thoughts
Fresh from the Stream
of consciousness …
Have you ever had a day when you do everything right but you still get it all wrong?
Have you ever had a day when you do everything right but you still get it all wrong? I’m having one of those days - I slept well, snuggled with the kids, made a reasonable to-do list, mediated, intermittented my fast, held a boundary, celebrated a win, wholed my 30, burped my burpees, and I still want to kill somebody. Damn! I’m just going to stick to ironing today - I’ll kill the wrinkles.
How is it possible…
that in the midst of lockdowns and pandemic – when time literally feels as elastic as a rubber band - I continue finding myself wanting it all to slow down. I hold my babies and can practically feel them growing in my arms and I want it slow down. I feel the heat of the iron in my hand, the blast of damp steam on my face (the closest I've come to facial in ages) as the stubborn wrinkles in my sheets release their grip and I want it slow down. I tear up as I the onions I chop unleash their pungent protest to being cut apart, then I inhale their sweet surrender as they bubble away in scalding butter and I want it slow down. I want to inhabit the moment I am in - I want to feel, taste, smell, touch, all that the moment has to share - the joy, the pain, the sorrow, the delight, the curiosity, the revelation. I want someone to constantly whisper in my ear - surrender, surrender, surrender.
I had my first solo walk in too many days.
I chased the sun’s setting rays and basked in the beauty that surrounded me. I danced with the cooling air and the light of the golden hour. I fully exhaled the sludge that accumulates in the bottom of my lungs from harried shallow breaths and deeply inhaled the sweet icicles floating on the breeze!!! And somehow in the midst of this sensorial ecstasy I managed to only wobble while sliding across black ice!!!
Have you been hiding?
I have! This morning’s snow blanketed the daffodils and I thought maybe I’m not hiding maybe I’m just a flower under the snow growing in spite of the dark and the cold and just like the flowers under the snow there will come a time when I cannot help but reach for the light. Maybe just maybe that’s what I’ve been up to - how ‘bout you?
Hey mommas - it’s been a year hasn’t it!
You made it - NYE. Are your children nestled snug in their beds? Mine aren’t - I’m about to go read them, snuggle them, and love them to sleep. I won’t see a ball drop or have a champagne toast - I’ll probably be asleep entwined with one or more of my children in about 30 minutes time. See this mom things doesn’t stop, it doesn’t stop for birthdays, Christmas or New Years. This motherhood thing is a 24-hour seven day a week rain or shine kind of gig. I love it, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done in my life but it never stops - until it does. And when that day comes - when I’m not on 24/7 - I will miss this time - this all-encompassing never-ending labor of love. So tonight, I’m gonna give it my all again, but before I do I want to wish you a Happy New Year. Truth be told, my year probably won’t look all that different than this year and I’m ok with that. Nonetheless, my wish for you and for me is that we venture on down the road knowing that we are love, we are loved and that we matter!! Happy New Year - I love you!!! Xoxo
I love you so very much!
Do you know what an amazing human being you are! You are raising gorgeous humans, sharing your gifts with the world, making good trouble, making amazing art, educating yourselves, opening to your blindsides, writing music that breaks me open and heals my heart, owning your mistakes, loving your neighbors, living your morals, and inspiring the heck out of me by just being unbelievably amazing! Keep going - I see you, I hear you, and love you to bits!!!!
Oh friends, my heart is heavy.
Waking up to the news of the Barrett's confirmation - Trump’s replacement for RBG’s vacancy on the US Supreme Court - placed a weight on my chest. This confirmation was the unapologetic grandstanding of the withering white patriarchy that sees power slipping from its irrelevant grasp. Its hypocrisy and immorality laid bare for all to see. I don't know how we will right this wrong - but I know that in time we will. We will because the tide turns in our favor, we will because the evils on which our country was founded are being rooted out of the festering darkness and shriveling in the light, we will right this wrong because we still believe there is a better way and we will fight like hell to make it so. In times like these I need to cradle my heart with tenderness - art is so often the fluffy down on which I need to rest when I feel so violated. Moira Smiley's new song Days of War is just the sweet pillow on which to rest my tender heart. Have a listen to this loving bird sing about how we go on - “I sing to know that love is near because anger holds the hand of fear/I sing to know that love is near, oh courage take the hand of fear.”
OMG - totally random thought:
An ad just reminded me that I had a dream last night that peloton bikes were actually insidious mind control devices. My paranoia has escaped the porous confines of my conscious mind and is totally messing with my dreams - well maybe that actually is a reflection on the political landscape today. In any event, could be a good Halloween themed Working Moms or Motherland episode.
September 11th is not the same in the UK.
This year it came and went without much pause. It was a gorgeous pre-fall day. My children ran around with friends, I gathered with parents from my youngest's class, there was little marking the day as any different from the day before it or the day after. But it was different and I knew by the congestion I felt in my heart - that feeling I get when I know there is an emotion that needs feeling, but for whatever reason my hardened ways won't allow me to do it in that moment. My husband and I reflected on the stories we recount annually. The stories of friends making final calls home as they knew that they were not going to get out of the towers and distant relatives who perished in the midst of mythical heroism. We recounted our whereabouts and the phone calls we made to each other. And still I was blank, stoic, hard. At times I seem to suffer from emotional constipation because I need to just get on with it - or that is what I tell myself. But today I paused and listened to NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert of Come From Away. And my heart cracked and my emotions released. I don't ever want my heart to harden to all that transpired that day and everything that has occurred in its wake. It changed everything, it changed me, it changed my country. I was 22 on September 11th working for my father on the east end of Long Island - that day marks the end of my innocence - ignorant though it may have been. Where were you on September 11th?
I freed myself
From the tyrannical grip Epson held over my printer ink options - I managed to get good clean print with unauthorized ink! That's me stick'n to the man!
Good morning 7th of September 2020.
Within the confines of your 24 hours countless children will return to school, their parents breathing a sigh of relief having crossed the invisible finish line of summer break, you will be filled with lots of prayers that the novel corona virus does not come home along with half eaten lunches and homework assignments. You are beautiful with your pink sunrise and your bird song. I am eager to get to know you. There will be only one of you 7th of September, other days may feel like you, may smell like you, may sound like you and taste like you - but they will never be you. So, I am going to spend today with you, not with yesterday or tomorrow – because they aren't here! I am going to spend today with you, so I can know you and you can know me. xoxo