Tag: writing

Humanity

Hoard and Cave

Lovelovemotherexpletive

It used to be so much easier to write. I feel that truth. My days had more blank space and my mind was not as full of the minutiae of the day to day. the laundry is now and will forever be there, but somehow, even with young ones, i was able to throw down words in a way that felt cathartic, and creative somehow.

yellow duckies in line on a concrete floor
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

now i have more consciousness about who is reading, more private children, (and they can read), more ego, i guess, in terms of not wanting to embarass myself or anyone else. i can get really tired of people thinking i’m odd. i’m only as odd as the next guy. and i’m not talking about the naked guy at the beach. It gets old, and being embarassed is not that good a feeling, it seems to ride side-saddle to shame.

i’m in the winter of a farm life, treasuring the time i have now that the ground is frozen, spending hours and hours at home, reading, gazing at the fire, eating too much, worrying about the money that is not coming in, the weight that is coming back, knowing how close spring is, and the return of the too much, all the while still awaiting a real snow. I should have already started the eucalyptus seeds but i’m feeling stubborn, and i want my cave-in to be complete, whole. Me in a blanket fort for days. Coffee and cookies and potato-cheese products delivered at will. That’s all. And money, money would be good too. but, just stacks. I think i could stuff a pillowcase just fine. Or, maybe not, but i could certainly use it as a coaster for my coffee mug.

Hoard, and Cave.

Thats where I’m at, friends. Happy January.

love love,

me.

*I’m a branch swinging wildly in the wind. I’m just hoping I stay attached, or that the crash is not devastating.

Humanity

Couple things.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I’m not a fan of these months of melancholy and memory. I know I’ve said it before, but they are hard hard, and this weekend was a doozy, mixed in with some whizbang sex and more tears than I thought I could shed while still being silent.

  1. I’m going to be fifty in June. Not really a big thing, in reality, and i’m happy to be alive and aging. But my mom is 78 and just recovering from a surgery and not feeling well and the combination is bringing mortality and life choices to a much larger screen near you.
    The choices I’ve made leave me entering my fifties working at a job which pays a fairly low hourly wage for very demanding work. I love it, but also dream of an actually fulfilling paycheck. but i really do love it. so what to do.
  2. I’m noticing that my ability to be teased is REALLY low. My eldest is home from college for two days now and he’s broken my spirit twice already. I know that he is surrounded only by peers there and forgets social niceties, but my god, the burn is real. I’m close to the veil.
  3. I can see so clearly the sins of others. (and by sins i mean human flaws, people, human flaws) but I know that I have so many of my own. Why am i so competitive in situations where there is no game at all? My ex has a lot of loose money, and I do not. I spent at least two weeks wildly obsessing about the expense of insuring another new driver, when the other parent had just assumed he would be doing it. miscommunication? assumptions? either way, the experience of the two weeks trying to ‘figure it out’ and failing? all mine. not my best time. In no dream can I afford to insure another car and a teenaged boy driver. In no dream. And it crushed me and I was flat.
  4. Its also become more scary to come and write here because I haven’t been doing it, and that builds on itself, so I am here today to try and cut it off at the knees. (if you know me, please tell me to keep writing, here, because my god, i’m getting scared of life without it. what do i have if i have no creative outlet? what.)
  5. The number of times I’ve said, ‘i’ll figure it out’ this week has been too many. I never made a list so I’m guessing I’m totally fucked. I don’t know what I’m figuring out anymore. I’ll probably keep the house, (of course i will, i’m just kidding) and I’ve got wood if I get chilly, so .. I’m guessing some stuff has been figured out. as for the rest of it? we’ll see….
    At least one of the things is the application of the sixteen year old to be a driver. And that rests in the hands of the folks at the DMV. bless them. And that fifteen year old redhead white boy just got his hair done into cornrows. There is much to discuss. Beautifully done, but still.
  6. I think five is good, but here I am at six. Half dozen. So, I love you, I love spilling some of my guts to you. I hope you are warm and have the lights you need to see in the darkness.

love love,

kate

Humanity

plant nook: a writing prompt

Lovelovemotherexpletive

cynthia lee used to do this all the time, and i’ve always found it a simple, rich starter:

write about what you see.

so here’s my ten minute blob of that writing prompt, and yes, i’m still on the sofa. two more days of rest before life resumes. Here it is:

Sitting on the rescued pink sofa in the kitchen, a rescued white dog curled up next to me. The thought that I’ve had, that maybe I’m curled up too tight, maybe I’m overextending my knees. Who rescues me, my eyes flick back up to the light. The dog moves and I’m cold. Wishing there was dog again. The light ahead of me is hitting the leaves, the plants all taking nourishment in the nook. All sorts of angles in view as the legs of the ladders and step ladders and easels are all akimbo and adjuxt. I’m sure that’s not a word, but it should be. Adjuxt. There is a balloon penguin over there, resting facedown on an empty pot. It is one of my favorite spots in the house, but like everything else, it is losing itself to the chaos of transition.

