Tag: hope

Humanity

trying to keep my cup small

Lovelovemotherexpletive

its easier to overflow when you start small, fyi.

wish i could teach the value of small things to other people. there has to be a crack somewhere so i can get in, so i can show this. just a sliver.

the value of small things.

realizing that as much as i love people, and i really do, i can’t handle more than two or three at a time. this is a direct reflection of my hearing loss. the insecurity is overwhelming and I feel directly the shrinking, the ways in which i try to make my own self invisible to counter the possibility of embarrassing myself, or just being lost while surrounded by people. so, i left a conference i wanted to be at today, because it was lunchtime and too much small talk. and i don’t exactly know how i feel about leaving, but i am trying to honor my small cup, and i was overwhelmed and starting to feel isolated, and i needed to leave. so i did.

i’d love to grow flowers, but i listened to a flower farmer at this farmer’s conference and I don’t think I want that. I want to make a hundred dollars in a summer from the yard, or maybe double or triple that, but I don’t want to be a farmer. i don’t have the wherewithal for it. (unless you know two or three people who could build it all for me? cuz, man, if i could start with a greenhouse and some long beds? maybe we’d be talking.) but still, just the stand by the road. that’s it. that’s all. little cups.

i’m hoping to switch things up a little this summer, maybe give me some time to grow my own garden. last year i didn’t have the time and it was a shade of sadness.

yesterday i was bemoaning my lack of writing, and lovely bob leaned over and put his arm on my shoulder and said simply, ‘you do not have the time.’ and he was right. and here i am, finding it and forgiving myself for the times when i choose a movie or a nap instead of productivity.

trying to keep it small, folks.

small things have great value.

love you much,

kate

Browsing at a TJMAXX and not buying this, but loving it?: My medicine after leaving the conference.

Humanity

Sunday, I slept til 8:30 am, a miracle.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

Sleep.

a miracle. my head is a little foggy, but there is coffee nearby, and a kid with a tiny tv in her lap. the table is cluttered again, as is regular, and there is a christmas tree bowling set-up, an empty water bottle on its side and an unattached cord, a wide fat white candle, two empty glasses and a box of magic cards. every chair has something on it. a scarf, a stolen coat, a gifted denim shirt, and a pretty brown bag that used to have dumplings in it. it is quite lovely really, that bag, especially for a bag that is explicitly for ‘take away’. i love it when the mundane are treated with craft and meaning.

i’m not sure what i came here to write about today, just know that i needed to. i’ve finished a book lately, Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, and it was wildly familiar, while being utterly separate from any experience I’ve ever had. Maybe as a former sidecar to an alcoholic, I recognize it? Maybe its my dream of escape returning, that young mother’s delusional dream? The main character willfully and determinedly tries to drug herself into sleep for a year, in the sincere hopes that when the sleep is done, there will be clarity, blueberries at the end of the rainbow and such. The names of the pills were mostly foreign to me, but I sure do know that my alarm bells will ring if anyone ever mentions any of them to me. but the dream of somehow waking up? a true deep waking up? oh yes. I feel that dream, have lived that one.

maybe that’s what sleeping is all about, for me. the hope for the waking up well-rested, the clarity of mind and purpose. the appreciation of the coffee and the clutter with an uncluttered mind.

and then again, maybe sleeping is just about sleeping. resting. breaking the mind from its yoke.

I guess thats what i came here for, to talk miracles, and waking up, and sleeping. I’m not going to lie, I’m not sure what you’ll make of it. but i’m here for it, still a little bit groggy, because the wakeup was unclear. Definitely cluttered. Its a beginning, and there is alot more. Dare I mention the yoke of ‘woke’? HAAAAA. i dared, and it felt awful, and I’m sorry. But my grimace is heading towards light-hearted on that one, sort of. ugh. sorry.

what’re your daily miracles? How do you wake up in the morning? What is your sleep like? what are the waking dreams?

Humanity

Woah Nelly

Lovelovemotherexpletive

the fury of finances is settling down. Have started being paid for the new hours, have asked the farm boss to pay me asap, and she’s happy willing and understanding. the credit card carried the day, which bites it but got me gas in the car and the kids got their juice. mofo.

in my adult life i have never had it be such a goddamned lightening strike as that was and I’d be very happy never to repeat it.

