Have you noticed that I have been stepping away? Or maybe more like backing away, slowly. With my mouth open and my heart hanging all sad and dangling.
Were we designed to care about so many people?
All at once?
Not just in broad terms, but that so-and-so person I never really interact with on twitter has this neighbor with a daughter with a disease and it is all I can think about.
Is that the way it's supposed to be?
I know I am supposed to feel this Earthly life, but sometimes it's like I am feeling too much. Too much for one brain and one person.
I am exploding from the ten of thousands of people all tweeting and re-tweeting the worst thing they've ever heard.
I don't know if it is too much for mankind but I think it might be too much for me.
***
Linking up with Just Write because it is just what I felt like writing, right now, and also because Heather is one of my favorite prople.
5.14.2012
4.30.2012
i guess this is something people do
So I've been running. I wouldn't call myself "a runner" or anything so confident and commitment-y just yet, but I have forced myself to go outside and run every day (minus one or two) for the past month.
First of all, I feel like I have to tell you that am not this kind of girl. I don't wear yoga pants or shoes with laces, EVER, and I certainly don't "go work out" or "to the gym" or whatever. I wear a lot of eye makeup and I am particular about my hair and I am disorganized. I am not a morning person. I am pear-shaped and redheaded. I am not athletic.
There was a time when reading a blog post about running would have irritated me. Twitter and Facebook updates, "I just finished a 2.8 mile run!" made me squint and shake my head a little. Why did these people have to TELL me they exercised? Why do we have to TALK about it? Either you run or you don't and either way it isn't my business.
It was this ever-so-slight irritation, however, that made me try it myself. With each, "I just finished a 4 mile run!" status update, I began to actually believe that a four mile run is something people do. They just go outside and do it. Okay! Wait? This is something people do? They buy the right clothes and shoes and put them on. Then they go outside and move their feet back and forth.
Okay.
As I was in the middle of my very long blogging break and felt like my brain was sinking right out of my head, I decided to shake some energy out. To pull myself together. To go buy the right things and put them on like a costume and pretend I am someone who moves her feet back and forth.
I downloaded C25K and put on my running shoes and talked myself out of wearing my cardigan (I AM NOT ATHLETIC) over my Nike t-shirt. C25K didn't really work for me. The bossy lady telling me when to go and when to stop got on my nerves. I loosely followed it for a week, and then figured out my own pace. There is a street next to ours that is exactly a half-mile loop. So I used that, adding a half-mile whenever I felt ready.
Yesterday I found myself hitting the TWEET THIS button on my Nike+ app. "I just finished a 3.23 mile run!" I did. I ran three and a quarter miles without stopping and I didn't want to kill myself. After the first mile I actually ENJOYED it. I am sleeping better and have less anxiety. This is a very good thing.
I don't know how long I will stick with this but it is working for me right now. I never thought I would have a positive experience with running. I have tried many times before but never pushed past the "I want to die" stage. I am running outside, slowly, with a face the color of a tomato. It is embarrassing and sometimes hard, but I don't want to die. You have no idea how surprised I am. (Also Luke. He is surprised. He is so surprised that he is, in his words, "a little scared." Me too honey!)
(I have to give a TON of credit to Erin and Erica and Keli and others for their twitter chats about running. Erin started running one year ago yesterday and was totally my inspiration. Her runs and commentary about them are what got me going and keep me going.)
First of all, I feel like I have to tell you that am not this kind of girl. I don't wear yoga pants or shoes with laces, EVER, and I certainly don't "go work out" or "to the gym" or whatever. I wear a lot of eye makeup and I am particular about my hair and I am disorganized. I am not a morning person. I am pear-shaped and redheaded. I am not athletic.
There was a time when reading a blog post about running would have irritated me. Twitter and Facebook updates, "I just finished a 2.8 mile run!" made me squint and shake my head a little. Why did these people have to TELL me they exercised? Why do we have to TALK about it? Either you run or you don't and either way it isn't my business.
