Humanity

In other news. . .

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

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.

Humanity

January: It begins with

It begins with , from Cynthia lee prompt parade.

  1. It begins with time, and thought and a space for them all.
  2. It begins with coffee, and the luck to have some left over from yesterday afternoon, so- fastest ever arrival of joy.
  3. It begins with I, because I can’t still be arguing with myself about my own self-worth. Put me on the damn list, already. (I literally resisted this one. what the fuck is that about ? I am 46 fucking years old and i still resist putting myself on a list?! Jesus.)
  4. It begins with putting candles around the bathtub, now clean because, you know, it also begins with bathroom cleaning.
  5. It begins with paying the mortgage.
  6. It begins with re-assessing my relationship with retail therapy. I’m cut off, folks. I’m getting sloppy and trigger-finger with the amazon. It is not need-based and must cease. It is going to cause me problems paying the tripling heat bills. Cease.
  7. It begins with rejoining a dating site. (and possibly ends there too. I’m of two minds. Its so deeply unsatisfying, and I have great trouble not putting too much import on it.)
  8. It begins with locating the tarot cards, a focus is needed. There are so many things I need to find, this year, in this house, out there. Lost and Found, Hide and Seek, on a global scale.
  9. It begins with reading the story I’ve been wanting to read but couldn’t find the time, or that focus.
  10. It begins with clear eyes, feathers brushed along their closed forms to take the year’s cobwebs and tears away.
  11. It begins with acknowledging what has died this year. And that somber note rings and rings and shakes the ground.

There is so much friends, and then so much more.

How does it begin, for you?

love love,

me

Beach stones in the light of a sunset. Large driftwood tree trunk. It begins with this...

Humanity

Sigh. The question mark.

artwork by Russell Maret

I don’t wanna. Thats my internal dialougue lately and it sucks, it really does. It sinks deep and is so freaking consistent.

and yet i did my month of writing. But it was lists of ten, and i had no standards to follow. Now, I will try to bring quality back up? shit.

I’m eating a jelly donut right now. Evidently I started on the wrong side, because there has been very little jelly in my bites. This is so sad. Who knew there was a wrong side of a jelly donut? Should I read into this?

Quality be damned.

I had my wonderful writing group this morning, and I wrote about old letters I wrote, and how that is gone now, but the memory remains, of the writing and the excitement in having a reader entranced by the mundane, said beautifully. It remains, with a lining of purple bruise, but it remains.

All is not lost. But damnit, its complicated, isn’t it?

sigh. have hope?

Humanity

NOVEMBER NONO: Nineteen, ALL I WANT

11/19/2020_ Ala Mariah Carey, sorry.

  1. All I want to do is go to salvation army, turn in my things and browse the rest of the Christmas items.
  2. All I want to do is buy stuff.
  3. And eat. I also want to eat a lot but still lose weight and fit better in my clothes. Cheese, I tell you, cheese. My mom is 75 and saying the same thing. I give myself til 70, then i will start smoking again and eat whatever the fuck i want.
  4. All I want is to have a little bit of certainty in my life. Is that a ghost? Is that a mirage, at this point? When death waits at the end of everything? What am I, delusional?
  5. All I want is two minutes in the same mood.
  6. All I want is for my kids to be happier. I know school sucks and teenagery years are full of vomit and exile and wretchedness sometimes, but this whole ‘not seeing friends’, not ‘bumping into people’ thing? Suckage.
  7. I inadvertently have a dog and a cat that are both pitch black. All I want is one room where the corners are not grey with fur. What the hell, All I want is one corner that stays hair free forever. Just one.
  8. All I want is to find the freaking book I can’t find. I searched the recycling bin today in case I recycled it in the box it came in. This was a dry search thankfully as paper and cardboard are rather pleasant to rifle. No luck though. Where the fuck did I put it?
  9. All I want is this exact house, but smaller, so there would be less cleaning. If every room were just ten percent smaller? Ideal. I do not know what I’m going to do when the next shoe drops. I guess sell. Which is all sorts of defeated. It does not bear looking into currently.
  10. All I want is to eat all the roasted vegetables. I just want someone else to peel and seed and chop. Its that whole personal chef thing again. I guess I’m just feeling wishy lately. Maybe that’s the real reason for the season? Or Season for this reason? To give us the hope to dream again? To give in to the darkness with a flickering light? Our little sparkles out there in the large dark winter. . .

Ahh.  

What do you want? What does your list look like?