Tag: work

Humanity

Because of Cynthia Lee

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I’m here, I’m writing.

I’ve got a new job.

I’m an inclusion special education teacher in an elementary school. its not something I’ve ever done before and the learning curve is steep and constant. I’m weaning myself off of panic and into resignation, slowly. I will figure it out, I will, even if it gets bumpy along the way. And I’m getting paid in a way that still makes me cry when I get a paycheck, because maybe, just maybe, I’ll make it.

I work with a lot of people for the second year in a row. If you read this, and then see me? … goddammit, don’t tell me about it. I get all wigged out in a very weird, flattered but scared sort of way. like, its a lot of pressure to have people that you walk by in a hallway talk about something you wrote, or last year, even heard a tale about a deep dive into the blog. which is terrifying, because ‘what the hell did i write?!’ and gaaaah.

and on the other hand, I love it. I do. Because I am now, still, in a job where it is easy to be unknown. Before schools, I was working in a high tunnel with a thousand chickens, or a hundred spinach plants. They never really made me nervous about how I was seen, or how my thoughts were received. And now there are so many people and my clothes are weird, my inner dialogue is definitely off-center, and I don’t know at all how to be authentic and still keep my job and that self-off-centeredness. (not selfish, or self-absorbed, but self-centered in the midst of a crazy whirlpool of things. It is a wonderful and normal thing to want to be seen for who you actually are. Right?

RIGHT?

my two eldest kids are not here. they are off in their lives, and the shift in identity is fierce and with me all the time. what am I, if mom is not the title I hear most? the remaining child, my lovely thirteen year old, is adjusting to life as an almost-only child. the grocery list and I are sudden enemies, as the size and portion of things makes for too many leftovers and I don’t know how to handle it. And while I appreciate the wild cut to my grocery bill quite a bit, it makes me want to cry on the regular.

these are the things. and i read my friend cynthia lee over at substack and she just forced herself to sit down, and so here i am, forcing myself to sit down and write it.

its Sunday, my takeclasses and teachmyselfeverything school day, so the laptop is in my lap anyhow. and its been too long. I’m still writing in my head all the time, so why not clear some space in there, and make it a tangible thing?

although, is it tangible if there is no physical thing? meh. no, i don’t know.

I do love you, in general, and specifically. Take care. Put on another sweater maybe, and I’ll be forcing myself to sit down here again soon.

Green sneaker on a blue and white rug
In my room. My work room.

Humanity

trying to keep my cup small

Lovelovemotherexpletive

its easier to overflow when you start small, fyi.

wish i could teach the value of small things to other people. there has to be a crack somewhere so i can get in, so i can show this. just a sliver.

the value of small things.

realizing that as much as i love people, and i really do, i can’t handle more than two or three at a time. this is a direct reflection of my hearing loss. the insecurity is overwhelming and I feel directly the shrinking, the ways in which i try to make my own self invisible to counter the possibility of embarrassing myself, or just being lost while surrounded by people. so, i left a conference i wanted to be at today, because it was lunchtime and too much small talk. and i don’t exactly know how i feel about leaving, but i am trying to honor my small cup, and i was overwhelmed and starting to feel isolated, and i needed to leave. so i did.

i’d love to grow flowers, but i listened to a flower farmer at this farmer’s conference and I don’t think I want that. I want to make a hundred dollars in a summer from the yard, or maybe double or triple that, but I don’t want to be a farmer. i don’t have the wherewithal for it. (unless you know two or three people who could build it all for me? cuz, man, if i could start with a greenhouse and some long beds? maybe we’d be talking.) but still, just the stand by the road. that’s it. that’s all. little cups.

i’m hoping to switch things up a little this summer, maybe give me some time to grow my own garden. last year i didn’t have the time and it was a shade of sadness.

yesterday i was bemoaning my lack of writing, and lovely bob leaned over and put his arm on my shoulder and said simply, ‘you do not have the time.’ and he was right. and here i am, finding it and forgiving myself for the times when i choose a movie or a nap instead of productivity.

trying to keep it small, folks.

small things have great value.

love you much,

kate

Browsing at a TJMAXX and not buying this, but loving it?: My medicine after leaving the conference.

Humanity

Farm

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I don’t think it’s just me, but I’ve hit the wall (and climbed it) of apocalyptic thoughts, feelings and mind lapses. I’m mostly happy about it, the theatrical world knows my connection to the fears we all have right now. Which, in itself, is a whole post.

