Hold that thought

What I want to write about is the luxury I have, on the weekends, of getting tired of her. Getting frustrated. Of the loving arguments and head butts that prepare her for the complexity of love, the security of forgiveness. Of the time we spend entwined, not playing with toys but playing with each other, making noises, laughing, poking at each other’s faces. The way her eyes communicate such purity of emotion, the joy so joyful, the sadness so dang sad.

I want to write about her vision of the future. “When I get older I’m going to have a kitty and a scooter and I’m going to eat Kimchi.” She’s so brave and definite, there is no doubt, no second guessing, she sees a picture of the world and it will wait for her, this her in the future, this surety and decisiveness, this wonderful sense of order and what will be.

What I want to write about is how brave she is, everyday, navigating this world of constantly shifting meaning, asking “What is a daydream?” and “What’s in the middle of a rock?” That there is nothing missed, no mystery unexplored, and any answer given will suffice.

What I want to write about is how this is the stuff of my life. This is what is smashed between the work and the bills and the dirty, dirty dishes and the piles of wrinkled clean laundry waiting. How each moment I am present I am thinking remember this, hold on to this, and as quickly as that thought is thought all my fears squeeze in through the door and crowd it out.

This is what I want to write.

Still here.

Here I am. My brain still feels scrambled. I hesitate to write about it, because it’s not a worrisome thing. Not a thing even, more just a confused state. Although not too confused to carry on with the every day, the teeth brushing, the work dwelling, the dish doing and the dog walking. Our strong and beautiful tomato plants still get a daily inspection and talking too, weeds get pulled, clothes get put on and taken off.

But there are these blank feelings. Like there is something amazing hiding or just on its way or smoldering. Like there is a terrific beauty right in front of my eyes, and I just can’t see it. (Which there is. Because there always is.)

I seem to be, lately, in a constant state of plotting, only the goal changes minute by minute, the plan changes with every new thought in my head. It’s like the old days at the library, line after line after line of text passing as you slide the microfiche, looking for that one headline, that one article that you need right now. And the feeling, as I search, is the same. Dizzy, heady, hopeful, impatient, and just a touch sick to my stomach.

It’s not unpleasant. It’s something, you know. It’s something. And that’s what I want. Some sort of change, some sort of corner turned, some sort of chapter put to rest, some new thing started. I can feel it. A culmination. But of what?

What I want right now

My mind has been mush lately. I have to ask myself, why am I so scared of the truth? And then, why am I so scared of being myself?

I just want to run and run and run. I want to listen to music, nice and loud, so loud that everything but my ears stops working for a while. And maybe it’s just because I grew up in the 80s but I want to stop making sense. I want to make delicious, textured, colorful no sense. So much no sense that all the no sense gets out, on the page, on the floor, on the ground.

I just want to let go. I want to stop being perceived so I have no more influences, no one to be in front of. So I can just be. I’ve always liked talking and listening better in the dark. There is so much more space. I want more space. I want less filters. I want no editor. I want nothing crafted, nothing well thought out, I want forgiveness, I want instinct and strawberries and sand and water. I want to want what I want. Without thinking it is wrong.

because susan asked!

How did the week go?
Well, I made it the whole week and as to be expected, the last days were much harder than the first. I was climbing the walls by the end of the week, taking slow, roundabout trips to the bathroom, wandering the cube aisles, randomly standing up to peer over cube wall after cube wall to look out a window (that is about 20 feet away) at the gray, gray Portland sky.

I think the bottom line is that those random trips to creative websites make me better at my job. A little bit, in fact, like looking out the window might. Only, since I don’t have any windows I look in to other lives. And those short, brief recharges give my subconscious time to work out ideas, identify problems, get some space. And then I come back to work just a little bit refreshed. And I see things I didn’t see before.

On the flip side, I think I was a little more satisfied, overall, with my life when I wasn’t looking, every day, at these websites. I wasn’t reading tutorials for yet more sewing projects, art projects, baking projects. So my heap of “wish to do” didn’t get any bigger. (Which is good, because it’s already big. Really big.)

