Looking busy

Recently completed coat.

Try to keep busy. Apparently after all these years of existence this is all we can collectively come up with to keep our minds off what troubles us. Be it religious genocide, eternal strife, impending death or absent children. Keep busy the chorus sings. I sew to fill the time between doing client work and lying motionless on the couch, my mind running wild with scenarios of danger cooked up from the local news and periodic viewings of crime shows. Pearl is going off for a few days with her dad and I will practice the time honored tradition of keeping busy. I still remember the weight of responsibility the first night I spent with her and I took it on, my instinct to nurture and protect overtook me. So now you might think a few days off would be something I look forward to but instead it is just the opposite. I feel like the herding dog, left purposeless, panting and nervous at the gate waiting for its flock to return. My little flock of one who lays sleeping 15 feet away from me.