UNWIFED

for real, i have over 30 posts over there, so i can say its for real now... most likely.
go read at unwifedmotherexpletive.com

its pretty cool.

Writing wiring

I spent some time going back through old journals this week.  I was looking for funniness in the past year, as it always floats just below all the water in my well.  Humor, ladies, I have.

And it has been so striking to me.  I have little interest in going back through the typing here, but the journals, while truly sporadic, have a wealth.. It is the difference between the most beautiful photograph of a chocolate cake, delectable in its shading and lighting work .. and the actual cake, that you are allowed to taste.
   
What is true about handwriting is that speed is changed, automatic editing occurs in the curving of the letters.  A forced slow down. More thought. More consideration, a tangible process wherein words are actually weighed, in a rhythm with thought...

The delay of gratification, the impossibility of sharing spontaneously is the stonework in the well...Our new ability to write and share simultaneously has given us all trouble, already, and it is still a relatively new phenomenon. The stillness with which our thoughts sit on paper is important, and I miss it more than I, even now, recognize. (Tricky, that.)

Not all that is immediately expressed is a true expression, and certainly not a clear expression.  I know that from my experience of my own filterless mouth when it comes to hard times with the stranger and stranger J.  When the immediacy is altered, when the threat of the 'share' is gone, the true has a greater potential to show itself.  Do you think?  At least, the potential is larger, I think.

Yah? There is a lot there.
Here is some of what I found delightful ...

I have a very hard time with the opaque nature of my own feelings.

Oh God. I love naps. I hate naps. Torture. Torture.

I double knot my own shoes.

..pears in their golden shapes.  (IN their shapes? Is it something separate from its shape? )

- the fundamental unknowability of mothers.
(This one was in Pickle Me This., a great blog by Kerry Clare that I read when I find moments, and the post was good too... so go check it out...It is such a good and true thought.). So, it wasn't my funny, but I made note. And it is delightful in its weight.
 
Gently-baby bird- gently.

:) wmx

SURGE... and SURGE again...

The light here just goes on and on... Sometimes I'm just blown back onto my heels.

And as spring has now so fully sprung, there is so much green it is almost a flavor. 

So there is dancing, and whirling ... and some chanting of 'mine, mine, mine!!!' As i am finally getting closer to who I was before I was buried for so long. 

There is fear and anger, and surges of both catch me off guard on a regular basis. 

So there.  So it is.

Retreat. And a Year.

I just got back from a Quaker Retreat for kids grade 2-grade 6.  Its the fourth or fifth of these in which i have been a 'staffer', which essentially means that I play with kids all weekend and make them feel safe at night when we all scatter over the property and fall to the ground with weary.
* I am SO good at making kids feel safe, its like a superpower.  I am good at it with grown ups too, especially now that I feel so much safer in my own home life.

Everyone should get to feel safe where they are. Everyone.
Its amazing what a little safety can do. Its a great place to leap off...

But anyhow, and also.  I was at this same retreat center a full year ago, on my first retreat as staffer.  I had gotten my almost ex-husband out of the house four months prior, and just heard that he was in love, deeply. He is a fast mover, yes. He is still with that person, too, and I could have a lot to say about that, but won't. But am glad that was not something I went ahead and did, so lets just leave it at that.

I was such a goddamned hot mess.  Met a lovely man (a happily-in-relationship one, turns out) which freaked me out and I spent a lot of the first weekend avoiding eye contact and thinking obsessively.  And now, we are friends and it doesn't freak me out, and I'm so glad to meet happy and complicated people.
* One of the things I did not have a year ago was my own dear friends, and now I do.  J was not a good friend to me. There were so many reasons for that, but I made it a slow jam priority for the year, to find new connections and I feel really accomplished in the gathering of a people who are delighted by me and in whom I find some real comradery.

I cried a lot that first retreat and journaled a lot and worried a lot that maybe I shouldn't be with kids.  I must I was a real and thorough mess, and I just barely made it through. I called my missing child every night and wept.

 And this time? I laughed and played and made kids and grown ups feel safe. And loved and held and cherished. My phone battery died.  I did try to charge it but the car charger wasn't working.  It was good that I didn't know. The babe was sick at the babysitters and there was nothing I could have done about making it right from there.  SO instead I made s'mores and sang lullabys by a campfire with 28 children.  There were two boys there who had never roasted a marshmallow.  Boy, the learning curve is steep.  The fire claimed tears and marshmallows aplenty. And some of the tears were mine. And I was so content to let them go.

The retreat center is in the middle of Massachusetts and has cabins and woodstoves and log piles that stretch for miles, and so many of them.  The land is curated into beautiful and more beautiful and it is impossible not to feel cherished by the universe when you are in a place of meditation amidst kickball.  And while 'cherished' may slip over into hokey, it is the language of these retreats, and also happens to be true.

Its a really wonderful community of adults, who work at these things. Sometimes with kids in attendance, sometimes with grandchildren, and sometimes because they live for this kind of work.

AH. So, and then.  I woke up early and angry the last two days because of bad dreams wherein I was prodded painfully by J's girlfriend. They were fights that I began.  And 'physically prodded' is literally descriptive as it involved knuckles and elbows.  Very peculiar though she is particularly lanky and angular.  It is an interesting back and forth to consider, especially in the dream world.  That I would be so happy and amazed at how far I have come in a year, and have my brain and subconscious throw me a bitter bone in the midst. A reminder that I am certainly not done.  I do feel like flat-out anger might be my next dipping pool.  We'll see.  I've already spent a lot of time being angry, and so much of it during the marriage... we'll see what it looks like with so much time passage.

Just a fair warning: look out.
:) and there will be much more to be said about this...

Mornings. Musings in (Literally) Wild Disarray...

Ala Cynthia Lee... @restoried.explorations on instagram...
what could i do to make my morning contain more magic.  I find it so easy on the days of sun and spring ... laundry on the line, oh my!! but add a little cloud cover, a boy who won't put his sneakers on or a pile of poo in the hallway courtesy of the dog i call 'asshole' in my head too often, whom i love to pieces, disregarding the poo at every turn... complications yes.

How can i add more magic?  Hm.

Drink the coffee while it is still hot. Tattoo the location of the mug on my palm?

Time, time, time. . .  .to see what's become of me... bangles... i can't help it, i still want to be the little vixenish lead singer and I'm still used-to-be blond and still not a singer after all.

- just heard a man called Jeremiah order his food.  I LOVE THAT NAME. And automatically love him too.  I'm sure he deserves it.

-I've made a pledge of sorts to go sit in a coffee shop once a week and write something there. The mild socialization i will get from people-watching might benefit my coffee-addled self.

-for sure, less of the social media. For sure.

-I've got some things percolating for the summer and I'm really mostly pleased.  I'm a little bit daunted too, frankly, as it is definitely new and a little bit outside of my experience, even. I need to ask for help, and I will. I'm actually going to go do that now, while I am thinking about it - and before i forget for another couple of days... summer is far away, but it really isn't...

-ok, done. Waiting.

-Also realized that a mom friend from preschool has a husband named Zeb.  I just have always been swept away by those didiah biblical names.  I just can't imagine any harm coming from a name like that. Right?

-did you know that the teeny tiny black caterpillars that will turn into gypsy moth motherfuckers also pack an itch punch? Yes. This is like a little fuzzy poisonball that is covering all the surfaces of my yard. Yet another reason to burn it all to the ground.  They say you have to stand in ash to be reborn.

- no really, that one up above is a little creepy.  I'm not going to become an arsonist.  I've got too many things on my list to become.