I’m thrilled by all the movies/series which suit me right now. Last of Us. Any Walking Dead. A million more i can’t think of right now.

But man, one of the weirdest things I keep thinking about is farming.

I’m aging out of the work a little bit; the heat is too hot, the baskets too heavy, the monetary payment is too light. (It’s time to get into serious retirement discussions, selling the house cannot be my entire plan. It cannot.)

But I’ve been wafting back and forth in my apocalysm daydreams, while seeding hundreds of baby things, wondering how future generations will know how to get broccoli. I mean, food is the most important thing, right? Food and water. And, will the home gardeners save us all? Really? Better get out those zucchini recipes.

When we finally decide to stop flying produce from country to country, or spraying it with shit to slow down the ripening, or to speed it up, as the case warrants, what then?

Will ‘we’ tolerate not having bananas? Will i be able to grow bananas in New England?

I know, i know, focus on the here and now. Be mindful, be present. And all that is true, and yes, my small world is all that i can control.

When my sons want to eat meat at every meal and I feel such exhaustion that i throw frozen meat patties on a grill again and again, its that whole butterfly wing again, and I’m upset also that its such a recurring thing in my brain and yet millions of millionaires exist and I don’t think they are wrapped up in tinfoil about this.

I suppose they’ll get the last bananas.

Sigh.

Tell me I’m wrong. About the bananas, I mean.

-love love.

Humanity

questions… 5 am.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

Being almost 50.

  • how do i let go if i keep remembering?
  • no really, if I’m still stuck on how a landline works, how’m I supposed to get satellite signals equaling real and true sounding voices?
  • is this it then, the culmination of my life, that i work all the time and worry about the kids?
  • How do i get my fucking jade plant to thrive? i think about it way too much.
  • why are accidents so much more poignant for me now? because i feel my own mortality so much? the ways in which small things can be enormous in a life?
  • Can i work forever? when the kids are gone and i’ve moved into a tiny house with my man somewhere, can i just wake up and go to work, forever? there is always so much to be done. everywhere. all I i want to do is plant stuff.
  • do you know i have to change clothes two or three times a day just to be clean and non-contaminated, depending on what i am doing at the farm, or at the school? the car is a jumbled up closet of farmshoes, and school clothes. the back seat is unusable. yesterday i laid all the seats down to deliver eggs to a store 45 minutes away. then, i played playdough. outfit changes. Is this adulthood?
  • Want some eggs? I have a lot. Finally got rid of a bunch of roosters, and now they are much happier ladies out there. Nobody needs or wants that much cock. No question.
  • I need to go away for a week by myself. Think that will ever happen? No, me neither. And I would miss everyone so much, and I can’t afford to miss a week of work anyways. But I’m pining for it. Ever heard of Woolman Hill? (this is not an invitation for my sister or boyfriend or brother to buy something. got it? don’t piss me off.)
  • Self hair cuts? Yes? or no?
  • I think i’m done here, I’m losing my juju.
  • Love to you,
  • me.

Some of these babies have already been planted in the field now, that’s how quickly things grow these days. and they’re off!!

Humanity

Make ’em laugh.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

We wrote about singing today in my writing group. I found myself lost in my dad’s choral career. usually the deepest voice in the group but for the lovely Lauren next to him. Church. His growing up Baptist with so many cousins, and hymns that focused on somber joy, was a way of being which I think he did pretty well. When I imagine him squeezing his elbows against his belly in laughter, his hands in balls (think manly t-rex) there is nothing better. He was a mixed bag, for sure, but he did find joy pretty often.

Between he and my grammie harriet, they were my true goals. To make them laugh meant I’d made it. I was a heroine amongst heroines. I didn’t know funny jokes or anything, it was perspective, or whimsy, or somesuch. My favorite motherinlaw said I had edge, and I suppose that too, is true. Took me a long time to appreciate that it was something different in me, not just weirdness.

I had an unfortunate marriage, and spent a lot of time sad, fearful and angry. I was still funny though, but threaded through with those emotions, and it felt like grit sometimes.

Now my days are filled with plants and little kids, and my own kids, bigger but still kids, all of them, even the one away in school. And there are few adults in my circles. And I’m a shoe-in to make a preschooler laugh. Absolutely. They are my spirit animals, so tangibly connected to joy.

there is nothing better.

What a terrifically unfunny post. Irony.

ha. LOVE YOU MOST.

-me.