I also think that I got a little distance from the-admiration-that-is-so-much-like-envy. (I bet the Dutch have a word for this. Or maybe the Chinese.) I read these blogs and I admire these people (And I don't even know them and that's just plain weird). But I still admire the beauty, the creativity that seems to be in their every day. And then I look at my own life and see yesterday’s dirty dishes on the counter and a stack of mail that needs to be filed and I judge. I’m stepping out of myself and looking in and thinking….really?

But then again. These people are editing their lives. It’s a whole ‘nother monster of blogs who actually write about the ugly stuff. Like the woman who blogged about the three nights it took to let her baby “cry it out”. Her blog helped me through my own “cry it out” adventure. (Well, that and a bottle of wine.) Or, more recently, this guy who wrote about how much it sucks when your kid has a cough. That helped me through Addie’s nasty-ugly virus last week. (Okay. It’s not a blog, really, but you get the idea.)

So I can recognize that I’m buying into a picture of life. The Pottery Barn version of the stay-at-home-artist-mom. But hey, when I’m not busy feeling the difference between me and them, I’m feeling the sameness. And I’m believing that there might be a day that I escape the cube completely. Because you gotta have a picture of the life you want, before you can draw the map to get there.

(Thanks for askin' Susan!)

just to make it clear

The irony of writing about not reading blogs on my blog does not escape me. Wow. That was two nots in one sentence. I rock.

In which I ramble...

I guess the question is what will I do with myself when there is nothing to do. I’m taking a rest from other people’s blogs. A week-long rest from reading about other people, with other lives, with things that I want or don’t want, a break from the weird anonymous world of lurking. It’s only been one day, not even, and I’m already climbing the walls, so to speak, of my cube. Drawing bull after bull after bull.

Don’t get me wrong. Absorption is good. It has its time and place. But since I’ve gotten a 9 to 5, I spend quite a bit of daylight looking at blogs. Because they are a quick break. Because they are better for me than a Diet Coke, because I can surf the internet and eat chocolate at the same time.

This is a test for me, a test to see what I’ll do with time, confined time but time nonetheless. (It’s also just a way to differentiate a week. To interject some sort of different-ness to the 9 to 5 routine.) Because blogs are, in some respects, not far from TV. They are a way of feeling like you’re doing just because you are watching someone else do. The question is what will I do when there is nothing to watch.

I read a quote not too long ago; I’m sure on one of my marathon blog wanders. “Never hope more than you work.” I google it now (I’m allowed to google) and find that Rita Mae Brown said it. It’s been ringing in my head since I read it. That’s what I do when I read blogs. I read about people at home, in their art studios, in their sewing rooms, and they’re making things. And I read and I read thinking “I’ll do that…and I’ll do that.” And I don’t. And at the end of the day I’ve hoped more than I worked –albeit not the work I do for money but the work I do simply because I am in this world and taking up space.

The other day RT said we live in a world where if you don’t have a blog you don’t quite exist. He didn’t quite mean it, and I don’t quite believe it, but it is a weird world. Where everyone can have a say. Everyone can have a presence. Anyone can start a conversation.

ice cubes, old style

We've been trying to phase out the plastic in the house one slow piece at a time. So we'd gotten rid of the plastic ice cube trays which left us buying bags from the Plaid Pantry. So RT went on ebay and found this little vintage cutie.

Who knew that ice cubes could be so good? These homemade, vintage ice cubes are to convenience shop ice cubes what a good maple desk is to an Ikea build-your-own. And RT walks around clinking the cubes in his glass saying "Listen to this. You can't get ice cubes that sound like this these days." And he's right.

To me they sound like my parent's martini hour, like getting iced tea ready for my aunts on the Fourth of July, like a cold glass of water after raking the leaves. I say it's slow food. He says if it was slow food we'd be chipping slivers off a block of ice. I guess you can always go slower.