whim and tonic

The Houston Arboretum.  Photographed with Nikon D300, 35mm lens.

Yesterday morning I spent decidedly too much time trying to figure out what I was feeling.  I wasn't sad, or depressed, or even melancholy.  I wasn't happy ... and I wasn't content, either.  It wasn't so much a mood as a feeling, if that makes any sense.  I felt sort of like I had a hangover, if you took away the alcohol, the headache and the general malaise.  Or like jetlag, except without the sleep deprivation or the fabulous travel.

Sort of.  In a way.

(An aside:  my friend Irene tells me that the Korean language has far more words than the English language.  I did some research:  it appears that English has around 250,000 words; however, when I tried to find out how many words there are in the Korean language, the closest answer I could find was something like, "as many as they want to have."  How lucky.  Because when you think about it, doesn't 250,000 words for an entire language seem a little, I don't know, limiting?  I'm thinking maybe the time has come for me to start making up some words.  After all, Alex came up with the brilliant phrase "having the sleepywobbles" to describe that state of being when you walk around right after you get out of bed, and you're still half asleep.  If my five-year-old can do it, then by gum, so can I.)

So anyway, yesterday morning I was feeling a bit quietheavy (see what I did there?), and it was affecting my ability to concentrate on work.  So even though I really didn't have the time to do it, I grabbed my camera, and decided to go find some place beautiful to get some fresh air. 

I ended up at the Houston Arboretum.

It was really lovely to be alone in the woods for a while -- it's sort of amazing how a change of scenery can totally clear your head, isn't it?  After about 20 minutes, I felt immensely better, and decided to return home.  But before I did, I stopped by a small cafe to grab a chai tea latte to go.  Sitting on the counter was a small spiralbound book, and each page had a small quotation for each day of the year.  Which is how, as I gave the guy behind the counter a few dollars, I saw the following staring up at me:

September 21

No matter what your lot in life might be, build something on it.

Now if that wasn't a swift kick in the pants to get over myself, I don't know what is.

Song:  Change by KT Tunstall