It was this ever-so-slight irritation, however, that made me try it myself. With each, "I just finished a 4 mile run!" status update, I began to actually believe that a four mile run is something people do. They just go outside and do it. Okay! Wait? This is something people do? They buy the right clothes and shoes and put them on. Then they go outside and move their feet back and forth.
Okay.
As I was in the middle of my very long blogging break and felt like my brain was sinking right out of my head, I decided to shake some energy out. To pull myself together. To go buy the right things and put them on like a costume and pretend I am someone who moves her feet back and forth.
I downloaded C25K and put on my running shoes and talked myself out of wearing my cardigan (I AM NOT ATHLETIC) over my Nike t-shirt. C25K didn't really work for me. The bossy lady telling me when to go and when to stop got on my nerves. I loosely followed it for a week, and then figured out my own pace. There is a street next to ours that is exactly a half-mile loop. So I used that, adding a half-mile whenever I felt ready.
Yesterday I found myself hitting the TWEET THIS button on my Nike+ app. "I just finished a 3.23 mile run!" I did. I ran three and a quarter miles without stopping and I didn't want to kill myself. After the first mile I actually ENJOYED it. I am sleeping better and have less anxiety. This is a very good thing.
I don't know how long I will stick with this but it is working for me right now. I never thought I would have a positive experience with running. I have tried many times before but never pushed past the "I want to die" stage. I am running outside, slowly, with a face the color of a tomato. It is embarrassing and sometimes hard, but I don't want to die. You have no idea how surprised I am. (Also Luke. He is surprised. He is so surprised that he is, in his words, "a little scared." Me too honey!)
(I have to give a TON of credit to Erin and Erica and Keli and others for their twitter chats about running. Erin started running one year ago yesterday and was totally my inspiration. Her runs and commentary about them are what got me going and keep me going.)
4.24.2012
corkscrew
Not blogging has given me a lot of time to think.
I've done so much unwritten thinking and over-thinking, around and around, that my thoughts put me underground or underwater or something. When you spiral around like that you can only go down. Tighter and smaller and lower.
I have a computer. I have my own computer now. After a few months without one.
I feel like the windows are open. I feel like the phone is ringing, but in a good way.
Hello, hi, how ARE you?
(My friend Emily told me to just write something already and I did, for her, and this is what came out. Thank you Emily. I probably would have gone another miserable week or so if not for you.)
I've done so much unwritten thinking and over-thinking, around and around, that my thoughts put me underground or underwater or something. When you spiral around like that you can only go down. Tighter and smaller and lower.
I have a computer. I have my own computer now. After a few months without one.
I feel like the windows are open. I feel like the phone is ringing, but in a good way.
Hello, hi, how ARE you?
(My friend Emily told me to just write something already and I did, for her, and this is what came out. Thank you Emily. I probably would have gone another miserable week or so if not for you.)
3.16.2012
I think.
I think there are new wrinkles around my mouth. Actually, I know there are because my profile picture on this blog does not show them. They are new. They are wrinkles. I am not prepared for this.
I got pregnant when I was 22. Twenty-two. Do you know how many times I have been in a bar? Hmm. I don't. I am counting on my fingers... three? Four? I don't know. I don't know bars.
I had a lot of dreams when I was smaller. I wanted to do things in a louder way. I wanted to be on stages and in magazines. I wanted to make things you would recognize. But my life dramatically changed and then it did that again and again and again. I can count those changes on my fingers too.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if my life had stopped making left turns. If instead of going around in left-turn circles, I had carried on in one direction. Those things I wanted to do are still there. I can still feel them and I am still excited and happy when I dip my toe into them. But they don't consume me.
I am 28. Twenty-eight. I have wrinkles around my mouth. And my oldest dream, to be a mom, is my whole life. I am not lamenting this fact. But it would be hard to look at those wrinkles without soaking in the reality that six years of my youthiest youth are gone. That was the youngest I was ever going to be. I think I thought I had all the time in world. I think I thought I could have the kids and then they would go to school and I could still try something else too and I don't know, maybe I can try something but I can't try everything. I traded that for this. But I've thought about it a lot and you know, if I could go back and do it all again, I still would.
