Category: Humanity

Humanity

Saturday, at the end of vacation week.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

The times they are a’changing.

In years past, I would be almost truly dead at this point, just scraping my way along to the dream of Monday morning when routine returns, and the kids climb on a bus.

This year, I’ve got an entirely different feeling, and there is a very real and visceral awareness of the end of things. one child will be exploring the world next year, however that looks. the dynamics of the home front will change radically and become something new.

they’ve all been so busy this week that my rushing to get home for them was moot. I’ve barely seen them, any of them, and they’re all okay with that, and so am I, mostly. It feels like an adult household somehow, even though the youngest is still just ten. We’re morphing before my eyes.

we will re-form. and celebrate the reformation.

Beauty bits.

-i’m sitting in an empty house, listening to laundry and dishes being washed by machines. the spin and whirl of both machines meaning I have almost completed my job for the day. Tonight is bolognese, and I’m thrilled just thinking about it. These are the things in my mind. The cleaning, the food.

First time I had bolognese was in a student flat in Glasgow, Scotland. How’s that for an interesting tidbit? My flatmate was an excellent cook. Rachael Rose. I’ve lost touch with her but she was a lovely lovely one. And such an English beauty, cheeks flushed with pink all the time.

The no-winter season is winding down, I’m worrying less about the early crocii. they never do learn, do they? Or maybe I’m the stubborn one, insisting on worry in the face of their resilience.

I’m gearing up for the summer, trying to figure out how to strengthen up for the planting and the harvesting to come. My sister brought me some ranunculus and my love of flower is unabated.

UN-ABATED.

what a delerious thing language is.

Sigh. My goodness peoples, what a post. Would love to apologize, but know you’ll make the best of it. Much love,

-me.

Ranunculus in all it’s layered incredible-ness.
Humanity

it has happened, to me, finally. (fake drama)

Lovelovemotherexpletive
  1. there are no empty counterstops in this house. it is possible there are no empty surfaces at all. i need outside intervention that does not judge, in look, word, or attitude.
  2. two of my kids are away skiing with their dad. i’m spending a very long weekend with my eldest and we are going to eat out at almost every meal. this seriously may be the best weekend of my life.
  3. yesterday was my first fully-off day in a bit. well, i worked for an hour and a half with kids and was home by 8:30 am, but i’m not counting that. I made coffee, had a bowl of cereal and was on the phone most of the day until a kid came home. a FULL DAY OF NOTHINGNESS AND DECREPITUDE. i am not happy. the loss of a day. I mean, i took a nap, but it wasn’t even a particularly good day, just boring, and there were a million things I could have done and i’m pretty bummed at my blahghaness.
  4. Before the decrepitude, i had a six year old climb into my lap to snuggle. she lay her head under my chin and just sat. it is possibly the best thing to have happened in many weeks. we should all have such simple pleasures.
  5. A woman who is funny told me she liked my blog. In person. I’m still blushing and my ears are burning with flush and now i have to hide all the posts in which I whine. (no, i won’t, because it would be too much work, but oh god, it was cool and cool. )
  6. Okay, now that is the end of what has happened this week. Happy Friday loves!

-love love,

me.

have a great day sticker on brown surface
Photo by Cori Emmalea Rodriguez on Pexels.com
Humanity

sugar (love it too much, so much.)

Lovelovemotherexpletive

it was just valentine’s day and this single woman is here to make you a love list.

