I’ve started writing almost every day since Tuesday and went straight down the rabbit hole of self-pity. It was a greater pity than “self,” making the hole deeper and wider and so easy to tumble into. Having no partner to debrief with adds to the rabbit hole quality of the writing. I read articles by those who have written eloquently. What do I have to add? I thought of posting links to all the articles that I’ve read. For days, I could post links. Instead, I tried to find quiet. Not an easy tasks with the furies and demons circling. Continue reading
Category: Journaling My Days
I journaled for years on paper and I expect to be doing it in some form until my last days. In short summary, I teach mindfulness to parents of kids with challenges; I garden as often and as much as I can in Wisconsin and I am working through the threads of grief six years after my husband’s death. I am very grateful for finding and chasing the joy in this unexpected life.
open hands
In 1851, The Whale, the English edition of Moby-Dick, was published, differing from the American edition with thousands of punctuation and spelling changes, and over 700 different wordings. In 2003, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth book in the series, was published with 864 of similar differences between the American and British versions. Has our understanding English improved in the last 150 years?
Joni Mitchelle’s For The Roses this morning. Comfort music. Not quite my first Joni but the first album that I bought when it was released. Prior to Joni, I had been such a musical snob. I appreciated trained voices and songs that were a part of stories. Musical stories. Oh, there were the Beatles, The Dave Clark 5 (my best friend’s favorite) and other distractions. They were inconsequential, or so I thought. The American Musical Theater was my ‘real’ music. And then Joni, thanks to a boyfriend, and also our newest Noble Prize winner. I’ve been humming Dylan albums straight through all week. Continue reading
of murals, tears & voting
Morning mural painting at Randall School stretch way beyond the scheduled noon ending time. A tryptic on the retaining wall that surrounds the gym equipment that so many of us worked for so long to become a reality. Now, five years (Really, five years?) after the ‘new’ playground equipment was assembled, there will be art behind it.
The day dawned unpromisingly gray and I was so concerned that there would be very few people to paint that I texted Kati, the organizing teacher, that we would be a little late. When we arrived, however, there was a bevy of painters young and old applying color to the walls. It was noisy, frantic and busy. I held my breath as we dove into the fray. Julia has not always been able to handle happy, noisy crowds, no matter how friendly. Continue reading
gardening court
A letter to my alder. Continue reading
panera morning
I sit in Panera for coffee and a bagel tapping, answering email, commenting on Facebook, setting up a few meet ups with friends. Panera, at least this one, in the morning is a senior zone. Couples mostly. Of course. In small groups of a single gender or uneven, odd numbered mixes. Is this what substitutes for the boomer bar scene?
I am content just sitting with carbs, fat and caffeine. Observing. There is a woman at the next table who is not. Not happy. She sits alone holding onto a paper cup of hot liquid in front of her. No book or paper or electronic device to accompany her or pass the time. She has not planned for independence. She is waiting. Her fingers tap the cup. She looks at her watch. She looks to the door whenever it opens. The color in her cheeks rises. Her eyes are troubled. She avoids looking at anyone, including me. I would smile at her given half the chance. Continue reading
capturing focus
When my friend, Cindy, wrote “What’s sparking joy?” on her Blog, Yarnstead, she asked the question: “So, how to get back to that top ten, how to recapture the focus I came back from Alaska with last year?”
Good question! So much on my mind. I wanted to call her for coffee and chat, I expected her to be at Saturday service at FUS but instead, days later, I write.
I know, I know. Yes, yes! I know. How? And not just how to recapture the focus for sparking joy, but also, how to hold focus in the midst of whirling chaos. How to recall and return to it when the immediate fires are put out? How not to dissipate that wonderful energy on those immediate fire that inevitably flare up.
Yes, good question. Continue reading
all that no longer fits
Yesterday was a day of issues and challenges. Two to be precise. Two challenges that I had no idea I was going to come home to. Both require lots of energy and some decisionmaking. After 24 hours of fretting and feeling sorry for myself, for us, it was time for action. Action, in some cases, is a number of phone calls, messages left and then patient waiting. So a measure of frustration gets added to the mix, but I posted on Facebook and also on my neighborhood listserv about the appropriate issues and the response from neighbors and friends has been so supportive. And I really needed that. A hazard of living alone, no one to vent to or commiserate with. Online friends are not the answer to all the hard situations of the world but it felt good to keep one eye on Facebook responses as I started cutting down my beloved garden.
first week of summer
The week passed very quickly. It was Thursday before I realized the Tuesday had ended. We did lots of “things.” We both struggled with the transition from school life to vacation life. As much as Julia has transition challenges, my transmission faulted time and time again and I did grind the family gears repeatedly as we sought the new normal.
During the week, I finished the big spring garden job of mulching. With Julia’s help and forbearance. On one hand, I hate the specificity of the process–clear all weeds, dig the defining trench and heap on the chips hauled in black plastic bags from our free town mulching site. On the other, I get to make many garden decisions–what is weed, when is overgrown, what is taking over. I get to edit my garden. And I get to interact with every plant–congratulating the delphinium in glory, enouraging the new hollyhocks, clearing space for the little holly in the back garden and appreciating the bed that is growing up surrounding David’s bench. To do all of this, with Julia either helping or sitting doing math and reading near by is no small task. And we did it. Continue reading
lessons, gardens & travel plans
The days just move along and move along. It is all a-whirl.
Seventh grade ends tomorrow. This is only the second time that Julia has greeted summer with enthusiasm. She understands enough about time to appreciate breaks. I find the transition from school to vacation unnerving. Work in school has been on the wane. Her big “country project” for social studies was finished two weeks ago. Her last book review and spelling test about a week ago. Math has dribbled to a close. Continue reading
curmudgeon cracking
I’ve been wallow-y lately. Lots of stuff going on and little of it easy or smooth. Last week, I cried to the universe: Can’t anything in my life go smoothly!? I think the universe answered: no. Honestly, when I get like this, I’d really like to climb out of my skin and give it away. Who in their right mind would take it?
Self pity. Ugly, messy stuff. A gaggle of quotations run through my mind. I get it. Self pity. A dangerous elixir.
Pouts:
The school year is not winding down gracefully. Julia was late to school six days in a row. A lack of focus on doing the tasks at hand is the raison d’être — redressing a doll, picking up some reading, working on a lego piece has all taken precedence to getting washed, dressed and ready. The loss of focus happens in an instant, my back turns, I make my bed, I run downstairs to start the kettle. And Julia has been disrespectful to teacher twice this week — refusing work, speaking inappropriately, being generally mean. I live in dead fear that this will escalate and mark her as a trouble maker. I fear alienating the very people, her teachers, who are her lifeline to the world. Continue reading
Chasing Joy 