I got pregnant when I was 22. Twenty-two. Do you know how many times I have been in a bar? Hmm. I don't. I am counting on my fingers... three? Four? I don't know. I don't know bars.
I had a lot of dreams when I was smaller. I wanted to do things in a louder way. I wanted to be on stages and in magazines. I wanted to make things you would recognize. But my life dramatically changed and then it did that again and again and again. I can count those changes on my fingers too.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if my life had stopped making left turns. If instead of going around in left-turn circles, I had carried on in one direction. Those things I wanted to do are still there. I can still feel them and I am still excited and happy when I dip my toe into them. But they don't consume me.
I am 28. Twenty-eight. I have wrinkles around my mouth. And my oldest dream, to be a mom, is my whole life. I am not lamenting this fact. But it would be hard to look at those wrinkles without soaking in the reality that six years of my youthiest youth are gone. That was the youngest I was ever going to be. I think I thought I had all the time in world. I think I thought I could have the kids and then they would go to school and I could still try something else too and I don't know, maybe I can try something but I can't try everything. I traded that for this. But I've thought about it a lot and you know, if I could go back and do it all again, I still would.
2.24.2012
Vacancy
A few months ago I visited my grandparents' home. House. It's really just a house now. It's empty. The stuff is still there but the house is hollow. I wrote about it then, but I am still thinking about it (and writing about it) now.
It kind of blew my mind the way things were falling apart. Just because. Just because no one was there to fix things up. There was a dead mouse in the basement. Things were cracking and peeling and leaking and plants were growing and I could see it all happening in my head like a stop-motion video, this house and home and place I love, turning back into earth. Turning into the world the way it is when we aren't there to make our very people-y changes.
I walked around the yard with my kids, just the four of us, and I felt like a ghost. I thought about everything that ever happened in that yard. I looked at the little shed in the side yard -- the shed that stored my first bike and my first wagon -- and I looked straight into the eyes of a fox. A fox. A fox that lived there now, in a hole under that shed full of history. An actual fox, with a lame leg. It came hobbling towards us and I froze, both terrified and in awe as this place to which I belong was taken away from me by the earth and the grass and the way things just are.
It kind of blew my mind the way things were falling apart. Just because. Just because no one was there to fix things up. There was a dead mouse in the basement. Things were cracking and peeling and leaking and plants were growing and I could see it all happening in my head like a stop-motion video, this house and home and place I love, turning back into earth. Turning into the world the way it is when we aren't there to make our very people-y changes.
I walked around the yard with my kids, just the four of us, and I felt like a ghost. I thought about everything that ever happened in that yard. I looked at the little shed in the side yard -- the shed that stored my first bike and my first wagon -- and I looked straight into the eyes of a fox. A fox. A fox that lived there now, in a hole under that shed full of history. An actual fox, with a lame leg. It came hobbling towards us and I froze, both terrified and in awe as this place to which I belong was taken away from me by the earth and the grass and the way things just are.
2.02.2012
Hi, again.
Hal is sick, again.
This Winter's weather has been gentle and keeps trying to become Spring, but that hasn't stopped our family from developing all of the usual Winter sickness and insanity.
Today I decided to introduce sick Hal to Yo Gabba Gabba while I folded laundry. The characters were singing some song called, "I'm Scared of Bats" but I thought they were saying, "I'm Scared of Facts" and I thought, wow... "I'm Scared of Facts"?
Facts are the scariest. I am scared of facts. Oh my God, I am so scared of facts. I try to hide scary facts from my kids and I can't believe they are introducing preschoolers to this concept, this is heavy and dark and you really need to only be scared of make believe things until you are older, like, maybe 25, and the weight of the world and all of it's horrible reality can descend upon you all at once. You're taking "quirky" to a bad level, Gabba. Facts terrify me, too, and I don't trust you to entertain my children anymore.
