Again, coming to you live on location at (now) "Old Souls at the Weatherstone."
Monday mornings are one of two spots in my week when I am free to do as I like -- an autonomous adult in the world. But it's generally assumed that I'll do at least one thing: workout. Instead, lately, I've just been holing up here with computer or journal the whole morning. With computer, journal and coffee. With computer, journal , coffee, and, ahem, cafe baked goods. Ahem. So much for will power.
I so wish it were as simple as I decide not to eat the things I know I can't eat rationally, and then, presto! Done with that. Well, blessings on you for whom that's your story. It's not mine.
I'm reminded of a line from Richard Rohr: "Trust the down because you won't stay there, it is always the prelude to up." This is not where I am staying, in this tar pit of obsessive eating and its accompanying despair. It will change. It will change.
Funny. And then, to follow on that thought, as I get to the bottom of my Americano this morning, each sip gets progressively sweeter, thanks to the big hunk of cookie that broke off as I was dipping it.
And, now, the last sip swallowed, the taste in my mouth is of a semi-melted semi-sweet chocolate chip.
Perhaps this strange benediction on my morning's lapse should cause me to feel ashamed, or sorry, or even confronted by my lack of will power. What I feel instead with surprise and delight, is that I've been winked at by Grace. "Yep, I know you. You funny thing. Just to help make the point of sinking down being the beginning of rising up, here: an sensory association that will speak to you."
Does God work that way? Who knows. I don't. But this is the bird that has alighted in my palm this morning and I'm letting it stay until it flies off of its own accord.
3/31/08
3/28/08
Mysteries solved
Mystery #1
My baby girl likes to chew on her big sister's Dorothy slippers.
Mystery #2
Kay woke in the wee hours as if from a dream. I went to soothe her hopefully back to sleep and she cried, plaintively, "I want Dee back."
This has happened before. And, as before, I said, "She's right here, sweetie," gesturing at her sleeping sister in the crib.
"I want Dee back," she said again, this time more urgently.
"She's right here."
In the past this has appeared to resolve the issue, except to the extent that I've been left wondering what she must have been dreaming; Kay has quieted and gone back to sleep. This morning she persisted.
"I want Dee to GO back."
My mama's heart sank with understanding.
"Yes," I said, kissing her forehead. "I know you feel that way. But we love Dee and she loves us. YOU love Dee and she loves you. She's staying, sweetheart."
To which Kay gave a small nod and rolled over to face the wall, sucking her thumb.
Some mysteries are not so much fun to solve.
My baby girl likes to chew on her big sister's Dorothy slippers.
Mystery #2
Kay woke in the wee hours as if from a dream. I went to soothe her hopefully back to sleep and she cried, plaintively, "I want Dee back."
This has happened before. And, as before, I said, "She's right here, sweetie," gesturing at her sleeping sister in the crib.
"I want Dee back," she said again, this time more urgently.
"She's right here."
In the past this has appeared to resolve the issue, except to the extent that I've been left wondering what she must have been dreaming; Kay has quieted and gone back to sleep. This morning she persisted.
"I want Dee to GO back."
My mama's heart sank with understanding.
"Yes," I said, kissing her forehead. "I know you feel that way. But we love Dee and she loves us. YOU love Dee and she loves you. She's staying, sweetheart."
To which Kay gave a small nod and rolled over to face the wall, sucking her thumb.
Some mysteries are not so much fun to solve.
3/11/08
The Things That Get By Me
End of a long miraculously pleasant morning at the zoo (all three of us were sick and cranky at home) and I'm perched on the edge of the cargo space of my station wagon, changing a squirming baby inside. The ride home is short, but long enough for the onset of naps and I'd consider that a good thing. Too good to mess up by having to wake her to change her at home.
I peel back Dee's diaper and as I do the sun glints off of several red shiny dots amid the dark brown canvas of compressed poo. I look closer. Glitter. Five, maybe ten, bits of glitter decorate her fecal waste.
No idea how they got there.
I peel back Dee's diaper and as I do the sun glints off of several red shiny dots amid the dark brown canvas of compressed poo. I look closer. Glitter. Five, maybe ten, bits of glitter decorate her fecal waste.
No idea how they got there.
3/6/08
Also...
I am a stew of mixed emotion in response to this blurb on the back cover of HAVING IT & EATING IT:
I suppose I know I'm a walking cliche. And I admit to taking some comfort at the thought; it's like a blinking neon sign of a reminder: this too shall pass; someday, I will be more recognizable to myself again.
But I don't know, something about this blurb also makes me raised-hackled and growly.
(According to A. A. Milne, "growly" is a word.)
