To you I say: Thank you for deep breaths, wordless communion with Clara's soul, clear night skys, cleansing tears, and 1200 miles of fresh perspective.

I've had a few thoughts on my mind lately...my usual sprinkling of questions to do with existence, relationship, and art.    Spurred by the intelligent lyrics of Neko Case, Dostoevsky, and a young Plath, I've come to realize how my routine here includes less writing than I am used to.  I suppose this could have a lot to do with settling in and all the creativity and soul required to listen to where the objects of your life want to be placed.

But it is also something that I suspected would happen out here...without people.  I did roughly 60% of my letter writing in cafes and restaurants, whereas here...I have yet to find a place.  I am sure this requires actually LOOKING for a place, but I am still in the needing towel-racks and "what the hell am i going to do with these window treatments" phase of life.  This, up until now, has been a justification for me ignoring my own soul.

Add guilt.  In order to make this time worth it, I feel as though I must find a use, a purpose, and true meaning.  Without this directed (read 8am to 5pm) purpose, I feel bathed in guilt.  There is some sort of firebrand scathing my ass to be thankful for all I have right now.  So many people are looking at my life with puppy-dog eyes...as they should!  I mean, it's really amazing right now.  I must admit the temptation to downplay it or justify it somehow...as if me struggling with it would make it easier for them to swallow or wanting to sometimes scream that I've had enough pain to last a lifetime so I somehow deserve it.  Both of these excuses would be a gross oversimplification of all the nuances and adjustments happening right now.   My husband is working his ass off to provide this life for me, and I do not take this for granted.  But I also somehow feel the need to explain to people that I am also working my ass off.  Like Plath, I am "forging a soul amidst great birth pangs" and how this takes a non-American, non-commercial, non-paying kind of work.  So I guess there is something inside me that thinks if I just feel guilty or downplay how wonderful my surroundings are or how well I take care of myself that will make it easier for other people to swallow.  I believe I can handle both the good feelings and the bad feelings of those I love, but I also know that god gives, god takes away.  What makes my life rich is comprised of my internal work, not my external circumstances.   How privileged I am to have the pleasure of that thought, a bliss reserved for a person whose basic needs are met.  This is an admonition to myself as well as to those of you finding envy and pity riding on your backs.

And oh, my surroundings!  Yesterday, while driving into town to do a Costco/Trader Joe's run, I spied a momma cow and a baby cow (going to google to look up the appropriate word) ahem CALF.  The calf was feeding and tucked just so into the mother's underbelly.  I almost died from the distraction (these country roads are curvy and unpredictable, like the best kind of woman), and I almost cried from sentiment and beauty.    I find myself gradually getting living in the city out of my system, finding new routines and activities that replace and heal the severing.  For instance, I've been a cooking machine!  In the city, it's far cheaper and easier to eat take-out 2 or 3 times/week.  Here, there is absolutely nothing convenient about it.

But what is convenient it a life of quiet study, endless reflection, a new-found enjoyment of social activities, the building of fires, the company of my saint, the planning and execution of meals, and the saunters through the wet forest floor.  I knew these things were far more necessary than take-out.

As well as my online community, I've been the happy recipient of your happy thoughts towards me and this new life.  This amazes me.  I dream of a time where you are around my hearth, sharing my tea, and knitting (because you all knit in my mind, of course).

Thankfully,

crm

I suppose that after a hectic day raising kids, sometimes the only thing that keeps a parent "in the game," committed to doing the best they can, is watching their child sleep. After these perfect little monsters have ransacked your house, ran your ass off picking up after them, complained about the food you made, told you that you were mean because you didn't give them candy, irritated you while you tried to have one thought to yourself, interrupted you during your only sane adult phone conversation, and screamed all day in volumes only heard in the fiery furnace of hell itself...


After all of this, they finally get to bed. After a few hours, you start feeling normal again...you can hear yourself have intelligent thoughts, you can finally take a shower, you can pour a glass of wine. You are a brand new you. And after this evening of perfection, you wander into the children's rooms to pick up one last time and they catch you off guard...their angelic tenderness hits you all over again, and you remember that there IS a soul inside, that they really are so vulnerable despite what they convey, and that you are completely head over heels in love with them.


Anger, details, to do lists, lack of research, pain, reactions, codependency...all of these can steal our perspective. This of course applies to more than children. Even now, as I am away from the saint for two weeks, I find myself tiptoeing into the shallow end of this pool of perspective. By the time I get home, I'll have soaked in perspective...and be read to see my marriage with new eyes...the eyes of absence.

When daily irritations subside, it is lovely to find my utter adoration and deep satisfaction with everything Joel has ever been, everything he is, and everything he ever will be.

Absence, perspective...these are things all relationships need to feel. Isn't it funny? We want as much time as possible with those we love, yet we need time away from them in order to see them more clearly. We need to see them asleep; we need to remember they are vulnerable.

And tonight, much like how I imagine a parent feels when they look at their child sleeping, I am looking at life while it slumbers. I feel proud, I feel softened, I feel endeared to this weird thing called being human.

it is such a temptation for me to talk myself out of how i feel based on the logic that i will no longer feel that particular way in a few hours, days, weeks. while i feel it is truly wise to have buckets and buckets of this truth, this perspective of the universe that our lives are but temporal in the grand scheme (i realize this does not comfort everyone), i really have to be careful to avoid persuading myself out of moods.

some might call this wallowing.
yep.

but what of my career? what of houses, babies, graduate school, marriage, money, photography, writing, mental health, spiritual questions, and fathers? these things, not so temporal.

and how can i possibly muster the energy to think on these things when i cannot even walk five blocks to the grocery store to pick up celery?!

and in these days, i feel, truly feel that life is sometimes just fucking impossible.
oh, and also, that having a uterus is a cruel, cruel joke.

but, since there is no getting around my week or uterus, i have comforted myself with a bottle of 2008 Chilean savignon blanc in the afternoon. also, i am going to attempt some ridiculous baking feat, because that is just how crazy i feel. muuuaah.