But no, no. Because, of course, they said "bats." Bats. The costumed characters were afraid of BATS. And I am clearly losing the battle for my sanity to Winter.
Hi blog, I guess this is me getting my feet wet here, again.
This Winter's weather has been gentle and keeps trying to become Spring, but that hasn't stopped our family from developing all of the usual Winter sickness and insanity.
Today I decided to introduce sick Hal to Yo Gabba Gabba while I folded laundry. The characters were singing some song called, "I'm Scared of Bats" but I thought they were saying, "I'm Scared of Facts" and I thought, wow... "I'm Scared of Facts"?
Facts are the scariest. I am scared of facts. Oh my God, I am so scared of facts. I try to hide scary facts from my kids and I can't believe they are introducing preschoolers to this concept, this is heavy and dark and you really need to only be scared of make believe things until you are older, like, maybe 25, and the weight of the world and all of it's horrible reality can descend upon you all at once. You're taking "quirky" to a bad level, Gabba. Facts terrify me, too, and I don't trust you to entertain my children anymore.
But no, no. Because, of course, they said "bats." Bats. The costumed characters were afraid of BATS. And I am clearly losing the battle for my sanity to Winter.
Hi blog, I guess this is me getting my feet wet here, again.
12.21.2011
boy
When I am having a bad day with Clark I should probably just stop what I am doing and watch this.
(PS. He had a ton of sand in his hair from the sandbox and it was driving me nuts. I do not routinely do that to his hair. HA.)
(PS. He had a ton of sand in his hair from the sandbox and it was driving me nuts. I do not routinely do that to his hair. HA.)
12.18.2011
Christmastime again
Seven days until Christmas, people.
I shared my Retro Christmas Pandora Station on here last year, and have had lots of requests for links to it but I swear I cannot figure out where to find one? And anyway this year I also have a Spotify playlist to share, which I named Merry + Bright and affectionately refer to the songs as, well, retro hokey. I want to make another, with traditional Christmas carols at some point but for now we are singing "Christmas Candy" and "Santa Claus' Party" and all is retro hokey happy.
And as long as we are talking Christmas music, here is my entry into Neilochka's 6th Annual Christmahanukwanzaakah Online Holiday Concert. It is me. Singing Jingle Bells. In my car. Last night. Hello! I like a sleigh ride!
I added so many ornaments to our collection this year, finding them and squirreling them away all Summer. We have SO MANY fun vintage ones and flashing oversized bulbs and bubble lights. Bubble lights! Unfortunately I don't have many photos of all of this, because my laptop is dragging along, not uploading things, crashing and crashing. I think this is a direct result of the ten million photos stored on the hard drive. So I kind of brought this on myself.
Not everything is out this year, because Hal is at such a grabby age. But it IS our first year with a real live Christmas tree. We used a 30+ year old artificial tree for years, until it was too shabby to reasonably put back in the attic.
Seven days. Merry and bright.
I shared my Retro Christmas Pandora Station on here last year, and have had lots of requests for links to it but I swear I cannot figure out where to find one? And anyway this year I also have a Spotify playlist to share, which I named Merry + Bright and affectionately refer to the songs as, well, retro hokey. I want to make another, with traditional Christmas carols at some point but for now we are singing "Christmas Candy" and "Santa Claus' Party" and all is retro hokey happy.
And as long as we are talking Christmas music, here is my entry into Neilochka's 6th Annual Christmahanukwanzaakah Online Holiday Concert. It is me. Singing Jingle Bells. In my car. Last night. Hello! I like a sleigh ride!
I added so many ornaments to our collection this year, finding them and squirreling them away all Summer. We have SO MANY fun vintage ones and flashing oversized bulbs and bubble lights. Bubble lights! Unfortunately I don't have many photos of all of this, because my laptop is dragging along, not uploading things, crashing and crashing. I think this is a direct result of the ten million photos stored on the hard drive. So I kind of brought this on myself.
Not everything is out this year, because Hal is at such a grabby age. But it IS our first year with a real live Christmas tree. We used a 30+ year old artificial tree for years, until it was too shabby to reasonably put back in the attic.
