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There is nothing more paralysing than trying to pick the right colour at the nail salon. It is a paradox of choice on steroids. You begin to question the extent to which your eyes can process different shades of colour. Every time before I go now I have to do some homework. Really think long and hard about what I want, or at least narrow down my choices. It’s revived my use of Pinterest, which is something I suppose. Now when I visit I am head down. “Remember, Mary, you decided on pink. Just look at the pinks”. It never works.
I’m more conscious now of finding dedicated time without screens. It’s hard. I try to do it on the tube but I fail, pathetically trying to connect to the wifi at each 30 second internal pulling into a station. I’ll keep trying at that one. I know a lot of people listen to music or watch something on their phones at a nail salon but I like putting my phone away and switching off, if only for a little while. I don’t really like the small talk. I want to sit in silence. Become engrossed in the art and intricacy of the work. Let my mind wander. As it did earlier this week, when the first few lines of this newsletter came to me.
I often cave to indecision. It happened again when I went to buy lunch one day working in the office. I aimlessly walked up, down and back around. I was starving hungry and by that point I think I’d sort of lost my capacity to function. Too much choice! Too many options! So many new places to try! I should have just packed my own lunch! Why is everything £9! It was a stressful time. I left with a cheese and ham toastie. How inspired.
I tend to second guess everything I do, if I’m being truly honest. I find it hard to trust that any decision I make is the right one. My brain whizzes and whirs with doubt, thinking of all the possible alternative options I had, all the different choices I could have made. It’s a constant butterfly effect, little insects flapping their wings in my brain saying, “Pick me! Pick me!” I wonder now about all the decisions I am yet to agonise over.
Choices
By Tess Gallagher
I go to the mountain side
of the house to cut saplings,
and clear a view to snow
on the mountain. But when I look up,
saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in
the uppermost branches.
I don’t cut that one.
I don’t cut the others either.
Suddenly, in every tree,
an unseen nest
where a mountain
would be.
There won’t be a newsletter next week because I'm going skiing tomorrow and won’t be back in time to write one. I’m not going to add extra pressure onto myself to try and write something, knowing it’ll be for the sake of it. Rushing to get words onto a page. I’ve had enough guilt in terms of writing over the last 3 months. There have been so many weeks gone by with nothing. As I try to get back into a new flow I’m setting some boundaries. Instead, you can think of me as I shoop shoop (cough, fall arse over tit because I’ve never skied before, cough) down a snowy mountain. See you in a couple of weeks!