Unfortunately, I vaguely remember having fun relieving myself of the small but annoying aspects of my simple life.  That would not be the case at this point, however, and while I’ve worked my way through my semi-private temper tantrum this evening, a few things have dawned on me.

The entire time I was working at my not so illustrious career, the fact that I had this load on my plate most likely contributed to my professional demise.  Not that I need an excuse to understand it, mind you.  I’m just floored thinking about it.  I’m floored thinking again about something I’ve realized for years and years:  that women just have to suck it up.  They have to deal.  They have to be the glue and the duct tape and the plaster or whatever it takes to hold the structure everyone depends upon in place.

I knew this.

But somehow, I managed to eek out whatever I found solace in to manage.  And in that effort, I managed to find that solace in things that needed to be taken care of:  my home and family.  I enjoyed my gardening.  I loved to cook.  I even found comfort in cleaning my house.  The big joke was that Martha Stewart actually lived in our house.

And then I gave it up for my job until I gave my job up for myself — or what was left of me.

So now that I’ve joined the portion of society that gets credit for being functional by getting dressed and going to work again, I’ve decided that it’s no longer comforting or pleasant to engage in the domestic tasks mentioned above.  I don’t want to pick up.  I don’t feel like doing the laundry or dusting.  I don’t crave time thinking about which print would look best against that wall in my bathroom that is in desperate need of something hanging on it.

And do you know why?

Because nobody else cares.  No.  Body.  It’s all been just a giant placebo to allow me a diversion so I could keep an even keel.  Stay the course.  Avoid flipping out.

I’m disgusted.

But I think I like my new job.

I just need a couple of posters so I can make some signs to protest the on-going crap women have to put up with when they work.  I’d love to squeeze between their accusing content and walk the streets until a desperate reporter from a failing paper decided to write my story even though there’s nothing spectacular about it.  Just because.

I’m completely convinced I’m getting in line to be a man in my next life — but only if I can guarantee that I can have a wife like me.

I don’t mind the work, the setting is beautiful, and the people I work with are very pleasant, so the day passes quickly.  It’s arriving home that requires more of an adjustment because whatever I haven’t taken care of is sitting and waiting when I arrive.  Clearly I don’t have a fairy godmother.  Sure the MoH helps out — he always has.  It’s more an annoyance to have to be more organized again so that when I do want to enjoy my evening with the menfolk, I’m not having to stare at undone chores and tasks.  Not exactly relaxing, but I suppose that’s what I get.

And then there’s the cooking.

You do understand that a dent has been put in that as well, right?  We don’t do take-out very often, so as much as some may seize the opportunity to fall into that routine after returning to a full-time job, we don’t.  In fact, I starve most of the day and then come home wanting to eat the broad side of a barn.  Unfortunately, that leads to an immediate lack of interest in dinner.  Whatever attempt I make in the feeding the family department is usually decent, but I see it as a string of dominoes.  If I cook, then I have to clean up.  If I cook and it’s tasty, then I have to take photos.  If I take photos, then there’s an outside chance I’ll need to blog about it.

You caught the “need,” right?  Need to blog about it.

There used to be a want, but let’s face it — I treated blogging like a job — a job I wanted. At least I used to. Sure it’s a job that pays crap for the amount of time and effort that goes into it, but it felt like a job nonetheless.  So “need” isn’t quite cutting it any longer.

I’m not sure where I was going with this other than to put down how my thinking is changing as I adjust, and how quickly old routines fall back into place.  At the same time, it shows how quickly new interests fall to the wayside if we don’t continue to nurture them.  It’s forcing me to think about the work to live vs. live to work dilemma.   I’ve decided to take one week day off while it’s slow during the summer and that’s probably helping me put things in perspective. It’s fascinating that on that day off, I can push even the smallest thought of work completely out of my mind — almost as if it didn’t exist.  On the weekend, it’s even better.  And I guess that’s all great, except I miss my quiet time.

Somehow, I have to find that again — even if it means hiding in my closet once in a while.

In the dark.

I could call it meditation.

No, that hasn’t been all that difficult.  What has been troubling is the loneliness I’ve been feeling.  It’s severe at times — so much so that I’ve been reduced to tears, surprised, and a bit unsettled about my unexpected emotions.  Although I’m thankfully past the worst of it, I sense a void that reminds me of a similar feeling I’ve experienced before — that of leaving something behind unwillingly, of loss.

It’s fairly painful.

For days, I struggled to think of pleasant things, and to busy myself with activities I enjoy, but wasn’t as successful as I’d liked.  I fell easily into my old habit of thinking of others less fortunate than myself.  Of so many who now find themselves without work and struggling to keep their homes.  And I tried to understand the uncomfortable pressure on my chest that all but screamed I was making an enormous mistake.

