Okay, so as I write the weather has taken a turn for the weird with a gorgeous and not too windy cooler afternoon. The sun is bright. The sky is blue. The birds are chirping (and crapping on my front porch and stealing my strawberries) and where am I?
I am stuck in the house, reading a horrible novel for a class I don't particularly like and don't find necessarily useful. Then I am stuck at the keyboard pushing my brain past its boundaries trying to somehow articulate the complexities of race and gender when all I really want to do is eat chocolate chip ice cream and watch Project Runway...
I want a day or week or month where I don't have to think. When I don't have to look at the complexities of a situation, when I don't have to think about 6 weeks and counting, when I can just BE. I want to veg. I want to play scarecrow in my garden and finally taste the bright red fruit that the damn barnswallows keep depriving me of. I want to play frisbee with Maisey and really be able to listen when Bradley tells me the litany of Pokemon he has captured on his game. I want to be able to kiss my husband before he falls asleep and I want to sleep without dreaming of fantastical Spanish lit, racial configurations in Southern lit, the horror of showing up on defense day and forgetting everything, and bombs.
I am beginning to feel like the wicked witch, like someone is running after me with a bucket of water, threatening to "melt me" and the really warped part is I am beginning to feel an urge to stop and let them throw the damn bucket.
So I will just say that the day is fast approaching when I am drooling in the recliner, eyes glazed, chanting "I don't want to read anymore...I don't want to write any more...and you can't make me..." Don't wake me then...please just place me in the garden so I can water the flowers on a gorgeous day....bliss
21 comments:
Now I feel really bad for whining about my own boredom on the phone. I have had days, weeks (for over a month now) when I didn't really have to think...I can grade my summer classes on auto-pilot, and the rest of the day is filled with puppy training, housework, or home improvement projects. When Lonnie's home, we play softball or frisbee or paint the house or go for a hike. Sometimes, we go into the woods for an impromptu picnic.
And the quiet! All this time alone...and all of the quiet. And all I can think is I want a day or a week or a month when I have something interesting to think about again. When I have to look at the complexities of a situation, when there are deadlines looming and intellectual work that must be done.
I'm tired of vegging. And the re-runs of Project Runway (and Animal Cops, It's Me or the Dog, Top Chef, and Oprah) get old pretty quick, trust me.
Maybe it's the human condition to always feel dissatisfied with the status quo? Or maybe it's just me... :/
I think that it is part of the human condition...the continual dissatisfaction with the way our lives are going, and the constant want for something different. But here's the thing: you've paid your dues.
You've been working hard, both in the home and outside the home, since you were a teenager. I know when we spoke on the phone we started comparing some of your feelings now to retired people. But I think when you examine all the accomplishments of your life, you have just moved faster than most of us. You live life large.
Maybe that's why you feel so...fill in the blank with the appropriate word. The movie's slowing down and you aren't sure of the next project. You and L have hit a lot of the major plot points of life that many don't even get to experience, for good and for not so good. Honey...you are in liminal space right now.
It must be scary to be facing such uncertainty now. You have some really great choices to make with your life right now and up until now, most of what you have done have not been choices as such. More like decisions made with obligations in mind. It must be hard to try to make a choice solely on what you want to do rather than what is expected or what would serve your family best. While I may joke that I wish I were in your position, I still understand that you must feel really ambiguous about all of this now. How can you choose really between a goal that would solidify yourself in an academic world and a goal that would solidify yourself in a writer's world? I suppose one thing I would tell you to consider it the possibility of both...I don't know if it's possible, but maybe.
As far as me, my plight isn't that much different than most mom's with young kids still at home. We don't quite have the choices and are always pulled in four million directions. You have already been there and done that so don't feel bad. I recognize and send you your props...I had my moments of solitude before I had kids. I'll have them again.
We'll talk soon.
All of this could be easily fixed if we were really young again and didn't give a flip. Everything just gets harder and harder as we get older (and boy, do I have the run on you two!) and--Lisa, you got it right--with age comes obligation.
A couple of years ago I saw something that was so striking I told Kevin about it, and it's stayed with me as an analogy.
A woman was walking two dogs. One was a tubby Daschund that was plugging along, going in its close-to-the-ground way, and the other was one of those little yippy dogs that kept running in circles around the ever-patient, ever-plodding Daschund.
I realized I'm the Daschund. I don't have the energy to be the little yippy dog. I'm plodding, plodding, plodding....
