Lotus Eater

In afternoon they came unto a land

In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.

(from The Lotus-Eaters, by Tennyson)

I feel like a lotus-eater myself, imprisoned at some mid-dimensional realm, not quite here, not quite there, a Trekkian neutral zone where nothing ever happens, never fully healthy in mind or body or spirit, marking time in a perpetual replay of some cold November day in 1988 or 89, the second hand moves ever faster, especially when I’m not looking, and the face in the mirror is not the one I saw last time I looked.

[I need to shake this cold, now going on six days.  Come to think of it, I need to shake my life, now going on forty-plus-plus years…]