Tag: mothering

Humanity

Saturday, at the end of vacation week.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

The times they are a’changing.

In years past, I would be almost truly dead at this point, just scraping my way along to the dream of Monday morning when routine returns, and the kids climb on a bus.

This year, I’ve got an entirely different feeling, and there is a very real and visceral awareness of the end of things. one child will be exploring the world next year, however that looks. the dynamics of the home front will change radically and become something new.

they’ve all been so busy this week that my rushing to get home for them was moot. I’ve barely seen them, any of them, and they’re all okay with that, and so am I, mostly. It feels like an adult household somehow, even though the youngest is still just ten. We’re morphing before my eyes.

we will re-form. and celebrate the reformation.

Beauty bits.

-i’m sitting in an empty house, listening to laundry and dishes being washed by machines. the spin and whirl of both machines meaning I have almost completed my job for the day. Tonight is bolognese, and I’m thrilled just thinking about it. These are the things in my mind. The cleaning, the food.

First time I had bolognese was in a student flat in Glasgow, Scotland. How’s that for an interesting tidbit? My flatmate was an excellent cook. Rachael Rose. I’ve lost touch with her but she was a lovely lovely one. And such an English beauty, cheeks flushed with pink all the time.

The no-winter season is winding down, I’m worrying less about the early crocii. they never do learn, do they? Or maybe I’m the stubborn one, insisting on worry in the face of their resilience.

I’m gearing up for the summer, trying to figure out how to strengthen up for the planting and the harvesting to come. My sister brought me some ranunculus and my love of flower is unabated.

UN-ABATED.

what a delerious thing language is.

Sigh. My goodness peoples, what a post. Would love to apologize, but know you’ll make the best of it. Much love,

-me.

Ranunculus in all it’s layered incredible-ness.
Humanity

ITs the 21st, of December.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

It’s the winter solstice, yes, but. . .

It’s in my mind, every waking moment. Did I get equal amounts? Did I forget someone? is there a huge hole in one of the lists? When do i decorate the kitchen? How’m I going to get the freaking yard candycanes out? I do not know, man. I really do not know. Certainly not this morning. The coffee was heated up from yesterday. I need more but I’m still recovering from last night’s frigid farmstand and my body is a goddamned pain wheelbarrow. I’m a sick sad fool and I’m trying to save money over Christmas so there is no coffee bought on the road, and no donuts purchased. What kind of sick bastard does that to herself at this time of year?

I think I’m done. I’m not sure I’m done. There is food here, and that’s 60% of saving Christmas. Yes, it is. (Say anything different and I’ll do the whole screaming thing again. Don’t do it.)

i love the sparkle, i love the preparation for winter. I loved the grocery shop i did yesterday because I could feel the depression-era part of me just thrilling at the pantry staples I was buying, the extra bag of kindling guaranteed to help us be toasty and together in the kitchen. I started a cookie dough that has to chill for a bit so I’ve got an after-school project. I took on an extra eight hour shift this week so not working next week much will be more okay. These are the things I can do.

O I like the sparkle. I like the three recognizable songs we’ll sing at Quaker Meeting on Christmas Eve. Quakers are lovely but they do not understand the awesome power of a song everyone knows being sung together, and they regularly introduce us all to very very old hymns on Christmas eve. Yes. Sigh. I roll, the kids roll.

I’m trying to talk to myself a little bit about some of the things I do not like, besides the obvious financial strain and pressure to ‘make it’ something… Christmas prep, decorating and wrapping solo really does suck. I’m not quite able to festive my way through it, and it bothers me, both the alone part and the inability to control my mindset. I’m just bothered and I get a little unhappy. This year I am going to have Thursday night and Friday night (after basketball games) to get it done, and I’ve got to make a plan to assuage my monsterous mood. I’m hoping to put on a favorite movie and eat some of the cookies I’ve made. Maybe I’ll turn the heat way up for a little toasty nest feeling. I don’t really drink but maybe I’ll set some mulled cider to cook, or one of those random scent pots that people do- cinnamon and oranges and stuff. ?

what am i, a pilgrim?

Anyhow. Happy Solstice to you all. The longest night. Rest up, set your intentions. Be good to each other. Love you much. Always very thrilled to hear from you, so bring it.

The New Year is coming! The New Year is coming!

-love love,

me.

anise aroma aromatic blur
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Humanity

dear god, it’s me, incapable.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I’d love to tell you the website was down. it may have been. but I’ve been unable to open the page which enables me to write a new post on my laptop. on my phone? why yes. But here, with space to type with two hands and a screen as big as I want? no, no, no. (if you tell me it’s my laptop and that I need a new one, I’m just going to start screaming nonstop for the next hour. people will be upset. don’t do it.)

clearly, i AM capable.

