These days I try to keep my gaze as short and near as possible. It’s the only way to survive. There is no question of “thriving.”
Part of this strategy is a less-than-conscious avoidance of noticing almost anything other than the living room, kitchen, and my office. Certainly I do my best, without thinking about it, to avoid actually seeing the back yard.
But I just let myself slip, and I saw it. The toys. The trampoline. The gray-brown remnants of a garden, planted billions of years ago, now frozen. Vines snaking around white fencing. A tall sunflower, bent and looking downward.
I couldn’t afford to see that. I can’t afford to see that.
I have work to do, and I’m barely able to get myself to do it as it is.