I DO LOVE TO COMMUNICATE (& SIMPLIFY!)
Welcome to the grab bag
Use the search bar or scroll down to read my unpacking of current politics, cyclical living, and #liesthepatriarchytoldme.
On my to-do list…
So, our joy matters. And sometimes that joy looks like tuning in to my body and checking in what she can actually do today. Not yesterday, or tomorrow, or 20 years ago, or an imagined body that I’ve never had (that one is one of my favourites to pretend matters. “What would the perfect imaginary version of myself be able to do in perfect land?” I ask myself, and then beat myself up for failing from that. Because that’s reasonable.). But today, what am I actually capable of? Very often it doesn’t connect with my to-do list. Because my to-do list is never, ever done. There is always something new I’m forgetting, something fresh that needs my attention, or at the vey least a giant pile of old things that I “keep meaning to get to”.
…on distraction
I glance at the time. Still 20 minutes until we can leave, and then it’s the evening exhaustion run: finish-dinner-do-dishes-tidy-house-plan-tomorrow... my brain is jumping from undone item to undone item - cleaner is coming tomorrow I’d better remember to tidy, oh no I didn’t follow up on that note from corporate, shoot the laundry isn’t done yet either... the wheel spins, and a deep sigh escapes my mouth as I realize the earliest possible bath is at least 3.5 hours away. I am exhausted and I haven’t even gotten to the most tiring part of the day.
On not being the perfect mom…
The rain beading on the kitchen window in perfectly round droplets, until they become so full that they run the banks, overflow from input – there’s just too much water for one little drop to hold. It runs down the window, release and relief, until it stops.
I realize I have been standing at the sink, wet hands suspended over the basin, for longer than I think. How do I find the balance to be here, really here, right now?
…on things unsaid.
Sitting on that funny chair in your tiny kitchen that had the stairs on it. The way your fresh butter tarts, right out of the oven, just melted on my tongue. Rows and rows of dusty canning in the porch. The smell of picking a fresh tomato. That little dish of stale hard candies that I ate from non-stop, even though they stuck to my teeth and weren’t even particularly good. Tea, every day at 4pm, and always on the good china.