Comfort Zone

 When calamity crashes the party of the quotidian, when catastrophe descends on comfortable routine like a group of unannounced visiting relatives, the individual sufferer must confront the option of lapsing into despair and all its attendant hangovers or moving about in search of some comfort zone wherein to retreat.

Comfort has many facets, extending well beyond the notion of one-size-fits all.  Comfort, however idiosyncratic, has a basic soothing effect, numbing the tingle residue of calamity, more or less sending out invitations to a party.  You are fortunate in having some of the standard comfort zones such as the company of certain individuals and even certain groups of individuals.  Because of your ow well-visited comfort zone of the companionship of a dog over the years, you have recognized any number of other individuals who find the thought of life without a dog companion intolerable.  There is also the solace and stimulation of music, and of course reading.  Being in the audience where a play is being performed or being in the proximity of some screen on which a film is being projected is another comfort zone.

You are saving as desert the comfort zone of writing because if the writing session goes well, you are plunked into the ultimate comfort zone for you wherein you are able to arrange disaster, catastrophe, and calamity for others.  True, these others are real only in your imagination and you must expend energy and thought in your portrayal of them so that you will continue to believe them and accordingly others may also accept their credentials.

Comfort zones are thus inside jobs and attitudes, nooks and crannies of yourself in which you may hide from the prying eyes of real time disaster and catastrophe; they are also literal outside jobs as you concocted earlier this evening when you were in need of such a place.  You drove to the southern extremity of the village of Summerland to a place where you frequently bring Sally for walks and away time.  You announced to a favored patch of the park your intentions.  You claimed this area as a comfort zone in your own name and announced intentions of returning to it from time to time for the specific purpose of securing comfort from it.  Being inanimate, it did not appear to venture an opinion, more like a kind of bucolic Whatever, leaves even seeming to conspire in a sigh.  No problem; the internal portions of you seemed to like the idea, whereupon you felt comforted.

Whether any tangible comfort was exchanged is, depending on your approach, moot or academic.  Possibly even placebo.  Nevertheless, you were fortunate enough to feel comforted, thus beginning what you hope is a long, serious relationship with Greenwell Avenue (See Google Maps), Summerland, Santa Barbara County, California, U.S.

It may be that you will be able to effect a feeling of comfort simply by thinking of Greenwell Avenue; on the other hand, you may actually have to drive there to experience the comfort.  Bad luck would have you in need of comfort, thinking of Greenwell Avenue, achieving no comfort as yet, driving there only to experience the additional disappointment of finding no comfort there.  If, however, you are embarked on such a venture between the hours of 7 a.m. and 4 p.m., you stand the chance of a decent cafe latte or au lait at the nearby La Luna Cafe, and the less ambitious urn coffee at Cantwell;s Grocery at the foot of Lillie Avenue until approximately 8 p.m.

Comfort comes in varying strengths.  So far as you know, it is non-addictive.