But here's the absolutely fascinating part. They both got to their destinations at the same time--the Daschund and the little yippy dog--because THEY WERE ON FREAKING LEASHES!!!!
Okay, maybe this is sounding like a Jack Handey story, but bear with me.
We're all on leashes. Sometimes the leash doesn't give you much play. You can go a little ways out and oops! That's all the room you get today, sweetie.
Other times, the Great Leash Holder decides that today, you've got the run of the Dog Park. You can cavort and sniff to your heart's content.
But you're on the leash.
Right now, Lisa, many hands are holding your leash. But the hands will change. Why else do you think that probably the most popular verse in the Bible is, "This too shall pass"?
I, of course, don't have a leash. My collar is hooked right to the pole.
Janet,
I absolutely love the analogy:) This is why you are a brilliant writer!!! I would have just giggled and walked away.
So K, you are both literally and figuratively in the dog park moment of you life and Janet and I need to be adopted by kinder dog walkers:)heehee!!!
I love it I just love it
Okay so I really shouldn't be writing right now...I've got two novels, a short paper (6 pages), revisal of my thesis, and a trip to Fargo with my hubby to shop for X-mas and b-day presents all before Tues. (K that should make you feel a little bit better about monotony...just a reminder of what academic life feels like some days:)
Mai's okay. I'm still a little worried about taking her to daycare tomorrow given that she's got some kind of flesh-eating bacterial infection, though the antibiotics are helping. I walked into the garage for a smoke just now and I now know where my poor daughter is getting eaten alive...there was a swarm of those evil creatures on the ceiling so plentiful that I heard their hum before I opened the door...yuck (didn't keep me from smoking though)...
Just thought I'd vent for a minute...oh and one last little tidbit...one of the guys Craig was going overseas with just got notified that he has to leave next week instead of in Aug...so maybe the s*(&#t is about to hit the fan with that too...
Love ya both. Just thought I'd catch you up with why I really feel a straight jacket in my future. I know you both understand and have been there done that. Just stroke my hair gentle and dab the drool. And whisper quietly that it'll be okay:)
Lisa (softly, with a gentle caress): it will be okay. As Janet so eloquently pointed out, "This, too, shall pass."
Janet: since I would probably qualify as the energetic little yippy dog, I had to laugh. I will point out, however, that should we ever manage to get off the damn leash, I am so out of there! ;)
I've set a deadline. I will decide my future plans by Friday at 3:30--and whatever I've decided at that point, I'm sticking to it as my five-year plan (barring something catastrophic, like flesh-eating bacteria, for example). ;)
This is one lesson I could learn from GW: "stay the course..." Goodness knows, being a "flip-flopper" in this day and age is NOT a good thing--well, unless it involves pink flip-flops (Janet). ;)
Lisa: Give Maisey a big hug for me because she isn't feeling well, and give Craig one because his situation just sucks. Give one to Brad just because boys his age need more hugs than they think they do. But most of all, give you a hug because I love and miss you (and women our age need more hugs than we get!).
Janet, I'll give you a hug myself when I see you in TWO WEEKS!!! I'm already stocking up on chocolate... ;)
Love you guys!
I cannot believe you are citing GW. I cannot believe that you are using him as the foundation for a new belief...are you okay up there??? Do I need to stage an intervention??? Is your puppy actually brainwashing you??? Kacie?? Kacie?? Are you there??:)
I do worry that this may be your new mantra. Will this man's influence never end?
Love ya
LOL! I thought that might get your attention! ;) Well, it could be the puppy. Or the mountain air. Or maybe it's the conservative atmosphere up here...
I think, though, that mostly it's because I'm tired of feeling wishy-washy and like I lack a clear direction. Fortunately for me, the only life hanging in the balance is my own--and that's only my metaphorical career life. Don't worry; I'm spending some time this week evaluating all of the potential consequences of this particular decision...(I can also learn from other people's mistakes--ahem, er, GW!) ;)
Love,
K.
And here I thought that GW meant George Washington....
Janet,
We would all like to think that:)
Lisa, you made me laugh out loud!
And, you know, 5:30 on Friday has come and gone, with no word from our dearest Kacie about her life plans. Her blog just sits on the internet, untouched, like a plate of Harvard beets.
Has a polar bear eaten her?
An eagle swept her away to its aerie?
A wolf wolferized her?
