There is an area of the ocean called the Intertropical Convergence Zone. It sounds complicated and terribly exotic but isn't really. It is the region roughly between 5N and 5S where the trade winds meet, causing squalls and all manner of foul weather, but also where the hot equatorial air rises and keeps the world still for days, weeks at a time.
That stillness is the doldrums.
Sailors know it as such, poets know it as such.
Stillness, to me, is it's own sort of madness. It's a quiet, low-scale, gnawing madness that strangles you slowly. Stillness is my apparent nemesis. It's why I'm so antsy all the time; why I can't do just one thing at a time but rather must do many things all at once; it's why I fidget and why I am a terrible patient. It's why my knee bounces when I sit for too long and why long-haul flights feel like torture even as they feel like freedom.
It's why I like sharpness, speed, motion. I like things to be vibrant and lively.
Stillness is madness.
This January is proving to be a test of my ability to withstand my own madness. It seems like everything right now is standing impossibly still. Like my whole life closed in on me and the walls of my cell are shrinking with it. The wind has died, and my ship is failing.
And all I have to keep me company is the great grey sky.
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