Tag: beauty

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

Listing. and Work.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

There’s a lot of ways to take that title: Is she adrift? Is she leaning too far to the side? Has the ballast shifted? Will she hit the curb when she turns the corner? Is something for sale?

yes. all of that. (no, my house is not for sale). plus, and also, I am going to make a list.

  1. phone shit is truly addictive and I do sometimes feel that i am wasting my life swapping things for things, and I know it is a symptom of my generation and those after me, but I’ve taken better care of my kids in this regard than I have myself, and I’m not doing well at figuring it out.
    I think its part of why I like the farm and garden labor that I do so much, it is freeing me up to think and be creative. i get to use my brain free of the bullshit of a larger society. its just me pulling weeds in the last of the october sun.
  2. I work alot of jobs right now, (4) but make very little money. BUT I’M STILL ABLE TO MAKE IT TO THE OCCASIONAL SOCCER GAME AND THE FUCKING BUS ARRIVAL. because i am the mom. insert roar. But I was told this week it is not real work because of that piddling wage and slotted together formation. It is an Ikea bureau of a work life. How do you address that? I mean it seriously. Not in a romantically ideal way, but in a very no-nonsense way. Is my work really less ‘real’ because it is not salaried? I’m not even in rant mode. I just want to know how to explode the system which has my value to others tied to a salary. Give me something to say. GIVE ME SOMETHING TO SAY. (and goddamnit, if you tell me to get a job, i will find you and pinch you in a painful place.)
  3. my flower stand in the front yard is done for the year. Its even been moved to its winter place. I feel a sort of grief about this. This was my first real garden and I deeply loved it. I had a lot of help with setting up the fencing, and the plants, and my kids were in charge of much of the dirt movement. I have a tremendous amount of appreciation for that. Community love. And I want to double it in the spring. DOUBLE. I will need help again, and I’m leaning into it, ready to give away flowers at the drop of a hat. (listing towards…)
  4. Some of the basil I’ve brought into the house for the winter is not the typical Italian cooking basil with the lovely bumply leaves. It smells of bubblegum, and just looking at it fills me with the smell and I’m calmer. I don’t know which one it is but I found a link for all the kinds, here. This should be in all the places. The classrooms, the offices, the factories. Plus, rosemary is here. Get your nose up in it, folks.
  5. I need time to think. It is clear to me. When I stare off into the space around me, I think its what the meditators get. My brain moves in metaphors, scenes. There is even dialogue sometimes. It comes in, and flows out. I don’t get wound up, mostly, and I appreciate the hell out of myself. The dynamism. If I’m unappreciated in my daily life, hello kids, then at least I have the dappled shade of my brain unfettered. If only I can remember to get my staring off into the wilds done every day, if not every hour. if only.

I’m done with the listing for today. well, momentarily. Today I wear a delivery girl hat, bringing eggs and produce to the people. Food, babies. There should not be much staring off into the wilds while driving, though it does lend itself to a distracted form of thought, it does.

Love to you all. Hope your work satisfies.

-lovelove

person in red long sleeve shirt holding white flowers
Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com
Humanity

my problem is rapture.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

Alternate Title: THE DAHLIAS ARE COMING! THE DAHLIAS ARE COMING!

Rapture is a problem for me these days. I can hardly stand to make a bouquet of flowers, because each SINGLE BLOSSOM sends me into a state of rapture. The color, the intricacy, the variety? I gasp so frequently, I am left breathless.

Have you looked at flowers ever? I mean, if all things are logic, biology and scientific advantage, and survival, then what the hell is a snapdragon? Chamomile? Daisy? Hydrangea?

The weeds by the road are only that because we can’t control them. ‘Weeds’, the anarchists. Me, ‘the man’.

I choose not to be ‘the man’ this week, or in this life. SO. I make bouquets of wildflowers and lose my breath frequently as I walk through greenhouse after greenhouse of astonishment. I feel the constancy of the bursting heart. My heart is growing with the experience and I feel lucky about that.

Change is coming, and I wonder a little bit about what sort it will be. There are some clear ones coming. My children are growing and the changes of who lives with me are coming soon, and my heart is breaking daily, in preparation. Maybe it is making me more resilient in the long run. I can’t believe its already here, this time.

