My sister is getting married this coming weekend. I’m so excited I can’t focus. (or is it the covid?) I can’t stop wandering around the house doing tiny inconsequential tasks that are filling up my time. I’ve got a heavy load in trying to make a tiny speech for the wedding and I’m filled up with memories of my dad and all the joy that there is in this situation. just filled up. and its spilling over and out and all around. who knows what will happen.
last time i talked to her about wedding stuff i was stunned to realize i was walking down the aisle. now there is something i have only ever done once, and in quite a different capacity. I’ve never been in a wedding before! I mean, bride doesn’t count at all in this instance and I’m feeling all dancey inside. Walking down before my sister?! what a crazy bit of wonder! THE BRIDE?! Holy smokes.
I really am this excited folks and no matter what i do or say, nothing is going to get in the way of this awesome new couple entering the world hand in hand.
So, wish me well, but even if i give a toast in Klingon or fall on my ass, there is nothing more gorgeous than ANNE AND STAN.
This weekend my cousins and aunts and uncles gather here. It was a yearly tradition to gather somewhere and the past few were here, before covid. Its been a long time now, three years maybe, since we gathered.
i’m excited. really pleased and happy. i like my whole family, even those who are so different from me. and they are, really, different.
my kids will be home, and that always makes me feel more myself, which I deeply like. (hear that? I deeply like myself.)
the other side of the coin: dishwasher broke. its brand new. literally within the past month. (yes, i know i should call someone) septic broke. true feelings about my house came out, when my mom recommended a team of four to come clean it. i have ignored this, and cleaned, but it makes me worry about judgement, because my family is really good at ‘the look’. car broke, has no heat and every time it starts i am happy, but also very stressed. (Septic cleared for the moment; all is well for thirty plus guests) I’m finding this side of the coin exhausting. truly exhausting. like, i’d like to sleep through it.
(this is not a sign of liking myself, by the way. not at all.)
and there’s all the people missing, of course. and i made my mother-in-law’s cranberry relish and i’ll put it out on the table and my heart will cry a little. and the photo of my dad has been cleaned off to look presentable. (because thats the kind of cleaning i care about. there’s probably a whole lot of doghair in the wrong place somewhere.) I’m good with details and not the big picture, i guess. But i’m just going to trust that people love me and can live without insulting me or my house for a day. We’ll see. I’ll be okay.
i’m really looking forward to seeing my people. we are a family that gives fantastic hugs, and i’m going to revel in it. a couple of my cousins remind me so much of my dad that its almost painful, and i’m going to revel in that too. while crying a little more on the inside.
and then it will be done, and I’ll still be okay.
There is more love to be found out there, I just have to look for it. Its all mixed up with a whole bunch of things right now. A nut bowl. Who’s going to try the Brazil Nut? Really.
Deep sigh. Going to make a lasagna now, and clean something small, or big, depending on how I’m feeling.
or maybe i’ll read my book. its a mexican soap opera of a thing. definitely escaping. so be it.
lovelove you. hope your heart is full of love, one way or another, no matter what nuts you might have eaten along the way.
Its early morning here, now. My kids are all here, settled, sleeping still, after a whirlwind of a day yesterday. My former father-in-law is also here. He’ll be 90 in January. He’s a character, and unpredictable, and almost 90. 90. (eyes wide and oh my god all over the place) full houses do make me happy, and tired too.
The boys had another championship/states soccer game, which they won. The almost10 year old was picked up with a friend from school early by yours truly and we watched. Well, the girls helped in the snack shack and I watched the game. At this point, knowing what it means to the boys, I can hardly stand the nervous excitement. I’m a real sports watcher right now, full of angst and under-the-breath commentary. (no book, no phone)
The next game conflicts with lovey’s 10th birthday party, which I am hosting, so i’m not going to see it. It is also two and a half hours away, and at seven pm. (lets do that math, shall we? the game will most likely finish at 8:30 pm, with a two-and-a-half-hour drive home afterwards. ehem. solidly in favor of considering children and families in the planning of sports events. solidly. seems I am something of a rarity.)
After the game today, there was a Homecoming Dance. My boys are flipping ridiculously handsome and good nature too, mostly. But RIDICULOUS. so they were dressed and dazzling and I woke up in a panic at four because I didn’t know where they were.
home, in bed. The days are numbered when my panics will be resolved so easily. My eldest won’t be in bed here next year and I’m definitely in a low-grade constant panic about that these days. mix it up with the season, the grief and its a doozy.
So. What do you do when you’re in a tizzy? You add another job. (if you are me, that is. busy minds, busy hands, calm tizzies, something like that) Or perhaps you take a class. I’ve got three separate groups that I write with currently. And one class which I like but will be glad when it ends, because it conflicts with freaking everything.
and i’d really like to learn more about end-of-life caregiving. I know, this is a big thing, sort of a rarity perhaps in blog subject matter. at least here. but, really. If I balance it with the farming, and the flowers, perhaps I’d be good at that, be a flaming ball of goodness in the world.
And i’d still really like to get a greenhouse going.
And i’d really like to win powerball.
i’d like to finish the stupid story.
i’d like to take a pottery class.
i’d love to paint again.
i’d love to figure out how to keep rosemary alive indoors.
i’d like to figure out what i can make with five pieces of saffron that I grew myself.
i’d love to tell you all about how i wrote about a character this week who had bones like coral. isn’t that a beautiful but thought-provoking image? a real focaccia of skeleton.
like and love baby. thats what its all about.
thank you for reading and say hey sometime too, because i like and love that too.
I’m not good at transition, I never ever have been. And here we are, in transition. again.
I went from working every second of every day and feeling like an asshole absent parent to having all the kids in school and three days off a week, in which i am supposed to fit all the writing and editing in forevermore.
i’m okay, but not okay. i’m not happy with that blank space in my income, in my adventure, anymore, as much as last year was still all tentative about schools and kids and quarantines, this year does not feel that way. So I’m a bit at a loss, and a bit afraid.
I can pivot and turn and react on a dime, yes.
but when it is an ACTUAL dime? more challenging.
i’m tidying. i’m writing every day so far. i’m reading more. these are the things that are necessary for me when I transition back to work at home, they ground me and get me all ready to go sit in front of the screen. I find that the more I read, the more there is in my brain that opens portals to all that I have ever read, and felt, and I can find it again. the words spill, the gardens are remembered and I can see the jar of buttons for the wild source of story that it is.
It will be a short transition, this, into working too much again, or being torn between what is ‘work’ and what I can be distracted from, and complaints of a sort about chauffeuring kids. They aren’t real complaints anymore, as I see the end of this chapter of my life in the air before me. Just noticings. A habit of complaint, maybe, but no honest one. I see it in its last days now, and already know I will long for such simple time spent with my kids.
Its time for me to rocket off in search of another thing to tidy. I’m not ready to face the applications for jobs yet, its my least favorite part, though I can submit in a flurry fury once I am ready.
love you guys, see you soon.
-me.
I’ve had two offers of an ax, by the way, so it looks like i’ll have to save my fancy outfit and candles for some other event. Maybe I’ll chop the wood in it? Or maybe hold the candles up while my boys split? I’ll decide as I go.
