A roundabout way to find out who likes my overalls.

These days are very slow. I feel incredibly unmotivated to do all the things I have to do. 

Yesterday we picked some nettles and made them into pesto. I didn’t want to go, I’ve become very accustomed to laying on the couch with pajamas on. I have two hoodies. I wear one while the other one is in the wash, then I switch. My step counter is in triple digits regularly, which kinda sounds like a good thing but it’s not. I did go sit in the backyard yesterday but I got too tired and had to come in and lie down for a snack. Due to all the eating lying down, I have bits of dehydrated food stuck in the folds of my clothing. I thought about shaking them out, but the prepper in me talked me out of it. There’s enough there to make a good sized meal, were it to be necessary. I’d be kicking myself for throwing it away if the world comes down and we are starving. 

So when my partner Marika suggested we go for a walk and collect nettles for food, I was hesitant. 

I’m not sure my muscles still work. What if I’ve atrophied into a sea worm and they have to leave me in the forest? What if we aren’t supposed to walk in the woods after all and the police find us? What if my bandana falls off and I have to breathe fresh air and I get hydroencephalitis? What if the sun burns my skin and I have to try to find the old aloe gel in the medicine cabinet and I cut myself on a discarded razor blade and, due to overcrowded medical facilities, I am left to stitch myself up with the embroidery thread that’s next to the aloe in the medicine cabinet? Wait, why is there embroidery thread in the medicine cabinet? I think I should organize this mess instead of going for a walk. I should lie down and think about it. 

I decided to pendulum it, which is what i do when I don’t know what to do. Penduluming is when you hold a pendulum or something like a pendulum—keys with a rubber band tied to them (my fave), a necklace, a phone plugged into a charger, a rock glued to a string—out in front if you and ask it questions. For me it spins clockwise for yes and counterclockwise for no. Lately I’ve mostly been asking questions about which supplements I should be taking for maximum immunity. But yesterday I asked if I should go on a walk to get nettles instead of laying down in bed while thinking about cleaning out the medicine cabinet. The keys hit me in the face they spun so hard in the clockwise. I was glad I didn’t use the rock string. An outsider viewer  might have thought I was self flagellating. 

“So that’s a yes?” I asked, just to be sure, as the keys hurtled round like helicopter blades and knocked the buttered toast off the nightstand. My fate sealed, I put on my shoes. 

Most people think that penduluming is supposed to be like magic or something. 

“I can see your hand moving it!” they exclaim. My hand IS moving it, for certain. It’s well known that we have a subconscious mind. It’s like our personal operating system. It keeps us breathing, metabolizing, and keeps our heart beating, but it also makes sure that all the things we do remain within our own self concept, so you won’t wake up tomorrow and suddenly become a radically different person than you are today. For example, I will not wake up tomorrow and think that celery is not the greatest vegetable ever invented. It really is so good-crunchy and sweet and bitter. It’s good raw, good in soup, good with peanut butter AND dip! You can’t go wrong with celery. The strings aren’t my favorite but I recently read that they are made of collenchyma cells that are filled with LIVING PROTOPLASM. I didn’t even know dead protoplasm was a real thing! I thought it was something that ghosts were made of—the splattery green stuff that comes out when you shoot them in movies. But no, it’s real and it’s alive and it’s in your celery string. 

Anyway. When I ask my pendulum a question, it allows me to get beyond my conscious, over thinking, occasionally manic mind to see what my lower levels believe. Even when I attempt to keep my hand still, the muscles that are partially controlling my subconscious can make it move, even ever so slightly. It’s not magic, it’s me! I admit it. I ask it all sorts of questions. Should i send this email/text? (usually yes) Should i wash my hair today? (sometimes yes, sometimes no) Do I need to buy this great smelling lotion? (usually no) Here are some I asked just now: Do you like these checkered overalls that I bought on eBay? (yes) Do they make me look fourteen? (no) Should I make a chocolate pie today? (no) Are my dogs healthy? (yes-secretly I knew the answer to that one because I just asked yesterday).

So we went for that walk to get the nettles. I didn’t get stung, not once. And I also didn’t get burned or develop hydroencephalitis or turn into a sea worm. My muscles still work and I got 6,696 steps and a hot plate of pasta with nutritious nettle pesto. I might just try it again today. I feel my motivation levels rising.