I said 5:30 even though she said 3:30 because:
A. Time zone difference
B. Benefit of the doubt
C. Seriously bad typist
I, too, noticed the lack of "decision" though I wasn't going to say anything. I figure she's got until Aug 1 (I think: isn't that when everything at UND is due:)?) But K, if you have we'd love to hear and even if you haven't.
I'll write a new entry soon. I had an interesting and much needed "date with my hubby" that consisted of driving to Fargo to go to Toys R Us to get XMAs and Bday presents from Craig to the kiddos. Nothing like really having to be on the ball. It is all starting to feel very surreal and as if I'm in a Made for Lifetime Movie...cue the sappy music with the American flag waving in the background, children eating ice cream, with news footage from Iraq playing on the tv in the background behind a couple clutching each other, trying not to cry, daddy in uniform with duffle bags on the floor...enter commercial for Maxi pads...this is my life.
Totally understand, Lisa, on the Lifetime movie thing. I felt that way when Kevin died. It was as if I was suddenly *in* a movie I'd already seen, and I knew how it had to end. Ick.
Your life is so upended emotionally right now. I'm not a big hugger but I do believe in wine. When this book is done, let's meet and we can pour wine into our suffering selves. Brad or Maisie can drive us home.
Ack. Back to the book. I am so easily distracted this week, and I have to go back to WORK tomorrow. Groan. I think I feel a stomachache coming on and I'd better call in sick....
Where, oh where, is Kacie?
OH! I know! She's in GF, right? Hiding from us. I happen to know that her grandbaby was baptized today because I saw Cindy's sister and her husband and baby in the grocery store. So Kacie has sneaked into GF and she will jump out and yell SURPRISE and we'll all fall over, dead of heart attacks.
See? We're wise to your evil plan, Miss Kacie.
Janet,
I am soooooo there honey!!! Date and time sweetie...date and time.
August 4th. Place to be determined. I'll give you a call...
Sounds great to me and how sad is it that we are blogging at this time of night???
Also, I feel like I should say something and forgive me if it isn't very eloquent. I feel like sometimes it must seem like I'm whining. I want you to know that at no time do I equate the weirdness of my life now with the things you must have dealt with with Kevin dying. I cannot even begin to know how you got up and continue to get up every day and how you seem to be dealing with it in such a graceful way. I realize that this thing I am going through with Craig does not compare and I hope that I never insinuate otherwise. I want you to know that I am drawing some of my tenuous strength from how you handle yourself and I thank you for being a shoulder and partner in cyberworld right now. Good luck with the book. And I will mark my calendar for Aug 4.
Why I am blogging this late at night: see my blog! I am lolling, which is Janet-speak for NOT WRITING THE BOOK!
Don't feel bad about speaking your feelings. You aren't whining.
Your life right now must feel like the Pit and the Pendulum. (No, NOT the Spit and the Speculum! Though if Poe had been a mom, that might be it....) Just waiting, waiting, waiting....
One thing I do not do well is wait. I will go up and down, up and down, up and down, at Walmart looking for the shortest line, and will, of course, spend more time going up and down that I would have if I'd just gotten in the stupid line to begin with!
So you have my utmost empathy, perhaps coming from a totally un-parallel life, as you wait.
I am no longer making sense. I should quit writing, wave the white flag of surrender, and go to bed....where I'll feel guilty because I'm not writing....
ARGH.
You are making a lot of sense. I think the waiting is driving us crazy. And I don't do that well either:)
I agree! Waiting sucks. I've been waiting all summer for my classes to finally end so that I could focus my full attention on my house and my writing, and now, I'm waiting to feel better...ugh!
I think that one of the reasons I hate waiting so much is that it emphasizes how little control I have over certain things--whether it's how fast the line moves at Walmart or how fast my body recovers from a flare-up. It's hard to go with the flow when the "flow" is crawling along at a snail's pace...
This is really weird. I said on this very blog that I felt a stomachache coming on and THE VERY NEXT DAY my lower intestinal tract sort of blew up.
Note to Fate: I WAS JUST KIDDING ABOUT THE STOMACHACHE! THERE WAS NO REASON TO MAKE IT HAPPEN! Seriously, I had a super-horrendous Monday. I don't recall ever being that sick before.
And of course I got no writing done. How could I when I was busily dieing?
So now I am mega-behind on this book. And laundry. (Oddly, it didn't walk down the stairs and jump in the washing machine by itself...although given the fact that I was kind of hallucinating yesterday, it was a total possibility.)
Okay. I am procrastinating. BACK TO THE BOOK!
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