And spring has mostly exploded, so at the climax of it all are daffodils, and wild expanses of seedlings in a greenhouse and little baby grape hyacinths everywhere. So i am content.

Grape hyacinth in the front yard

I am sitting on my porch and I feel like I’m on a softly rocking boat, watching a sunset. One of those life altering appreciations, the wild privilege of a beautiful life.

So it swings, this pendulum, between sense and sensibility. today is all the senses.

and its kim smith’s birthday. holy shit. we be 50 this year.

Haapppy Birthday Gimmler!

hugs and kisses to us all. and to KIM!!

  • love love.
Humanity

In other news. . .

Lovelovemotherexpletive

Its hard to be a hermit in the spring. It really is. And I’m torn, because I want to close the doors and shut off the news and still believe in my own recycling and composting as enough to hold off the tides. My little beach shack is getting battered by reality and i’m not digging it. so i have shut off the news in many ways.

Its a twist, right? I don’t want to be ignorant of what is going on – but my heart and mind are blown away, and it becomes hard to function in the ways I need to function. So it is off. And i’m going head down into my seedlings, into the dirt, into the hope and meaning of the seeds. I’m going to send my love into the ground and hope it makes its way all over the globe. earth to earth.

Its the spring, things and thinks burst out from seemingly nothing. All this time, they’ve just been waiting. It can be its own overwhelm, but I am hungry for it. And overwhelmed by it. the irony, the ache. the swell, the burst. all of it.

i had a writing workshop last night with a friend. As it was, i think we spent equal time drooling over the sag paneer and chana masala as we did writing, but i don’t care. I wrote. Just for me, and i had a few lines of ecstasy. (non-snortable)

(If anyone would like to partake, please let me know. we’re planning a saturday in may, kitchen table workshop baby. write and share at your pleasure. It is so good to have company, i tell you. so good. its a natural antidote to the news, and the hermitry.)

*Okay, i’m off to check on my baby plants, and then i’m going to wash eggs for most of the day. The joy of the variety in front of me is strong with me. And yes, I think I’ve left the honeymoon phase, and its just the work, and I’m good with that. Work is good, grounding. While I can pine, and miss the expansiveness of time and space and how my brain works there, this is the new normal for me, for a while. And i’m okay. We will see where it goes, and how my ether responds to structure.

Today I have hope for it.

Love you, in tiredness and hope,

Me.

shallow focus of sprout
Photo by Gelgas Airlangga on Pexels.com

Humanity

Birthday #47

Lovelovemotherexpletive

Its great. I am always floating on my birthday, no matter what happens. I force my kids now, to make me a card. And its accompanied by a million groans and comments about lameness. and still i get a card so i feel the golden light in me flickering.

47. I have a friend who says that typically 47 is a crisis year for women. a real mid-point. (she is also 47) I say, I’m pretty strong right now, though tired, I’ll deal with whatever comes.

And. I’ve filled this past week with friends, one way or another. A super long phone call with the bestie, who will visit in august for the first time in many years. All the stories and reality tv of our dreams. or naps. but together!!

I saw a friend for burgers mid-week who was so very happy to see me.

My mom and sister took me out to a stunningly placed restaurant in my very own town. Fish tacos for the win.

I had a friend I haven’t seen for over two years come down and spend hours with me just watching a movie and talking. Alien. I had never seen it so had to do a little pacing and out-loud talking to the screen and the clear idiots on it. (I am definitely not a quiet thriller-watcher) I just watched the trailer again in order to link it up there, and couldn’t handle the ominous buildup feeling. Good lord. But its funny, so damn funny, to be so thrilled. And friends that love you are a bonified treasure.

Friends that love you are a bonified treasure.

bonified.

So I feel that, a lot, this birthday week. Love. and some hope trickles in. It makes such an enormous difference.

I don’t think I was entirely aware how much I was lacking it, hope. I can be very bogged down in the practical, believe it or not. 🙂

The sands are always shifting, right? And sometimes, they’ll bring you right to the oasis. Sometimes. They can. And why not?

Maybe I should get me some lottery tickets. (my almost 16 year old starts driver’s ed this week. Might need the boost.)

(Laughing.)

Love love, and hope.

me.

My mom and sister both have one of these. Now it’s my turn. That’s a lucky stone right there- the stripe, the striation. That’s me…. Lucky.