Thug life
We have family
in town for the next week, so things may be
quiet around here. In the meantime, Happy
End-of-December and Merry New Year! And be on
the lookout for these guys -- I'm not sure if
they are carrying little Christmas trees or
spiky clubs.
Image: Some of the many
Santas in my father and stepmother's
collection.
Chiaroscuro
Look. I’m all out of words. They started drifting away from me this morning, when I woke up with the boy at six a.m. As the day continued – conversation with the visitors, trudging off to music class, trudging back, stopping at the store, fixing lunch for the visitors, making conversation with the visitors, entertaining my son, taking care of our various animals, fixing dinner, putting the exhausted child to bed, making more conversation with the visitors – the words just left.
I say I was making conversation with the visitors, but the truth is that by the end of the day I was mainly nodding and sighing sympathetically. It was all I had left. So here I am, bereft of creativity, my mind swimming with stories of thyroid nodules and nerves like tangled spiders’ webs, of early deaths and shattered psyches. What’s in store for me? Should I be so smug about my flexible back and thin, muscular legs? Should I be grateful that my mother taught me the proper way to eat? Or that I inherited her frame and general good health? Maybe I will fulfill my genetic heritage some day soon: develop an autoimmune disease, succumb to the rot of debilitating depression, start to feel my legs tingle and fret as if they were plugged into the wall.
Part II:
Resonance
OK, OK, OK, Part I was the
result yet another prompt, from a family
visit in September. It was a photo prompt
that had nothing to do with the resulting
piece. I was going through my old stuff,
looking for something, saw this, thought:
Aha! That feeling some of us get after too
much family time on Thanksgiving. Except I
haven't gone home for Thanksgiving in years,
and if I did, it would actually be wonderful
to be with my mother, though
Kevin's
absence would still be
palpable.
Sometimes I'm afraid that
you're getting the wrong impression. Maybe
you think that I sit around immersing myself
in the past, feeling sorry for myself and
penning various memorials to the me who used
to be. Or that I prefer to
dance with darkness rather than frolic in joy
and light.
I write about what resonates and I have a
complex relationship with both happiness and
the past. The past is always present for me;
it informs the present, keeps me grounded.
And it provides me with great material. Don't
even have to think about it. As for
happiness: I am capable of feeling great joy.
I'm generally happy,
except when I'm not.
The hollows,
shadowy, cold as falling snow, call to me.
Light is meaningless without darkness. I need
texture, a rough patch here and there, a
little complexity and strife to make it more
interesting.
But maybe my next post will be about puppies.
More likely about finishing NaNoWriMo. Or my
husband wrapping up his dissertation. Or
maybe it really will be about puppies, cute
little fluffballs, good enough to
eat.
He sees you when you're sleeping
Family will be descending
upon our household tomorrow. I'm looking
forward to the visits (really!), but may not
be posting, commenting, or dropping many
cards until the new year.
Have a peaceful and relaxing holiday! If you
can, with that
guy staring at
you.