Seven days. Merry and bright.
12.06.2011
drops from the day
I was going to blog Thanksgiving, oh, ten days ago. But I didn't, so I am blogging it now.
I want to tell you about it.
How I cooked all of the food and it actually tasted really... good.
How nice it felt to be in my kitchen, on my feet all day long for two days in a row, actually producing something worthwhile rather than treading water and re-sweeping and spinning and spinning.
It was hard work but the final product was so satisfying. I think that sometimes it may actually feel better to do just slightly more work. Sounds counter-intuitive, I know.
Hey look! I made all of that!
I want to tell you about it.
How I cooked all of the food and it actually tasted really... good.
How nice it felt to be in my kitchen, on my feet all day long for two days in a row, actually producing something worthwhile rather than treading water and re-sweeping and spinning and spinning.
It was hard work but the final product was so satisfying. I think that sometimes it may actually feel better to do just slightly more work. Sounds counter-intuitive, I know.
Hey look! I made all of that!
 |
I made seven courses plus two pies, all from scratchy scratch scratch. See those white squares on the top of the stuffing? Those are butter. I used... (hide your eyes) four pounds of butter in this meal. I feel like I am squeezing every drop from my day but am I really? I want to look back on every day feeling unblurred. I want to close my eyes and know that something happened. Not just the done-and-then-already-undone stuff of life, but something beyond that. I write here fairly often about my thoughts and ideas and creative drive, how they are all pushed to the side, how I don't have the time or energy to get them out or organize them. I'm just trying to get by, or so I say. I just want my house to be clean and my family to be fed. And I do want those things, except at the end of the day I don't ever remember what happened. It is a 11pm and then it is 11pm again and again and on and on, and when it isn't 11pm it is time to get Clark from preschool or it's meal time or bath time or whatever and weeks and months go by, spinning and spinning, wondering what happened. It isn't a horrible lot or anything and there are so many things I love about this life, it's just often so static. A tiny bit. The difference between making dinner and making Thanksgiving dinner isn't much, but the difference in satisfaction at the end is great. Maybe the answer to my static is to take on more, raise my expectations for myself rather than lower them? I think that "just getting by" might be 90% of the effort. It's just that little hard bit leftover separating me from the feeling that Something Happened each day. This is probably all very obvious, except in my day-to-day moments when it doesn't feel obvious at all. So I guess I am writing it here as a way to remind myself, and for you too, if you need reminding. And anyway, I also learned how to make pie crust. So hey, there's always that.  (Did anyone else make the whole Thanksgiving for the first time this year? High five!) And now? I can officially start blogging about Christmas. |
11.21.2011
some things about november
There is this chalkboard in my kitchen and for the longest time I would use it to hype my family up about the things ahead. I would write the name of the month and then write all of the fun things we were going to do.
I liked it.
But then, exactly a year ago this past weekend, I wrote some things about November. I wrote about Luke turning 30 (which was already over but a major event worth writing on there and crossing off, just because) and Thanksgiving and I remember writing the word "thankful" and cringing inside because I didn't feel it. Our kitchen drain was clogged and our dishwasher was broken and hours of frustration and telephone calls and desperation were going on, all around me, as I found a piece of chalk and threw those words up there. But we were just a few days off of Thanksgiving and I really wanted to be cheerful. So I wrote fakey cheerful stuff. NOVEMBER! THANKSGIVING! THANKFUL! TURKEY TASTES GOOD! I wrote it and looked at it and forced a smile at it. It was my little bit of, okay, this week will be saved. I can make this stuff come true. The plumber will come and my kitchen will not smell like this anymore and this fiasco will be a funny memory and nice-feeling things will happen.
But I didn't make it come true.
The drain was fixed and the dishwasher replaced and then -- my grandma died.
Unexpectedly. Out of nowhere.
A year ago tomorrow, but it really feels like today because it was Monday.