I’ve swamped the google with my questions and i’m clear of a cache and really, that’s just how simple it was. sluggish thy name is…

if none of that makes sense, you are probably my people. you are also my people if you’re laughing at how simple a fix that was.

Basically everyone is my people. except the hate mongers. but really, even them, if i could just get them to come and stay with me and my kids for a few weeks. There are other ways to be in the world, and I’ve got one of those ways.

I’m coming off of a birthday dinner with my middle, a brand new fifteen-year-old. He is very funny, and very charming, and so smart. Sitting at the dinner table with my kids and my mom last night, I just fell in love with them all. in all of their cantankerous, funny, teen and pre-teen ways, these kids are just fucking incredible. it’s one of the great bittersweets that having one who is a senior and will leave the nest soon, has made everything so sweet, so watchable, so sentimental. It’s a great gift to have this time to watch them and see them together. these moments are really affecting their entire lives, these sibling relationships. I dream that they’ll be able to support each other as they go forward in their lives.

Meanwhile, they’ll have to deal with the fact that they are getting a lot of socks for Christmas. As a team, they’ll start the support system sooner than they’d rather. I’m very much the hopeful mom on that one. I’m just going to make sure breakfast is good, that’s all there is to it.

Happy Winter Holidays to you, whatever you celebrate, however you live. . .

love love,

kate

Cosmic Fairy Lights
Cosmic Fairy Lights by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC-BY 2.0

Cosmic fairy lights? Seriously? C’mon NASA, its like you are in my brain. Wait. ARE YOU in my brain?

Humanity

Not five, but blathering on…

Lovelovemotherexpletive

LIKES AND LOVES.

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.

-lovelove,

me.

black and white bones hand x ray
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Humanity

Listing. and Work.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

There’s a lot of ways to take that title: Is she adrift? Is she leaning too far to the side? Has the ballast shifted? Will she hit the curb when she turns the corner? Is something for sale?

yes. all of that. (no, my house is not for sale). plus, and also, I am going to make a list.

  1. phone shit is truly addictive and I do sometimes feel that i am wasting my life swapping things for things, and I know it is a symptom of my generation and those after me, but I’ve taken better care of my kids in this regard than I have myself, and I’m not doing well at figuring it out.
    I think its part of why I like the farm and garden labor that I do so much, it is freeing me up to think and be creative. i get to use my brain free of the bullshit of a larger society. its just me pulling weeds in the last of the october sun.
  2. I work alot of jobs right now, (4) but make very little money. BUT I’M STILL ABLE TO MAKE IT TO THE OCCASIONAL SOCCER GAME AND THE FUCKING BUS ARRIVAL. because i am the mom. insert roar. But I was told this week it is not real work because of that piddling wage and slotted together formation. It is an Ikea bureau of a work life. How do you address that? I mean it seriously. Not in a romantically ideal way, but in a very no-nonsense way. Is my work really less ‘real’ because it is not salaried? I’m not even in rant mode. I just want to know how to explode the system which has my value to others tied to a salary. Give me something to say. GIVE ME SOMETHING TO SAY. (and goddamnit, if you tell me to get a job, i will find you and pinch you in a painful place.)
  3. my flower stand in the front yard is done for the year. Its even been moved to its winter place. I feel a sort of grief about this. This was my first real garden and I deeply loved it. I had a lot of help with setting up the fencing, and the plants, and my kids were in charge of much of the dirt movement. I have a tremendous amount of appreciation for that. Community love. And I want to double it in the spring. DOUBLE. I will need help again, and I’m leaning into it, ready to give away flowers at the drop of a hat. (listing towards…)
  4. Some of the basil I’ve brought into the house for the winter is not the typical Italian cooking basil with the lovely bumply leaves. It smells of bubblegum, and just looking at it fills me with the smell and I’m calmer. I don’t know which one it is but I found a link for all the kinds, here. This should be in all the places. The classrooms, the offices, the factories. Plus, rosemary is here. Get your nose up in it, folks.
  5. I need time to think. It is clear to me. When I stare off into the space around me, I think its what the meditators get. My brain moves in metaphors, scenes. There is even dialogue sometimes. It comes in, and flows out. I don’t get wound up, mostly, and I appreciate the hell out of myself. The dynamism. If I’m unappreciated in my daily life, hello kids, then at least I have the dappled shade of my brain unfettered. If only I can remember to get my staring off into the wilds done every day, if not every hour. if only.

I’m done with the listing for today. well, momentarily. Today I wear a delivery girl hat, bringing eggs and produce to the people. Food, babies. There should not be much staring off into the wilds while driving, though it does lend itself to a distracted form of thought, it does.

Love to you all. Hope your work satisfies.

-lovelove

person in red long sleeve shirt holding white flowers
Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com