I don’t know much of what I want to be in my life, I just know how I want to be. I just know that I want to hang on to being overwhelmed by beauty. I just know that I want to be laughing, and making people laugh. I want to be loved and appreciated and I want to glow when I look at the people I love. (i do that already. I’m smiling at you, people i love.)

I’ve got a lot of worries, like most people. I’m confused about how to bring in more money and more stability financially. I’ve got to start doing more of all of that. AND my friends, why are we living in a society in which beauty-gazing is not a career? I kid, and I do not, all at once.

Just found out I didn’t win powerball again. This time, I had actually bought a ticket.

Sigh. Go on, tell me about the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, the breath-taker.

Go on.

Zinnias, black-eyed-susans, wild sweetpeas, chamomile, hydrangea and snapdragons, waiting to be bouquets.
Humanity

These are the days of Bartleby.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I’m in therapy.

Hollah, situational depression!

And yesterday I asked to just do a half session because I was boring myself.

If that’s not hysterical, I don’t know what is. There could be an entire skit about this.

These are the days of Bartleby, I tell you. I’m still adjusting to the kids being in school full time, it is so weird to have the house empty all week, and it just keeps happening. I just joked that I kept eating all three lunches. I do crack myself up, depressed or not. Probably save myself a dozen times a day.

This is the third week in a row, of full time schooling, this year. I’ve had them home for a year, with me, growing right in front of my face. There will never be another year like this, I know. I miss the hungry buggers, it is so unsatisfying to have them gone all the time. so very. There is too much time in the day, and yes, I wish everyone else had this luxury and could show me how to handle it. I feel like the family dog, eddie. He’s morose now, with the kids gone all the time. Lots of depression sleeping, more than normal anyhow.

And I hope you know my titular reference, but in case.. Bartleby the Scrivener was a famous character in a Melville serial, famous for saying “I would prefer not to” and those around him were powerless to affect him in any way, because he just kept replying that way. Bartleby, please remove your things from this office…. make me some copies of this… for instance.

“I would prefer not to” is entirely descriptive of a mood that swings through me daily. I get up, I do my thing, I try to protect the hen-pecked chicken, (i’m really not sure she’s going to make it, i want to isolate her but I think that might make it worse- she could lose the few friends she has…) I water the plants, I tend, I tend. I do the things. I do. I even write, or think about writing, or talk about writing. I do. I text. I reach out, gently. But I don’t wanna. I am feeling the ‘force yourself’ of mild depression or pandemica or whatever this is. I’m tired of forcing myself. I want to feel the clarity of ‘I want to.’ and ‘this is fun’.

I’m not joyless or anything, not at all. I am still a beauty hunter and I see it all around me. it’s just not ‘moving me’ like it used to. I need to be dragged, and the ‘to-do’ list of errands and chores is not an effective hook.

side note: there is an actual robin’s nest outside my window, and I watch baby robin’s daily now. So, being depressed in the face of that miracle is really damn hard, so I deserve some kind of medal, right?

second side note: i am starting to make plans to see friends for coffee. so i am trying, actively. super-actively. well, for me.

GIVE ME A MEDAL! DRAG ME OUT OF MY FUCKING HOUSE!

no, i am not asking you to do that. I am just going to put it on the list, though. See if I can force myself through this shit.

(ehem. no thanks, I prefer not to.)

love love,

me

Bartleby, assessing the laundry.

Humanity

Photo Bliss: January

Lovelovemotherexpletive

Sometimes the world arranges itself to be caught by a photograph.

  • toy puzzles. color coded. bliss and joy and missing pieces. its done now, and we are sad to put it away, because man, those colors and shapes float my boat.

look what grows, and grows and grows. i know this: if we destroy the world, life will still be here. weirdly enough, this calms me.

I love these pajamas of mine. my work clothes. i used to get dressed. i probably will again, someday. today all three are home while we wait the results of the covid test. Something is being created from cardboard on the other side of the kitchen table.

When you live in a beach town you know the best days are not summer days.

Getting the chickens done. Bring a camera.

love you guys,

me.