  1. i’m working with kids again and the swell of love that i feel when i see these kids is just incredible. An actual swell of love. Saying good morning to them and legitimately wanting to know how they are and how the time has passed since we last spoke? JOY BUBBLES. this is what is behind teachers and why they will die for your kids, and why they have not demanded the 100K they deserve for doing those things. An ACTUAL SWELL OF LOVE. (go find that, by the way, if you don’t know what I am talking about, make it your mission.)
  2. growing things are happening, even without the presence of a good deep quiet snow. I’ve missed winter, and I know that is a little unpopular, but i think it is a necessary break in the year, and I wonder what will happen without it. AND things are growing, I am trying eucalyptus seeds this year, and the curiousity and possibility is just a thrill to my system. They are percolating in the next room as I speak. Anyone want some for your shower?
  3. Seeds, Learning, all the metaphors. I’m taking a course in seed production, which means my farmer is loaning me some land and I can try out a particular herb or flower and then harvest the seeds. which i may be able to then sell. “MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?” (The Secret Garden. as it turns out, might be my metaphor.) I am wildly excited, and entirely unsure when I am going to see my kids this summer. I look around frequently to see if anyone can solve this for me. So far, no.
  4. I learned my belief of the afterlife from C.S. Lewis and his The Last Battle, and I’m sticking to it. If you believe in something good, that is what you get. If you believe the afterlife is full of tall trees made of marshmallows? You get it. And so, I’m here to tell you this glorious fact. My life looks like the afterlife already. (minus the money, minus the money, and the tiredness, and the no best sexy friend momoa.) HOW FUCKING AMAZING.

I love you guys. Go search for more things to add to your love list. Its the only thing that matters, that love list. Really.

pink petaled flowers close up photography
Photo by Juan Sauras on Pexels.com
Humanity

cascade

Lovelovemotherexpletive

that first tip-off, the wobble. the first thing that goes wrong in the day, and then you roll, and something else happens and you pick up speed… Disappointments and sadnesses on an unstoppable roll. Eventually you and your mood are plummeting to your deaths having found yourself rolling right off a cliff.

then there is the flying. but we never talk about that. because the presumption is we will fill our time screaming and panicking. But what if we drift? What if that is the moment of new things? when we are in mid-fall? The weird things you think, the colors you see when your eyes are closed. (or open) There are those times, when moods like this, things like this, lead to new and wild choices. footsteps in places no one has ever been.

know what i mean?

high angle photography of waterfalls
Photo by Jonas Togo on Pexels.com
Humanity

Layers

Lovelovemotherexpletive

Peel ’em back.

I was sitting to do my meditation this morning, and had to talk to myself the whole way through, again and again. . . which is not really the ideal meditative state, just in case you were unclear.

usually, I listen to a guided meditation which quiets all the chatter, but today my phone is charging in a room far away. its a nice break, but my brain. good lord, my brain, was knocked loose from its chassis.

i did get the chatter of my bits to subside for just a few minutes, and “I” was able to float around in there, telling all my bits how much I am grateful for them. The old ladies by the fence, who protect and guard me from the past? They’re not old really, just bitter and loud about it. They have good hearts though, very good ones. Yeah, I waved. (they can be a little toxic, as they make opening their gate a bit less enticing than anywhere else.)

They come from a lady named Jackie that I worked with when I was a teenager. Big woman with her tissues tucked in her sleeve or into her bra. Tough. Not blown away by my whimsy or my lovely smile, I’ll tell you that much. She was one of the first times I really had to work for someone’s favor, not by being a tool, but by working hard and not acting like a highschool flippant little girl. I’m not sure I ever fully got her approval but then she was a grown woman and I was just the high schooler working at her side. I do think she knew I could work hard though. ANd honestly, the way it mattered so much what she thought, and still does, even though she is long off this earth, it really shakes me how much value I place in what other people think, even though it is clearly about them, and not me. When does it become the kate show, all about me? my decisions my own, my actions for me?

And yes, this is where my brain was, drifting onto people from the past, despite the women at the gate…, onto the ways in which I’ve always spent my life living for others, living on their praises and critiques like butter on bread. . . the layers upon layers of story I’ve got floating around in there! Some of the bits are pretty seriously anchored in, some want to be, and some are blissfully unmoored.

And it made me think some more about the newfound interest I have in being unmoored. Its been a constant in these last few weeks, and I wonder if its just dreamtalk (the no-action-intended dream talking) or no. I feel like no.

What if I get my last child through to graduation from high school and then just take off?

What if I do that? And I don’t even mind it….

what if that is REALLY who i am, not this domesticated mom-type figure who does laundry every day and is constantly sweeping? or am i both, the dedicated and devoted mom, but unmoored… what if that is me?

What if I just take off?

(the kids can have my phone number, i promise.)

All me.

un

moored.

huh.

wood landing stage boat lake
i can live on toast and beans. maybe even on a dinghy. Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com