To help focus on the positive, I sat down with the MoH and we made a list of all that I’d like to do with my income over the next year:  repair the lighting and drip system on the patio; replace the fencing; install an energy-efficient hot water system, put organizers in the closets, repair a few old dining room chairs, have two other chairs reupholstered….Not quite as glamorous as others may think, but concrete enough to allow me to see that a year of my time at this point in my life counted for something.

I’m a strong believer in the idea that things happen for a reason.  That opportunities are placed before us all the time, and the extent to which we allow ourselves to see them determines whether our lives are rich and fulfilling, or mundane and guarded.  The ironic aspect of it all is that when I take the steps I do in new directions, I rarely realize whether it’s the best decision for me and those I care about.  Instead, it’s more an unknown, a tentative decision at best, and I attempt to keep my mind open to whatever may lie ahead truly believing that a unique experience is just over the hill.

All the while, I’m chastising myself, shaking my head over maudlin thoughts and pathetic self-absorbtion.  It’s grossly embarrassing, yet I can’t prevent it.  So I heave with countless cleansing breaths, and try to relax.  I give in to the sadness and then try to snap out of it.  I count what I should feel fortunate about, and move ahead.  I look for beauty in small things, and count stars at night.  I wonder how on Earth something so good could feel so wrong.

Only those with common experiences seem to understand how closely lives can be linked, how much one can grow to depend on community, on friendship and camraderie gained while sitting in front of a computer.  Over the past two years, lovely people who live a state, a country, or even an ocean away have truly and unexpectedly become part of my small world and enriched it more than I can describe.

Sadly, I’m missing all of them right now, and no amount of organizing my garage, digging in my small garden, or cooking the next recipe on my endless list will make that feeling go away.

At another point in my life, I’d have needed to sift through old photos kept in boxes, or read entries in dusty notebooks to gain what I’ve enjoyed today just sitting here.  Although I’ve been tempted to print the text of my accumulated posts more than once, I know it wouldn’t be the same as being able to read through them here, and to remember what mattered on a given day in February last year, or feel again the angst a particular teacher caused our family the year before.  No, the pages would end up in a box somewhere like so many other aspects of our lives we believe matter.

Instead, I’ve decided to make private most of what I’ve written here.  I can’t give it up completely, so it seemed the best compromise.

Change is good, isn’t it?

We learn and grow from the decisions we make about our lives and experiences.  And you know what is said of rolling stones and moss, right?

Busy season if finally over yet another year.  There have been so many I’ve lost count.  It means the MoH is home before dark, and that it’s time for me to have an idea or two to plant in his mind before he heads for work in the morning about what we might do in the evening.  It’s so he can begin to feel like there’s actually a day — or at least part of one — to be enjoyed even though it’s not quite the weekend.

Or maybe it was that we were celebrating the beginning of the weekend — the first of many to come before the next string of late nights and work-filled weekends.

So we went down to the beach just to sit, our faces turned to the warm sun.  In sweatshirts and long pants, we may have looked a bit out of place since there were some late beach goers with kids playing in the sand.  But it wasn’t warm.  It usually isn’t down by the water at this time of year.  Eyes closed against the brightness, it would have been easy to nod off, relaxing, listening to the near quiet that happens when one wave set has finished and the next hasn’t quite begun.

It wasn’t too long before the MoH decided he was hungry, so we folded our chairs and headed off to one of our usual Friday night take out spots.  On the way home he began to list what tasks around the house he wanted to get done this weekend.

“You could just relax, you know,” I told him, “or read a book.”

“I could,” he answered.

But he won’t.  It’s hard to slow down after you’ve been so busy for so long.  I know.  It takes a while to find yourself again.

We’ll see how it goes.

IMG_3223

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about my days lately — this business of getting up and sort of “hop-to-it” attitude of being in front of my Mac.  It’s been over two years now that I’ve not been an active member of the employed crowd,  and yet I’ve created this sort of routine quite by accident.  It’s living and breathing, too, because it’s evolved into more than what it was even a year ago.  I’m not entirely comfortable with that.

But here I am, still.

Wondering and thinking.

Mulling over the options and possibilities.

Thinking.

You thought I’d given up, hadn’t you?

Not a chance.  In fact, I’m trying to figure out how to get a hold of a few more hours a day, still.  Just to do with them as I please.  Like  a shell you might find on the beach and turn over in your hand, wondering what you might find.

Like that.

If you’re reading this, I appreciate you.

Some day, maybe I’ll figure out how to write here again.

Truly.

I’ve flitted from the website of a cooking group I belong to expecting to see this month’s challenge posted (it wasn’t…) to a photography site where I continue to read about how to improve the lighting in my photos and how to build my own lightbox, wondering if any of the boxes in our garage are large enough to work so I don’t have to get in the car before it’s absolutely necessary today.

