Humanity

Morovia. Morewoevia.

I’ve been ‘feeling’ a lot lately. its not my favorite.

No, nothing is really wrong. I’ve got no woe.

I’m aware that what I romanticize is distinctly untrue, and, that I do not need to be the one who provides my children with a lifelong grandmotherly estate. I’m just always going to be the mom, wherever I am, forever and ever. Its freeing, in many ways, and irrelevant in others, and a mixed bag of bulbs in the end.

I’m trying to laugh off some of the things I’ve heard this week, and I’m not doing especially well at it. Some of it, I can’t ignore, and I can’t figure out what to do about it.

I’ve purchased new chicks to raise, trying yet again to have a flock of my own. and this time, they will not be free range. poor babies. free range is not for the faint of heart, not with the coyotes, foxes, and other miscreants around here. i saw a coyote yesterday up close and it was much bigger than they look from afar. (He won the psych out, 100 percent.) I even got very cool chicks, that will lay very cool and colorful eggs. so i’m psyched. now all i have to do is keep them alive. no biggie.

I’m going to have to build shit, Dean. fuck.

I also ordered a bunch of peony roots. I am into investing in the ground lately. base level basic. They can live and recycle themselves for hundreds of years. I’m feeling the need for longevity I suppose, while at the same time longing for a life of much simpler means. Can I really runaway? Is that a thing? Like, after the last one leaves for college, can i just do a year abroad? And not even carry a phone? well, maybe just for them, so they can call if they need me. If I sell this house, I can live in a trailer and not worry about money. It could be anywhere, it could even be on wheels. Good, right?

or: Someone give me a ton of money, okay? I’d like to make an apartment at the back of the house so they can pay the mortgage and I can just be a flower farmer. Can we please do that? Please?

Sigh. No? Okay then.

I got this new job, and I’ve spent the money of my first paycheck (unreceived as of yet) already. Little bit twitchy about that. I’m now actually working to pay for impulse purchases. Will they make me happy? Yes, they will.

Yes, they will.

The weather has been fucking brilliant here. but fairly inappropriate for January and we’ll all be crying when we start our spring already in a drought. no snow man, no snow.

I’ve lost my lazy contemplative mornings with this new job, and its really messing with my days. I get home and still feel like the day is unformed, that I haven’t done anything, and should probably make some kind of list, but I’m wiped out, so I just sit down, and then it is all over. OVER.

I haven’t figured stuff out yet.

I should make that a bumper sticker. Someone else do it, I’ve already sat down.

love you. really, i do.

-kate

cash coins money pattern
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Humanity

Airport 2: the return

The return always sucks. It does. Firstly you have ‘the leaving’ which is a punch in the gut.

What? I have to leave? This doesn’t go on for ever and ever? I can’t just sit and reminisce every night while the fireflies dance? No? HOW DARE YOU interject reality and flight delays into my idyll?! How fucking daaaaaare you.

But I’m here again, I’ve done this before, the leaving. It doesn’t get better and I find myself looking for ways of escaping the mundane and the daily. Its only 24 hours later. One of the ways I tried to shake it up was going to the ER for six hours last night. This was not a good idea, but my brain spent a hell of a lot of time convincing itself that I was going to go septic from an infection and die without seeing my kids again. (they are at their dad’s this whole week for their once a year ‘whole week’ with their dad.)

This is most definitely not a good way to escape, and I would not suggest this to anyone, for any reason. Between the airport and the ER, I have seen the tops and bottoms of humanity. Literally. ALthough I suppose the 1 percent at both ends don’t use public airports. true. My brain, i think, leapt on the opportunity that having the kids all tucked away provides. All of a sudden, she did the math, realized she was working every other day this week and the timesuck could only be squeezed in to the one spot, directly after disembarking. One must schedule these emergencies, you see.

you can take the kids away from the mother, but you cannot take the mother out of the mother.

Its only been a little over 24 hours since I left and I’m bumming. I spent more time with a lot of Wisconsin nurses than you’d ever believe, and it was lovely, and I have a new appreciation for how different cultures can be within a group that looks ‘just like the other one’. Nope. Not the same. I ate cheese curds and learned how to make a mojito. Very delicious, I might add. My suggestion is white rum. Or leave it out and just have the rest. Very delicious.

I miss my best friend and wish I could see her more than once a year. But I think we are lucky we can both swing that, so I guess I’ll rest there, in the morass of humanity crawling and flying at all the different stages.

And maybe I’ll get caught up on the laundry. or that book I’m supposed to be writing.

man in blue crew neck shirt wearing black framed eyeglasses
Yeah, you know this guy had to hold this pose *just too long. Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com
Humanity

Airport Life.

There are a million and a half things to wonder about when you arrive at an airport two to three hours early(yes, thank you to my father, not the tsa, for this trait).

Do stewardesses have to take turns and work the desks?

Why is it so much easier for men to talk to each other? Or is it just me, that i can’t talk to strangers? I don’t think its me? Is it the shared subjects, sports, weather, man stuff?

There could be some good done in the world if we were all forced to hang out in airports once in a while. I mean, the humanity. Yes, too, the priviledge and the money-spent hanging in invisible numbers above each person’s head.

But the tremendous variety in people. Saw a daughter guiding her mother through the security checkpoints. mom, with no english, tiny and wrapped in a beautiful sari. The guards were kind and accomodating, while still doing their job.

Why would anyone ever do dip? Why? And why after the first time, a second time? Whats that about? You love the drool feeling?

Astonishing.

Couples of color separated by a guard, for a ’check’. The resigned, the terror right below that, of anything that could happen.

I’m watching moms chase kids, some with partners, some organized to the very tips of their toes, some just kind of winging it with the help of a partner. ALthough, honestly, I bet there is no ’winging it’ in airports anymore. Maybe not even in parenting. The times, they have changed.

Whats up with bringing dogs?

I sit here and miss my kids. Even while i am completely aware of how i’ve settled into another stage in my life, just like that. I’m walking through an airport and into a trip just for myself, just like that.

There is something big in it, in this small trip.

The work is still there, the flurry of childcare and job restructure, it is there.

Why haven’t i felt like a grownup til now? I’m freaking 48, you know. I wonder what the real name for this feeling is. I miss my kids, yes, but they’re fine. its all fine. and i am here for a long weekend, in this surreal travel spot.

Airport life. It would be amazing to stay. So glad I am not.