Over the last few months, I have noticed that my physicality and (e)motions have been less finessed and gentle than I am used to; for example, I might turn a faucet handle too briskly, or open/close a cabinet door too quickly. It feels akin to a lack of patience. Because there are obvious reasons for this change (e.g., profound homesickness, being overwhelmed by a project-riddled old house, lack of skill experience in rural daily living), I have not been looking at the change terribly closely, but rather just implementing equally obvious and typically effective solutions to getting myself back onto a healthier track. In short, I have been combating fatigue.

Yesterday, though, something new occurred to me, where that delay in itself is unusual.

I am also too full of a different kind of energy, namely that which I used to draw upon to thoroughly engage with people in the classrooms and at home and in the community and so forth. Empathetic interaction used to burn off the burgeoning, specific fuel that supports how I feel when interacting with people, such as when I would be approached to help them and myself to process the world. All I’ve been doing recently, though, is getting brimful with the energy that I used to tap during my empathetic encounters, so now it’s spilling over. It has no useful place to go, and keeping it from getting chaotic and jumping out is a capacity issue that is wearing.

As an introvert of my particular type, my system has become accustomed to continually building up an advance reserve so that I don’t get wiped out during daily encounters… and those no longer occur in anything remotely like their previous frequency and density.

On the one hand, I am worn out, but on the other claw I am antsy and frenetic from having to constantly exert control against undesired energy leakage. I am too tired to gracefully temper how I am moving myself and other things in my environment, and that includes what I think and feel and say and so on.

So, naturally, I wrote a song about it to help me figure out what I might do. Maybe it will help someone else as well.

Pretty much as soon as I started to think/feel about the problem, the chorus came out… especially the part about swearing into the air. And the lyrics were internally audible as oom-pah-pah (waltzy) circus klezmer calliope music right from the very beginning (which is still familiar and comforting from my scattered circus work days), which is good because I got a Yamaha EZ-310 a while back and that kind of ponderous note playing is something that I can do well enough to support the melodic score generation.

I was influenced by the “Oom Pah Pah” song from the movie Oliver! because how could I not be? Mostly it was just the notion of the barmaid leading the crowd in a sing-along.

For a few minutes, it did offer to be a tango (as sort of a leftover from the previous song); however, tango lyrics tend to be longingly nostalgic, or full of regret, and so forth, and that wasn’t the atmosphere that I wanted.

The lyrical progression goes: 1) a portrayal of empathy and its shared aspect in the first couple of verses, 2) the personal experience of that engagement in the next pair, 3) the bitterness of emptiness, and finally 4) a possibilistic resolution, namely what I have to try as a more complete approach before I start getting unpleasantly short tempered and cranky… where no one would wanna talk with me.

The part about the mouse leaving is true.

[2026-05]

Lyrics

Spin around and

    fill me up

warm drink in a buttercup

Friendly little

    pick-me-up

Shared cathartic followup

Chatting in the

    buffet car

story-time spill at the bar

This is what

    emotions are

Overflowing cookie jar

Share with me

Care with me

Prayer

    for everywhere with me

There with me

Dare with me

Swear

    into the air with me

Thunderstorms they

    music me

dancing round in antic glee

Lightning crash of

    sympathy

Kindred bond has let you free

Feel the pain they

    lean toward

Careful, don't go overboard

Swirl around with

    love's kind sword

Lightening the loads they stored

Share with me

Care with me

Prayer

    for everywhere with me

There with me

Dare with me

Swear

    into the air with me

Dontcha know it

    used ta be

everyone was there with me

Laughing with our

    memories

Souls together, bare shade trees

Now I got a

    lonely house

empty of my kids and spouse

Yeah I even

    lost the mouse

Ate the cheese and fled on out

Share with me

Care with me

Prayer

    for everywhere with me

There with me

Dare with me

Swear

    into the air with me

Need to talk with

    folks in town

Ask 'em where they gather 'round

Make new friends

    and settle down

Empathy for lost and found

Solitary

    empathy

Too much time alone ya see

Solitary

    empathy

Hoping folks will talk with me