pulled on my running shoes and walked down the street.

It was dead quiet. No sound at all. Just the soft absorbent green of trees standing still.

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Further down the road I heard the wood thrush singing. Later, a scarlet tanager did his chip-churrr, positioned at the bend in the road that he seems to like at twilight.

I passed a few houses where I could hear the air-conditioner running. Four cars passed me during my 50-minute walk.

For all the rest of that time, it was just me and the trees and the silence.

My body relaxed into a smooth pace and my face relaxed into a smile.

I love the silence. Love that I was able to hear nothing for a while.

It allowed me to sort out all those loose bits in my mind.

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Today’s penny is a 2014, the year that the IRS acknowledged the circular reference in the tax code.

Today’s illustrations are from January 7.