"Durrant writes about the vulnerability and diminished self-image peculiar to women with young children with honesty and humor." - The Sunday Times (London)
I suppose I know I'm a walking cliche. And I admit to taking some comfort at the thought; it's like a blinking neon sign of a reminder: this too shall pass; someday, I will be more recognizable to myself again.
But I don't know, something about this blurb also makes me raised-hackled and growly.
(According to A. A. Milne, "growly" is a word.)
A New Book
I've just started "Having It and Eating It: a Novel" by Sabine Durrant. I'm still waffling on whether it's got me or not, but this passage from pages 19-20 surely did. (Italics hers.)
And now, after not nearly a long enough nap, Kay wakes, cranky, and the also-truth of my servanthood is reasserted. For now, it is enough to know these two truths exist together to prompt my gratitude.
ps. If anyone can tell me why I'm losing the comfy double-spacing of my first paragraph, reverting to this squashed claustrophobic single spacing for the remainder of my posts lately -- and how to avoid it -- you'll be my hero.
"I missed [my job] like hell.I rode my bicycle, the girls in the carriage behind me, to our Thursday morning playgroup this morning and absolutely felt my soul soar with the freedom of this life. The weather was beautiful, the girls were being kind to each other (at least on the way there), and it took me maybe even three times the time to get to the park as it would have in a car, every minute of which I felt how truly I am here in the world and free in my choices. It was lovely.
"But I had the children. And really I couldn't complain. Oh I know there were days when I was subsumed by the task of it, by the things none of the manuals tell you: the mess and the noise and the chaos and the clobber and the palaver, and the squeezing of the person you used to be into this dull, one-tracked, loaded-down creature with opinions on the introduction of solids and an encyclopedic knowledge of diaper absorbency; the sense in those early years at any rate, of being swallowed whole. But things would change. The children would get bigger. They'd go to school. I'd read a grown up book again. .... There were moments even then 'trapped at home with the children,' when I would feel my soul soar with the freedom of it all. And it might just be hearing the theme tune to the two o'clock broadcast [of a favorite show] that would do it. Or it might be the sense, waiting at the station on platform 2 for a train to take me to the seaside or the swimming pool or a distant park, when everyone else was on platform 1, briefcases at their ankles, irritated fingers tapping watches, pinched impatient faces scanning the empty tracks behind, that I was going against the tide, that I was my own boss, the big cheese in a corporation of one -- and two halves. Or it may simply have been that I felt in touch with my own life, with the diurnal nothings of it, aware of every change in the weather, each kaleidoscope shift in the day's light. You may have no time to yourself when you have small children, but you also have all the time in the world."
And now, after not nearly a long enough nap, Kay wakes, cranky, and the also-truth of my servanthood is reasserted. For now, it is enough to know these two truths exist together to prompt my gratitude.
ps. If anyone can tell me why I'm losing the comfy double-spacing of my first paragraph, reverting to this squashed claustrophobic single spacing for the remainder of my posts lately -- and how to avoid it -- you'll be my hero.
3/5/08
MY-cookie-festo
I'm outright stealing the title for this post from Sheri because, well, because I can't be bothered to try to out-clever her -- I'd stand no chance, anyway -- and because I'm drawing courage and encouragement from the fact of her same titled post to write this one, which will be similar in content, if not panache.
I eat compulsively. I got lulled into believing that was a historical truth for several years when I didn't. I just didn't. It was amazing. For a shining five years, I did not eat sweets like an addict.
But the present tense is back.
I eat sweets, especially, compulsively. Yesterday I felt virtuous for making only a quarter-batch of raw cookie dough to eat. And then, um, I realized -- even a quarter-batch of cookie dough is well over a 1,000 calories.
I've joked that after spending my days lugging around and chasing after two toddlers, I should be the skinniest I've ever been, rather than marching my way up to the fattest. But what's the joke there exactly? That I eat so much I lose all the benefit of an otherwise active lifestyle? It's not really very funny.
I extend to myself the compassion to recognize that there is very little time in my busy day for me these days and that during those glorious years when my eating was "normal," I had a lot more time for journaling/writing, daydreaming, working out, praying/meditating, reading, and performing. In other words, the space for Me in my life was ample (and -- this is key -- I used it). When I eat sweets now (or whatever other "goodie" is chosen for this effect), the most common phrase that runs through my head is, "I just need something for me." How ironic that I grow so much more ample in size, the less ample the time I spend feeling like myself. The more of my body in the room, the less me?