I gaze through the stats on my food blog and wonder how it’s possible for the number of page views its recorded are possible since my last check and where they’re coming from.  That takes me to who is so I can research an IP address even though I know that never really tells me anything helpful.

All the while, I’m making a mental list of what I’ll accomplish today and the time is steadily ticking.  Always ticking.  And to make matters worse, I’ve activated the voice on my Mac to let me know the time on the hour and half hour because I lose track of it so often now, engrossed in too many things all at one time, wanting to do them all, and able to finish only one or two.  It’s truly annoying.

I’ve wasted at least a half hour searching for an article I saved not too long ago knowing I had something to say about it and now  can’t find it.  It’s no wonder since I bookmark extensively using delicious, Evernote, and Firefox.  I’ve searched, and it’s just not there.  So then the wind goes out of my sails, and I scan my sidebar to visit someone — anyone —   arriving there and marveling not only over their writing, but the lots and lots of people who comment there.  I even visit some of the commentors, thinking about the little community this person has built.  Or is it acquired?  No matter.  It exists.  People take the time to stop and say something instead of, “Nice.”  or “Looks terrific.”

I remember those days.

It’s what I get for defecting almost permanently to foodland.

Goodness.  I’m here so infrequently now I even get spam telling me they can’t figure out my posting schedule.  How hilarious is that?  Um, can you tell us what your posting schedule is so we can spam you more than we already do?  kthxbai.

It’s almost 10 now, and so I must make some decisions about this chilly, grey….wait.

It’s April Fools Day!

Clearly, the joke is on me.

Thinking I’d actually accomplish something.

Right.

The sound of the shower motivates me to swing my feet to the chilly floor and shuffle downstairs to turn on the kettle for tea.  One English Breakfast tea bag goes into the stainless travel mug for my husband and I fill the coffee pot to the six line for myself, dumping two mounded scoops of coffee into the basket before remembering to actually turn it on.

The cat is looking at me from her perch on the arm chair and I’m wondering why she isn’t yeowling at me like she normally does at this point in my morning routine, hurrying me along so that she can have a fresh bowl of food.  I glance at the dog’s dish to make sure my son has fed her before heading down to tend to the cat, proceding with caution on the stairs because I know she’ll come barreling down them right as I’m ready to take another step and I don’t want to be a feature story on the 5PM news.  But she doesn’t today, and I look back to see her staring at me, seemingly as uninspired in this routine as I am.  I tap the spoon on the rim of the cat food can and peer around the corner to see her headed down the stairs.  She stretches each hind leg, then looks up at me and yeowls, as if to say, it’s about time.

I glance at the cat box on the way out, surprised that it’s actually clean.  Not too long ago, frustrated with my son’s admirably persistent passive aggressive resistance in keeping the patio free of the doggo’s droppings, I switched responsibilities with him trading the cat box for the patio.  With two rapidly aging pets, it’s anyone’s guess as to which job is more thankless than the other, but I figured it was worth a try.

My son’s nearly 17 and I can see signs of maturity.  Fleeting signs.  Like when the doggo is making a beeline toward the patio door, grim determination on her normally soft face, and then right before she passes over the threshold, lets a few drop, not quite making it yet again.  Before I can throw my arms in the air and moan about how ridiculous it is that the dog can’t seem to know when she has to go, my son has a bag in his hand, shooshing me and saying he’ll pick it up.  It seems there are some perks about having an almost 17-year-old in residence.

At some point in my early morning meanderings, I happen upon one of the books I leave around the house languishing in a semi-read state.  I do this purposefully trusting that if they’re out of sight, they’ll also be out of mind, because much competes for my attention these days, most of which exists beyond the covers of a book.  It works, and while I’m waiting for photos to upload, or my Mac to reboot, I pick one up to read a few paragraphs:

He knew that every adolescent boy is a loser and an outcast in some area:  socially or emotionally, scholastically or athletically.

William Zinsser refers to an admired headmaster of a school he attended who made a place for all, enabling his students “to be comfortable with [their] limitations and confident in [their] strengths.”  I don’t know that I disagree with him, even though seeing the statement printed on the page seems harsh, and I can hear imagined voices crying out against it, thinking it not true.  But it is.  It’s as true for girls as it is boys.  I remember.

My son has developed a quiet grace that is pleasant to be around now that the Geometry teacher battles are a couple of years behind us.  The Algebra II and Spanish skirmishes last year weren’t great, but having a teacher who was human did help restore his attitude about the difference a teacher can make even when one doesn’t love a particular subject.  Too bad a kid isn’t graded on that since it’s what much of life can be based on — one’s ability to turn the other cheek.  To deal with one’s limitations by moving on. To face that you don’t want to do something but have to no matter how much sense it doesn’t make.

