A Metaphor for Mondays

Years ago, I heard the phrase paralysis through analysis, and thought it a fitting description for my inertia brought on by over-thinking. As a chronic thinker, sometimes I'm still seduced into pondering rather than doing. Today seems to be one of those days.

My writerly self had planned to observe the specific details in my neighborhood while out for a morning walk. Instead, with each step those details receded further behind a curtain of mental chatter over something that had occurred yesterday.

While walking, I spoke my insights about the problem bothering me into a hand held recorder that I'd brought along. I'd intended to use it to capture metaphor for all the things I'd see, hear and smell on my outing. And while I suppose this rumination had some therapeutic value, it did nothing to inspire my muse.

Only vaguely do I remember the red and golden hued leaves, the brisk, moist air, the lone landscaper sodding a bare brown yard a few houses down. While I can't recall most of the outer details of my walk, I could write a script about the inner details. It would seem my observational mission for metaphor failed.

Then the last 100 yards before reaching home, I looked down and saw a sprout of leafy green jutting upward through a crack in the pavement. A 2-1/2" shoot rising from beneath the constricting concrete, it stretched skyward, proud and flowering. In stark contrast to its barren surroundings, it pushed past constraint to find an opening into the air and light.

If that isn't a metaphor for a thinking woman's life, I don't know what is.