There is a garland of large felted balls, in red, white and pink. A year long nod to the Christmas season. Today she finds herself draped across the lap of a concrete angel holding a lotus. How funny. And a jar half full of marbles, from my sisters wedding. A gnome hides in the greenery of that plant I’ve never known the name of, also from my sister, but not from the wedding.

Old pieces of tape on the window, marking out where the children’s art was. Art long gone, but tape remains. How strange is that connective tissue, the connection is there but the objects gone? Faded sticker shapes. Sunlight on a jade plant. How many more years will I move these jade with me? I think probably as many as I have. I do need a sun room. In my little future, ahead, I will need a sunroom.

What I see before me is that lamp I got at the flea market. Works now, all re-wired, cutest little thing ever, and it makes me think of the two lamps upstairs, waiting to find a place, waiting to be given away. The ways in which I have too much, and this season always brings that to the fore. More to that feeling of needing to disconnect, needing to close off the impressions of the outside, the needs, wants, must haves that seem to float so easily in the ether of a worldly life. Close it down, be the hermit, find more of the time to just stare into the plant corner.

Two of the windows over there are covered in plastic already, diffusing the light slightly, showing the dust of the entrapped air. 2 of the six windows. The old house giggles at my attempt to seal a draft. But I say one third, I do! The easel I picked up, so beautiful. Black and tall and even with ornamentation. And ribbons hanging, and the disco ball in the window just behind.

Thats it: ten minutes of staring and wiggling fingers at the same time. I hope you all are having a few good stares today.

love you,

kate

Humanity

pneumonia

Lovelovemotherexpletive

i missed two thanksgivings. one of which i was supposed to host, and had spent hours getting ready for. furniture moved, rug purchased, rugs cleaned… I’d even been writing about what it means, how much it means for me to be a host, to be a table upon which sustenance is served.

but no. instead, i host (still) a withering soul-destroying cough, granny panties for all the pee, and a fixed need to look into the colors of my own mucous.

i deeply missed seeing my family. touchstone moments for me, these yearly traditions, set me aright in identity and history. Too much of my own mortality at stake in not having these sightings and sit downs. Found myself enraged and trying to figure out how to be present there without anyone seeing me. Sent five dishes of food, much help if not all help given by the lovely bob. So many sighs.

dirty dishes heaped in kitchen sink
Photo by Gary Barnes on Pexels.com

And now I’m sitting here, back on the sofa, feet curled up and a few books read. Not read well, mind you, because i’m not entirely connected to my brain. Somehow ‘Gift from the Sea’ showed up on the floor nearby and so I’ve broached it yet again, and the slow down is immediate. And the withdrawal from the phone, and the recognition of how my brain is changing with all this immediacy of interplay that the phone gives. It is a mindlessness. And there is a part of me that is actually gravely concerned that I really do need to give it up in order to maintain my personality, the enjoyment of the ways in which my brain hops and sizzles on the skillet.

It takes me away from the slow, pulls me into a here-and-now that is somewhere else. If I need to stare out the window for ten minutes, can I do this without reaching for the phone to tell someone or to check something that occurs to me? I’m not being overly dramatic when I say it is changing something in me. And I’m not a fan.

And i’m done now, here. for today. I’ve got some reading to do. and maybe a little thinking, maybe some random staring. I’d wink at you if you were here.

love you much, shout out from the sick bed,

Kate

Humanity

My youngest is 11.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I’m tired of writing facts. This is going on. That is going on. I want to write dapple and splinters of silverfish at my feet when the waters come in.

bubbles of joy and overwhelm that fizzle and steam and lift, depending on the day.

the rush of the heart against the ribcage when the tears rise, a wild irrational thrust towards escape

cold fingers typing, calloused hands barely registering on touch screens these days. i may as well have lifeless clay in digit form. but then again, i do not. there is life in this clay, and i’m in reformation mode again.

(at times anyways, because sometimes i am also too much with my couch)

the heartbreak of november is heavy with me. the light itself brings me to tears. the cry of the newly red leaf, the flutter of the gold, as they fall, food for my next year’s garden.

i feel that veil is thin, yes, and it is the grey boundaries between past and future in which i feel myself becoming a flock of birds. the neither here nor there, an inability to be present for it.

clay, sodden ground, mud and how much value do i put on a clean shoe anyhow?

there is so much going on, and nothing. and i love you, and i’ll see you soon.

-kate