This is my declaration -- my-cookie-festo: I'm giving up cookies -- and not just cookies but "goodies." Which technically should include all non-sweet food choices not driven by physical hunger. But I'm going to start here:
No more:
It is okay to be unhappy/frustrated/angry/bored/tired/anxious/sad/whatever unpleasant or inconvenient emotion that triggers that thought "I just need something for me." That state will pass. It will. And maybe, just maybe, if I stop reacting to every unpleasant thing as though it MUST BE MADE BETTER RIGHT NOW, and just ride its wave, I will stop feeling so out-of-control, as though I must hide evidence, and like a poor role model to my daughters. Maybe I'd even feel like me more of the time.
A girl can dream anyway.
So today I've already had a cafe baked good. But I've toured the kitchen twice now while writing this and managed to sit down empty-handed. A lot more of that would be a big, big, big relief.
I'll try to let you know how it goes.
* "Practice" as in to train at, to attempt repeatedly with the goal of proficiency
Please, please, please do not feel obliged to read on. This is not pretty.
I eat compulsively. I got lulled into believing that was a historical truth for several years when I didn't. I just didn't. It was amazing. For a shining five years, I did not eat sweets like an addict.
But the present tense is back.
I eat sweets, especially, compulsively. Yesterday I felt virtuous for making only a quarter-batch of raw cookie dough to eat. And then, um, I realized -- even a quarter-batch of cookie dough is well over a 1,000 calories.
I've joked that after spending my days lugging around and chasing after two toddlers, I should be the skinniest I've ever been, rather than marching my way up to the fattest. But what's the joke there exactly? That I eat so much I lose all the benefit of an otherwise active lifestyle? It's not really very funny.
I extend to myself the compassion to recognize that there is very little time in my busy day for me these days and that during those glorious years when my eating was "normal," I had a lot more time for journaling/writing, daydreaming, working out, praying/meditating, reading, and performing. In other words, the space for Me in my life was ample (and -- this is key -- I used it). When I eat sweets now (or whatever other "goodie" is chosen for this effect), the most common phrase that runs through my head is, "I just need something for me." How ironic that I grow so much more ample in size, the less ample the time I spend feeling like myself. The more of my body in the room, the less me?
This is my declaration -- my-cookie-festo: I'm giving up cookies -- and not just cookies but "goodies." Which technically should include all non-sweet food choices not driven by physical hunger. But I'm going to start here:
No more:
- cookies
- cookie dough
- other homemade or store-bought sweets
- cafe (or bakery) goodies
- sweet and creamy drinks (coffee or not)
It is okay to be unhappy/frustrated/angry/bored/tired/anxious/sad/whatever unpleasant or inconvenient emotion that triggers that thought "I just need something for me." That state will pass. It will. And maybe, just maybe, if I stop reacting to every unpleasant thing as though it MUST BE MADE BETTER RIGHT NOW, and just ride its wave, I will stop feeling so out-of-control, as though I must hide evidence, and like a poor role model to my daughters. Maybe I'd even feel like me more of the time.
A girl can dream anyway.
So today I've already had a cafe baked good. But I've toured the kitchen twice now while writing this and managed to sit down empty-handed. A lot more of that would be a big, big, big relief.
I'll try to let you know how it goes.
* "Practice" as in to train at, to attempt repeatedly with the goal of proficiency
3/3/08
Four-ish things
#1 -- The Impetus to Post:
sheri, of happinest, tagged me with this:
Everything is path, even when off-road.
I tag YOU -- dear reader, whoever you are. (Unless you're sheri, in which case, you're off the hook.) Please let me know when you post your 6 word memoir.
#2 - A New Look
I thought I was going to re-do my layout to make it look more like spring over here, but honestly, this new look is much more reflective of my very current (as in my RIGHT NOW) emotional state, which I recognize is not particularly "spring-y."
The weather's beautiful. Outside my window, there are pink cherry blossoms marching up their black-brown branches against a bright blue sky. I feel even more amiss, I think, because that image is so incongruous with my emotional state: I need dark bare branching lacing across a dark gray sky.
It's still winter in my psyche. I'm still laying fallow -- or maybe I'm even newly fallow, but that's a different story.
It's all okay. I'm just still a season behind.
#3 -- Other Changes
Weatherstone has recently undergone an ownership change. It is a Java City store no more. I was in there today, and I miss the staff.
However, the new owners (Old Souls) are keeping the name. And they make the very best cookies in town (though this is a topic I need to get to more earnestly than I intend to at this moment).
It feels momentous to me; an opportunity to make metaphor, and yet, I am floundering a bit for exactly what meaning to make of it. I may come back to this later.
#4 -- Where I've Been
I'm not making excuses, I'm not. I can't start that because otherwise the next time I tarry between posts, I'll do as I've done this time and waste time coming back while I try to figure out how to explain why it has been so long. If there had been a clamoring mob asking and harassing me about my absence from this blog that might be one thing, but this is one of the thousands (millions?) of humble blogs that may attract a reader or two a week, and which exists mostly, I think, because of the writer's fear that if she stops writing she might die.
