Humanity

Prompt was:

talk about the quality of light, the light where you are.

  • I’ve got two skylights in this room, and in the morning, I watch light move down the wall, into the room, fringed by whatever woodwork is up there on the outside. The windows are dirty, and the light drags their dirty shadows down into my kitchen. And I don’t mind. I never notice their dirt, except right this minute, so its not an actual bother. To clean them, I’d have to go climb on the roof, which might be fun but is certainly not anywhere on my list. At all.
  • The way in which my screen is set up into bullets is thrilling. Makes it so easy for me to transfer, share the way the light is coming through my windows. Looking out I can see the light moving into my neighbor’s yard, illuminating their hedge, lighting up their porch, or what was a porch at one point. Amazing how we don’t go into our neighbor’s houses anymore. As a kid, I swear I was in other people’s houses more than my own. At least, at a certain age. If you asked me to, I could take you right through Mrs. King’s house. Or Mrs. Almeida’s.
  • The light here is on, it always reaches that time of day when I realize the kitchen light is still on, a remnant from putting the kids on the bus in the dark. Not needed, not needed, save the money.
  • We are in the apple crisp season, the crunch of leaves, the cold ‘mom, leave me alone I don’t need a sweater’ season. It is a deep love and a melancholy ache. A melancholy age, my typo just said, before i fixed it. Maybe that’s it too, I’m in a melancholy age. Not old, and not young, the in-between.
  • I’m fine. I’ve been finer, but light, light, back to the light. And its an action, a direction to go. The shadows being slowly moved, as the light does its thing. Its funny, right? How the light directs it? Moves the darkness around by its presence. Actually showing that the darkness is not a force in and of itself. At least at this time of day, the light wins.
  • The light the light the lights, I am besieged by desires to buy Christmas décor. Beads, lights, candles, sparkles of all the kinds. I justify the spending usually but not this year and I’m trying to judge if its better to say lots of little no’s to my impulses and then break down later, or to say a little yes and move on from there. Maybe the yes will flavor the month, relax my compulsions a little.
  • Today I thought I lost seven thousand words that I’ve written. I yelled and raged and didn’t know who to tell besides my boss. It devastated me. And truly, and well.
    and then i found it, and i’m choosing to carry on, to run off to freeze my ass off at a darkening-early farm stand and just carry the joy i’ve been given, even if i want to kick it in the nuts, repeatedly, for scaring me and making me ragecry. i’m still happy it showed up. so there is a kind of light in that, right?
  • And also, while i was ragecrying and trying to save myself by calming myself and putting on more sweaters, i realized that what i do is actually hard, and creating something from nothing is a goddamned miracle. so i chilled, and calmed. and then i found it. so there is always light, and shadow-shoving. so there, man. so there.

Day two. I want to punch something still.

-lovelove

woman in black tank top and black shorts carrying black leather handbag
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com
Humanity

Humph, January

when you look around, what patterns are there?

  1. i see old bitter women getting online for the first time and being just as nasty online as you always suspected them of being when you knew them as a little girl. i do have a section of me that feels sorry for them, for the life they must have had, but i also think there is a choice not to stay there, and of course, to keep one’s mouth (or typing hands) shut. pattern?
  2. I think I might not take down my fake tree. I am longing for the sparkle amongst the darks. I have taken down the ‘village houses’ where lego daleks skate on tin foil. And re-planted all my amaryllis bulbs. So i will have sparkle of the outrageous red kind in a few weeks. but first that green that is a smack in the eyes. i knew there was a reason to keep every size pot known to man. i knew it. pattern.
  3. the snow is here. i love it, so much, but i love the absolute freeze of action that accompanies it, for me. I don’t want to go anywhere, it is something i understand. You can come to me, but I am not leaving my perfect nest. And i might keep you. (it so happens that the kids are at their dads, otherwise practicality would win out and i would drive them here and there.) pattern.
  4. the littlest got signed up for gymnastics by her dad yesterday. i had been hemming and hawing and he said he would do it and so i hemmed and hawed until he finally did. and they charged my card. so. how does that even happen? (i paid for an entire season last time.) To be honest i was hemming because of covid and the likelihood of it being cancelled entirely but its been months now. . . (we have since agreed to split it) She is over the moon and thinks her daddy is a rockstar. pattern.
  5. i’m starting another monthlong writing project and i’m having a hard time getting jazzed up for it. the first was riotously hard, in that my ego was slapped around, the second was quite a lot better and now i come to a third and sigh. i just can’t get jazzed. and this will make it become a riotously hard project. see that one? pattern, baby.
  6. I have observed and recognized that when the kids are not here, i eat every minute of that time. every. minute. yesterday i bought TWO bags of cinnamon bears. this morning, at 9:22, I opened the second bag. i have had coffee but no breakfast, so cinnamon bears are now the bellyfull of goodness i start the day with. Huh. wonder why i don’t have a lot of energy to do the stuff? hmm. no? ah. Pattern.
  7. I do think I need to get out of the house more. when more people are vaccinated and I can do no harm to my mother or yours. (is that martyrdom? since i’m the only one who can isolate, and kids are not and so much is out of my hands??) I do think I need real friends, in-person friends. I know that when spring comes I will get twisted up on the insides trying to do that, and I already just want to run and hide. I know what I need and I know how unbelievably hard it is for me. is this introversion? agoraphobia? martyrdom? I don’t think either. Maybe lack of practice, plus introversion plus lack of practice? hearing impairment yes, that too. this is a bigger one, a whole post maybe. Because as much as I love people, and i do, the real thing is very hard for me. I think i just read a glennon doyle post to this effect. huh. is someone else’s wisdom the answer? pattern.

you. you tell me yours. or look at yours. what do you see in your patterns? for good or ill?

love you.

love love,

me.

when out shoveling 3/4 of the driveway, one must bring a camera. because.

Humanity

NOVEMBER NONO TEN: ten!

What is sacred?

  1. I am. me.
  2. There is so much in that, because its just today, and I might forget it tomorrow, but today I stood up for myself, and all my people are standing and applauding right now and it feels pretty damn good.
  3. My home is sacred to me. The chaos and the beauty, all the things that drive me nuts. She’s becoming a person in my life, this dwelling place, and that’s something I’ll not turn down.
  4. Life, growth, green things, living things, they are sacred. I cannot be a Buddhist but I do avoid stepping on ants, and I’m aware of the loss of the tiny. And I’m blown away by the big.
  5. The birds in the bush. Their tiny lives as big as mine.
  6. November is the month my dad died. I kept saying I didn’t want it to be an anniversary, but it is, no matter what I say. My daughter turns eight before that though, but once the party is over, I typically fall down. Time is funny, and I allow it to blow through and continue to ruffle things.
  7. Lights, lights in the darkness. Twinkle. Stride, a stridency. A candle flame in the deeps. Auden.
  8. Wind. There is something truly clarifying in it. And danger rides along as well. Maybe the mix is what brings it to the level of sacred. So often it is there, just out of sight, waiting our notice, or acting out until we stare with our jaws dropped.  
  9. Friends. The ones who always answer the phone. The ones who stand up and cheer you.
  10. Skin. Touch. Feeling the humanity of another. Being felt.