The other day, he forwarded an oddly worded email sent by a person asking for his talents.  When I first saw it, I thought of all the spam that flows in and out of the web every day but forced myself to consider what it was requesting.  Evidently, the young man is a writer and graphic novel creator looking for an artist to illustrate portions of his publications.  The artist currently a part of his team creates excellent characters with human likenesses, but not so much fierce, metallic, piston-firing mechs.  She saw my son’s drawings on a site he’s been uploading work to for about a year now.

And so the drawing begins for his first paid job which, according to the writer, translates to free copies of the finished book to distribute as he chooses and a share of any profits received in sales.  That could entail shopping the book around to local comic stores, and as much as I can say that my son is definitely talented, hawking his wares isn’t something I see him doing.

I’m thinking payment comes in the form of accepting a new responsibility and chalking it up to experience, but we’ll see.  Far be it from me to squash anything impractical even though it’s genetically ingrained in me.

Just a minor shortcoming.  I’m still working on it.

doog

I knew that.  It doesn’t make it easier to choose to delve into something I don’t feel like delving into, however, and I recognize all the signs of avoidance — like grabbing my broom to rid the stairs of the dust bunnies that have taken up residence since we got rid of the carpet.

They’re huge, shadowy puffs that seemingly morph from one corner to another, gathering cat hair and our life’s dentritus with each pair of passing feet.

I see them as I trudge up and down to refill my coffee cup or half-heartedly perform some chore and marvel that they appear so quickly.  They’re fascinating until they become a larger mass, swept to the bottom of the stairs waiting to be scooped into a dust pan and into the trash along with my determination.

* * *

I’m tired of thinking about food, about writing about food.  Tired of organizing my life around the planning and shopping, organizing and preparing of food.  If I needed just one scapegoat for my lack of productivity, it would be that, and yet the amount of time it takes contradicts any lack of productivity.

I’m tired of thinking about food.  Tired.  But that will most likely change at lunchtime.

* * *

I’ve been trying to decide whether it’s better to classify myself as a procrastinator, or dreamer.  Drifty is more like it.  Drifting like those dust bunnies from one point to another with little or no substance or anchor.  Well, not quite that dramatic, but puffing along from one whim to the next and incapable of moving of its own volition.  Lacking initiative.

Meh.

* * *

It was foggy outside this morning when I woke up and the residual dampness has given the air a smell that comes only when raindrops first hit the asphalt.  I stand on the patio in the slight chill, my not so willing to be outside this early in the morning toes curling against the flagstones, and I breathe deeply.  The trees rustle with the slight breeze and I’m surprised to hear a bird’s call I don’t recognize, wondering where it’s coming from and why I haven’t noticed it before.  Happy thing.

* * *

I just finished Blessings by Anna Quindlan.  It’s about identity and the effect family can have on it — or not. It’s about quite a bit more than that, but when I talk about a book I’ve read I somehow find myself feeling like I’m completing a book report and have to supress the urge to run screaming from the room.   I’ll find myself later picking this one up to read parts of again because Quindlan’s writing has that effect on me, most likely because I can wallow in long passages of description and deep delving into a character’s thoughts to a level not unlike that of my dust ball analysis.   Unfortunately, I read just before I go to sleep each night and not many pages at that these days.  Any influence her words have on me is lost in the jumble that has been my dreams recently, and since I still can’t quite give myself permission to read during the day, my thinking is lost and with it any inspiration to write.

Why a person needs to give herself permission to read during the day is fairly stupid.

* * *

You’re wondering about the silly asterisks right?  Me, too.  But it’s the only way that I could actually sit down and write something today.  Anything.

And so I did.  I’d call that being true to myself.

Or avoiding being true to myself, which is probably more the case.

]]> http://kellementology.com/2009/02/24/thinking-with-asterisks/feed/ http://kellementology.com/2009/02/24/thinking-with-asterisks/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/kellementology/oEaQ/~3/zpt-ldVrSdE/ http://kellementology.com/2009/02/16/rainy-days-and-mondays/#comments Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:48:51 +0000 kellypea http://kellementology.com/?p=988 I love the rain.  It’s hard not to go out and enjoy it even if venturing out is only in my tiny slice of Paradise.

Everything is fresh and the air clear.

I have no “Rainy Days and Mondays” doldrums like others who have taken the time to write songs about it all and I wonder if they’re just inclined to be blue, missing what’s easily missed if one doesn’t look closely enough.

The wonder of beauty in small details is always relaxing to me, forcing me out of myself and into the simplicity of what’s right in front of me if I take the time to look.

When’s the last time you took a look?