So the turkey went into the deep freezer and all the other Thanksgiving stuff was pushed aside and away as we frantically packed suitcases with black clothes and sippy cups. The framed photos of her as a little girl were grabbed off of the walls to display at the visitation. It felt insane and hazy.
My grandma wasn't just a lady. She was MY GRANDMA. A beautiful wonderful lady who rocked me to sleep and sang to me and taught me things and made me breakfast (peanut butter toast cut into four pieces and a bowl of cereal and chocolate milk) and took me to school every single day of elementary school. My mom and I lived with her until I was eight and after we moved out she would answer the phone in this particular cheerful voice asking, "How's our sweet girl?" every time I called. She was the best. She still is. We just don't get to look at her and tell her so now.
Erasing that fakey cheerful stuff from the chalkboard last November was hard. It's funny how your brain latches on to things and puts your sadness there. With each new month I would intend to write fun things but instead stand with the chalk in hesitation, mostly choosing generic words or drawings instead. A cat drawing stayed for many months, until yesterday when Alice brought it up. "Why is that cat on there all the time? It should be a turkey. My school turkey needs a mommy and daddy."
Her school turkey was made out of her hand print, so at her insistence, we made a family out of handprints.
And then I went out to the garage and got last year's uneaten turkey out of the deep freeze and threw it in the garbage.
I am going to use my grandma's potato masher that now belongs to me and we are going to do this. We will eat turkey and potatoes and dressing and I will hug my mom and kids and brothers and husband and be thankful, for real.
I liked it.
But then, exactly a year ago this past weekend, I wrote some things about November. I wrote about Luke turning 30 (which was already over but a major event worth writing on there and crossing off, just because) and Thanksgiving and I remember writing the word "thankful" and cringing inside because I didn't feel it. Our kitchen drain was clogged and our dishwasher was broken and hours of frustration and telephone calls and desperation were going on, all around me, as I found a piece of chalk and threw those words up there. But we were just a few days off of Thanksgiving and I really wanted to be cheerful. So I wrote fakey cheerful stuff. NOVEMBER! THANKSGIVING! THANKFUL! TURKEY TASTES GOOD! I wrote it and looked at it and forced a smile at it. It was my little bit of, okay, this week will be saved. I can make this stuff come true. The plumber will come and my kitchen will not smell like this anymore and this fiasco will be a funny memory and nice-feeling things will happen.
But I didn't make it come true.
The drain was fixed and the dishwasher replaced and then -- my grandma died.
Unexpectedly. Out of nowhere.
A year ago tomorrow, but it really feels like today because it was Monday.
So the turkey went into the deep freezer and all the other Thanksgiving stuff was pushed aside and away as we frantically packed suitcases with black clothes and sippy cups. The framed photos of her as a little girl were grabbed off of the walls to display at the visitation. It felt insane and hazy.
My grandma wasn't just a lady. She was MY GRANDMA. A beautiful wonderful lady who rocked me to sleep and sang to me and taught me things and made me breakfast (peanut butter toast cut into four pieces and a bowl of cereal and chocolate milk) and took me to school every single day of elementary school. My mom and I lived with her until I was eight and after we moved out she would answer the phone in this particular cheerful voice asking, "How's our sweet girl?" every time I called. She was the best. She still is. We just don't get to look at her and tell her so now.
Erasing that fakey cheerful stuff from the chalkboard last November was hard. It's funny how your brain latches on to things and puts your sadness there. With each new month I would intend to write fun things but instead stand with the chalk in hesitation, mostly choosing generic words or drawings instead. A cat drawing stayed for many months, until yesterday when Alice brought it up. "Why is that cat on there all the time? It should be a turkey. My school turkey needs a mommy and daddy."
Her school turkey was made out of her hand print, so at her insistence, we made a family out of handprints.
And then I went out to the garage and got last year's uneaten turkey out of the deep freeze and threw it in the garbage.
I am going to use my grandma's potato masher that now belongs to me and we are going to do this. We will eat turkey and potatoes and dressing and I will hug my mom and kids and brothers and husband and be thankful, for real.
 |
| 11/22/2007 |
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