there are no empty counterstops in this house. it is possible there are no empty surfaces at all. i need outside intervention that does not judge, in look, word, or attitude.
two of my kids are away skiing with their dad. i’m spending a very long weekend with my eldest and we are going to eat out at almost every meal. this seriously may be the best weekend of my life.
yesterday was my first fully-off day in a bit. well, i worked for an hour and a half with kids and was home by 8:30 am, but i’m not counting that. I made coffee, had a bowl of cereal and was on the phone most of the day until a kid came home. a FULL DAY OF NOTHINGNESS AND DECREPITUDE. i am not happy. the loss of a day. I mean, i took a nap, but it wasn’t even a particularly good day, just boring, and there were a million things I could have done and i’m pretty bummed at my blahghaness.
Before the decrepitude, i had a six year old climb into my lap to snuggle. she lay her head under my chin and just sat. it is possibly the best thing to have happened in many weeks. we should all have such simple pleasures.
A woman who is funny told me she liked my blog. In person. I’m still blushing and my ears are burning with flush and now i have to hide all the posts in which I whine. (no, i won’t, because it would be too much work, but oh god, it was cool and cool. )
Okay, now that is the end of what has happened this week. Happy Friday loves!
Things are jacked up over here, guys. I’m running around like a chicken after a worm, with all the hounds at my back, or, other chickens, as the case may be.
I’m not working with my old gent anymore as he’s HEALTHY AND WELL! Isn’t that just freaking great!? It stinks. I miss him.
AND I’m doing chicken chores three times a week which is making me have to take naps. I am feeling my age, friends. I need to start doing bicep curls so that I’m stronger when I’m hauling buckets of feed. I thought they’d just grow, you know, because I need them. but no.
well, not yet anyhow.
I’m starting a new job next week at a before-school program. I’m very much looking forward to it, but the management of the ten-year-old in my life is adding some complication. It’ll work out, and yes, she can come with me if necessary, so the problem is mild. but it will definitely be a change to the household’s morning routine. Mom leaves the house first, imagine the problems and risks. Hmm.
These are the pesky realizations I’ve had this week. I’m not a fan.
I have a very hard time saying no. The job was originally supposed to be just mornings, which allowed me to get the nugget off the bus, which we both really like. Now, it is turning into something else. It is both an inability to say no, and a compulsion to work, because I’ve been struggling with not making enough money.
I have a hard time when I realize I’m annoyed with a person. I almost panic on the inside, as if my annoyance means that I must run into the woods naked for the next segment of my life. (this does not include annoyance at my own children, i’m immune now) I don’t know exactly how to work through this one.
I have always loved winter, for the hibernation, the reading, the fires. It is so fantastic. AND, this year? all i want is for it to be spring, so i can plant stuff. WHO AM I? my god. COME ON ALREADY. let me plant something. please. i am begging you. and, i already have six amaryllis growing, so evidently,it has to be real, outside dirt and nothing else is satisfying.
I’m really and truly pissed off that I don’t know how to build shit. I HATE asking someone else for anything. It is pathological and I hope I grow into being better at it. GODDAMNIT though.
Thats it, folks. Sighs, lots of them, as I try to walk the work, do the work and come out the other side.
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.
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.
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.)
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…)
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.
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.
These are the things I’ve written lately, or said out loud, that I have liked, and liked a lot.
My work life is a pile of feathers.
You can’t actually hold on to anything. Thats the illusion. The struggle is in wanting to hold on, when you can’t, even though it hurts. You can’t. You’re grasping at waves. Whatever it is, its already gone.
My creative life is in a cave in the cliff wall, somehow managing to be dry and warm despite being just meters from a stormy sea.
When I am old, I want the kitchen table to remind me of my children, for my memory to roll easily through the past.
Pick up the phone before it is too late. Call the elderly man who reminds you of your loss. Call his familiar voice and hear an old familiar story. Let it be so. Suck in the things he needs to apologize for and grovel for. He will not and doesn’t need to know he should. It makes no difference now. It just doesn’t. When you imagine all the perfect things said, said to perfection, it still just doesn’t matter, doesn’t change a thing, and somehow, the fact that I am carrying this, even as a fleeting thought, is the image of absurdity.
There it is. A list of somethings rather than nothings. A pile of feathers indeed.
Photo by Павел Гавриков on Pexels.com
Its construction time here at the old Blossom Manor. Which means, honestly, a lot of de-construction and falling down. (me, yes, definitely me, and them, the inanimate machines of necessity.) I’ve been here long enough that everything that can break is experiencing its last moments of glorious bursting joyful sunray, as they run towards the light. Arms wild, they run into the flaming sun.
Currently on fire:
dishwasher.
washing machine.
hot water heater.
Hmm. Yeah, the upstairs shower isn’t really working well, but it has something to do with the heater, i think, so its a subpar emerging problem, not worthy of a bullet. plus, there is a second shower, so if it needs abandoning, so be it. and water shut offs in a house with no filtration system do in fact, cause their own set of new events. Yeah, that’s it.
I mean, unless you want to peel back another layer and tell me my house needs painting. or a pesky water filtration unit. In which case, I point you to the houses in Appalachia that are not painted, or filtered, and are still standing, just moderately askew. So there. pure vanity has no place, currently.
My living room is full of tools because the handyman stores them here when he is not working. Yes, that is the relationship. Tools live here.
There’s a plumber making his way to my front door with a bill in hand, right now. It is a small airplane carrying a tank of water to dump on the heaviest flame. But darling, this one will bring a shower that is warm.
I almost decided to leave the soap in my hair this morning, the cold was so cold. I could hear my scalp crying, and feel my brain trying to push the scalp away, to keep warm and working. (debatable if my brain is working today, very debatable.)
I had an in-person interview today though, to take on another garden project, which I will in fact, start tomorrow. So I needed soap out, to not terrify a lovely garden lady. And now, for tomorrow, I will be able to (probably) take a hot bath to soothe my muscles after such work.
I’m feeling very boring today. Plumbing on my mind. I’m even wondering how to finance a water filtration system, out loud even. Yeah, i’m not impressed either. Good lord.
Its the small things that make life okay, its always the small things. I’m talking about writing, and I’m adding it to my days. I’ve read three books in the past two weeks. Small is big. Despite all my fully mature tactics of denial and procrastination, I am ready to start the next season of work, both internal and external. We have space, we have time, and we have value. we have third person self-referencing, which is, yes, concerning. But my flowers are still incredibly beautiful, and I paid for a water heater without a credit card. and the book cover now waiting for me is beautifully stroked by a paintbrush. So these are good days.
Good days, my loves.
Go out and recklessly love. for the hell of it. what are we saving it for?
