Humanity

my problem is rapture.

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

Stain on my notebook.

I finished staining the deck this morning. I can’t tell you how ridiculously proud I am. I did the railings in late september, and half the floor in october, and now, november seven, I have finished the stairs and about 8 boards.

I was pretty convinced that I wouldn’t get it done, especially since the weather turned cold. And I was so damn harsh on myself, so condemning of my easy going nature, which can sometimes allow things to be left undone. I looked at it every time I went outside and told myself I was a loser.

It is true, now, that I am fine with things being left, when a distraction presents itself. Like, folding towels. I’ve never folded a pile of towels the same way ever. And I revel in the wierdness of that, and I bow in honor to those who care about how their towel piles look. Your towel piles are definitely better than mine. Definitely.

But the idea that I don’t finish things? It has to come directly from motherhood. It has to. I mean, its not like I run off when the diaper is halfway changed, but with the rush, run, holler of raising young children? There was much that was not finished. And now that they are teens and quasi self-sufficient? It is time to let go of who I thought I was and figure this shit out, just based on what I actually do.

The deck is done, bitches. The deck is done.

AND. Does that title fill you with nostalgia for a song? Because it does for me. Hold on, let me find it. HERE IT IS.

Love you to bits,

lovelove

Humanity

In it. Out of it. Whatchyougot?

I’ve been using my study for real in the past two months. For real, as in,

I am the writer who lives in this house, and this is where I write.

How incredible is that sentence? I am still feeling it guys. The incredible, the doubtful, the incredulous. Yes. I am watering the plants regularly, and new leaves are unfurling as I sit. I am, yes, still finding the Easter Candy I hid on the shelves. I am still balancing my extreme candy consumption with protein-packed lunches. I have a writing space.

And I’m writing. I’m in it. Its’ been suggested that I should be able to do it with a house full of children, but I can’t. And I’m not going to apologize for that. The way in which my brain settles when the house is empty is an entirely novel experience, and I feel the weight of it. It is an entirely different brain that I carry at those moments, as if I am an entirely different creature. And I am.

I admit, I am not a perfect at-home worker. There are times I definitely struggle to focus on the work, and I dither in the kitchen or decide to do a grocery run. And if I’m freaking out and can’t function, I’ve watched tv. I mean, I hate when I do that and I judge myself very harshly. Daytime tv watching is for sick people or thirteen-year-olds watching soap operas after school. (this is not fair, and not appropriate to the covid era, i know.)

I’m not perfect, but here I am, in a writing space. In and out of doldrums and running like spring weather all around robin hood’s barn. I’m still in it. Watch me shake it on the dance floor, babes.

love love,

kate

Writing spot