In this particular case, however, I can attribute the lapse in part to the fact that I've been taking a writing class since January (the December lapse before that was just, you know, holiday insanity), and any energy, not to mention time, that I've had to write has gone into homework. The class ended this weekend and I am more than a little bereft about it. It's left me with three gifts: 1. a complete story-arc for a novel; 2. a commitment to trying to get together a writing group; and, 3. a clarity about myself as a writer that is less apologetic and in need of external confirmation.
Of course I want readers. Of course I do. Of course if I write this novel (and I think I might actually) I hope to sell it. But I want to write because I am a writer the way some people are painters or dancers or musicians: writing is where I touch the face of god. It's the activity beyond all other activities in which I reach simultaneously inward and outward, when I become more than myself and myself absolutely.
Barf, I know. But this is my blogging dilemma: the time I spend blogging is typically my fingers barfing onto the keyboard -- it's not time I spend carefully crafting my words, being purposeful with each word. And it was fun to return to that kind of writing -- really careful (full of care) with each word, each image, each line and to remember the transcendence in that effort. I want to do more -- which while not incompatible with blogging, changes the purpose of and time available for blogging.
What does it all mean? Possibly nothing. Stay tuned.
sheri, of happinest, tagged me with this:
Borrowing, with permission from bookbabie, the following fabulous idea: what would you say if you had to summarize your life in only six words? Bookbabie got the idea from a book written by Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser, Not Quite What I was Expecting: Six Word Memoirs by Famous and Obscure. It is a compilation based on the story that Hemingway once bet ten dollars that he could sum up his life in six words. His words were: For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.
Here are the rules:
1. Write your own six-word memoir
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere
4. Tag five more blogs with links
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!
Everything is path, even when off-road.
I tag YOU -- dear reader, whoever you are. (Unless you're sheri, in which case, you're off the hook.) Please let me know when you post your 6 word memoir.
#2 - A New Look
I thought I was going to re-do my layout to make it look more like spring over here, but honestly, this new look is much more reflective of my very current (as in my RIGHT NOW) emotional state, which I recognize is not particularly "spring-y."
The weather's beautiful. Outside my window, there are pink cherry blossoms marching up their black-brown branches against a bright blue sky. I feel even more amiss, I think, because that image is so incongruous with my emotional state: I need dark bare branching lacing across a dark gray sky.
It's still winter in my psyche. I'm still laying fallow -- or maybe I'm even newly fallow, but that's a different story.
It's all okay. I'm just still a season behind.
#3 -- Other Changes
Weatherstone has recently undergone an ownership change. It is a Java City store no more. I was in there today, and I miss the staff.
However, the new owners (Old Souls) are keeping the name. And they make the very best cookies in town (though this is a topic I need to get to more earnestly than I intend to at this moment).
It feels momentous to me; an opportunity to make metaphor, and yet, I am floundering a bit for exactly what meaning to make of it. I may come back to this later.
#4 -- Where I've Been
I'm not making excuses, I'm not. I can't start that because otherwise the next time I tarry between posts, I'll do as I've done this time and waste time coming back while I try to figure out how to explain why it has been so long. If there had been a clamoring mob asking and harassing me about my absence from this blog that might be one thing, but this is one of the thousands (millions?) of humble blogs that may attract a reader or two a week, and which exists mostly, I think, because of the writer's fear that if she stops writing she might die.
In this particular case, however, I can attribute the lapse in part to the fact that I've been taking a writing class since January (the December lapse before that was just, you know, holiday insanity), and any energy, not to mention time, that I've had to write has gone into homework. The class ended this weekend and I am more than a little bereft about it. It's left me with three gifts: 1. a complete story-arc for a novel; 2. a commitment to trying to get together a writing group; and, 3. a clarity about myself as a writer that is less apologetic and in need of external confirmation.
Of course I want readers. Of course I do. Of course if I write this novel (and I think I might actually) I hope to sell it. But I want to write because I am a writer the way some people are painters or dancers or musicians: writing is where I touch the face of god. It's the activity beyond all other activities in which I reach simultaneously inward and outward, when I become more than myself and myself absolutely.
Barf, I know. But this is my blogging dilemma: the time I spend blogging is typically my fingers barfing onto the keyboard -- it's not time I spend carefully crafting my words, being purposeful with each word. And it was fun to return to that kind of writing -- really careful (full of care) with each word, each image, each line and to remember the transcendence in that effort. I want to do more -- which while not incompatible with blogging, changes the purpose of and time available for blogging.
What does it all mean? Possibly nothing. Stay tuned.
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