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
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Humanity

nono? again?

I’m mulling over making the attempt to write every day that many make in this month of november. the original thrust was for people to try and write a novel in a month, NANOMOPO? NANOWO? to push themselves to write every day until a body of work appeared.

i can, sincerely and without question, guarantee you that i am not producing a novel.

i’m just mulling over writing daily, here, in a public way. Let me know what you think. ok?

in other news, the car is ‘pretty much’ fixed. my mom helped me pay for it, and i know that is what family is for. and i still have embarrassment anyways, and somehow making sure that it isn’t a secret makes me feel better.

(for the life of me i will never ever be able to keep a secret about myself. for others? til death. but myself? never ever. Is this a flaw? a strength? a quirk? idgaf. yes, that.)

and i’ve taken one day off each week to just do household things like bathe myself in hot water slowly, and wash my own clothes, not just theirs, maybe clean up the front porch of summer items. a slow and easy day, and if i end up watching tv i will be sad but only a little. anything goes. its rest time, for me. no kids, and any worries that come up, i solve by washing dishes. today i washed two windows, in preparation for the winterizing plastic that is going up. and, i wrote, here, publicly.

days of rest are unpaid, yes, but they do pay dividends.

my inner hellacious bitch voice is muted by the green of leaves still holding on out there. there has been no hard frost here yet and the anne of green gables beauty is all over the place. october’s crisp apple crunch.

sigh.

november is about missing things. people who are gone, lives we thought we’d have. there is something in this northeastern light that brings us all into this melancholy, all of us, i’m convinced.

there is a reason it begins with day of the dead.

i love you. do.

-lovelove

red apple lot in wooden crates
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Humanity

Fidgets and Suddens.

My eight year old is obsessed. Can’t stop trying to spend her money on little bits of plastic that squish, or pop or spin. It is making me nuts, causing my inner panic buttons to be pressed about waste and the future and poverty and sea turtles.

Seriously.

And my house seems to be decomposing. Everything is breaking down this fall: cars, toilets, dryers, lightswitches, everything you can imagine. The suddenness of so many of them are keeping me from writing, which, you know, is how i make the money to cover the sudden things. My bills are mostly paid with child support and some alimony, but this extra stuff is all me, and i got a quote for a big ticket item that will curtail some of the constant littler things and i’m just overwhelmed guys, does one use savings in hopes that savings aren’t needed for a different sudden thing? its a many pronged fork and i just want to use my teeth. rip and gnash. get that?

it’ll all be fine, i know.

Today’s sudden was a toilet that isn’t filling with water, in its tank. Tomorrow’s sudden will be a handyman coming to visit. Friday I will be going back to the car dealership to fling myself on their mercy, again. There are days when there is nothing, and then a little fidget, and a Sudden will appear. Most days I’m good, I can swing with it.

and then there are the other days.

Its a Thriller video. It is.

Love you guys. I do. I’ll see you on the other side, with some things crossed off the list probably.

sigh.

  • me.
white toilet paper roll on ceramic toilet
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Humanity

Writing week. Thursday.

I’m sitting at a car repair place again, this time, a dealership, because evidently that is the only way forward. hundreds and hundreds of ways. the man behind the counter is handsome and i’ve already glimpsed at a naked ring finger.

yes, that makes me sick, too. I will not take another step, just sitting my ass down, maybe not facing that direction.

i’m starting to feel a little bit like dating is work. and thats no good. weary and curious cannot exist in the exact same space.

but here i am, in the car repair waiting room. and i smell coffee but can’t find it, and thats maddening. it is not for me? is it not for me?

it was a big day yesterday. I had two ‘very important’ new things. (virtual via zoom, both of them.)

  1. a meeting with a spiritual director. she is an old, virtual friend of mine, though i have actually met her in person and even shared food. she’s finishing a program in spiritually directing people and i am a rambling, distractable seeker. Seeker. yes i am. we talked a lot about how to ritualize some of my daily tasks, imbue them with my feelings about the divine.
  2. a meeting with a potential new therapist. she uses a similar modality to the last therapist I liked, called IFS (Internal Family Systems) which encourages and allows all the different voices we hear in our heads, in our body. For example, the voice which tells me I’m doing just fine with the kids, in contrast to the voice which panics internally any time there is the smallest hitch in their happiness levels. Defensiveness, aggression, shame, pride, all the things are just fine, and working together to protect and defend my inner golden core. I’m good. I don’t need quite as much protection as they think I do, so its a matter of going in, diving down to see what my pieces are doing in there. it suits me very well, and I think we’ll be a match. Its amazing how explaining myself to someone can make me feel shame, and how much that is exactly why I am there.

Go get yourself a therapist. Everyone should have one. Yes, I mean you.

I also had another first date. Will let you know.

The waiting room is playing Sarah Mclachlan. Never fails to make me feel teenaged angst. Hello Dawson, its me… get off my fucking roof. Its not my favorite re-do, I’ll tell you that.

Did I tell you I’m 47? I am. Deeply.

love love,

me. ( i found the coffee!)

toddler wearing floral dress holding doll
This means something. How are you facing things today?
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Humanity

Comfort levels.

I had a whole post about shyness and isolation and how I can’t go to PTO meetings because I’m shy and its exhausting to think about listening that hard.

And i erased that mother fucker.

Sometimes I just want to shout about how fucking content I am.

I’m eating a RingDing right this very second.

Well, okay, its gone now. But there is one more waiting in the wings.

And, there are four books within reach right now. And I’m typing on a laptop that doesn’t need to be upgraded right now, in my quiet kitchen, my dog and cat are both curled up nearby.

Second RingDing is going down, and I’m going to write all morning.

I go to the farm to bask in brilliant farm light after lunch. I will bring gloves, a hat and an extra sweater.

I’m incredibly lucky.

Yes, I’ve got issues and worries and loneliness. But goddammit. Look at what I have.

Week of writing, reading commences now. Seven days. Every day.

I’m going to be writing for a week, a full seven days. Whether it ends up here or not, I don’t know. I’m going to concentrate on reading too, and I’m dropping my phone on the floor many times, so that it stops alerting me to stupid shit.

Love you much.

Lovelove,

kate