How much is lost?

before the rose explosion in the backyard...

Frequently it is a very deep and abiding/biding that I do here. It seems, just as frequently, that it is fluff and furry stink of the animal sort. It has been raised that perhaps I lose something in sending out these missives, something that I don't get back and something for which i will feel the loss. or may already feel the loss. . .

I think that I am much bigger than my pieces.

I always tell my husband that I am bigger on the inside. and I am. and I can't help but think that the constant flinging that I do here is sort of like the starfish thrower, the man who throws them back one at a time because that is what he CAN do...

i know, try to control your gag reflex.

but true.

There are times when I wish for companionship on the bloggeryblog, some sort of constant, reliable, only-for-me comfort...

but then I unhook myself for a few days, and it gets better. I DO have bloggeryblog comfort, its just not as instantaneous as I want it to be all the time. but it comes in dribs and drabs and spectacular polka musics, here and there...

and because it is NOT instantaneous, I actually value it more, look at it more critically, and investigate my thoughts about it.

And right now, there are lots of people who learn about me here, and sometimes I don't get the same from them- or I miss out on the learning part of a new relationship, and that is true as well. but I have lots of reading to do, almost every day... and I like that alot.

and in the mean time, you out there, collecting my bits and pieces? give me something to write about, again. send me a missive. give me something to think about.

super powered

powerful hot here, yesterday and the day before, wicked..wicked..steamy sultry august sweat weather.... and it is May in new england so i just lay down on the floor and died.. watched a Star Wars marathon with my four year old boy, said to hell with everything, surrendering my entire intentional parenting basket to the lucas gods. . . planted the basil finally so i can have pesto pizza in the fall... and began my all-summer-long fantasy of sweaters and fall nights.

*AND NOW, today is twenty degrees cooler and I have been in a mad rush to do home improvements. . . have painted the door, thrown out one of the porch-living objects that has been there since da floods. . . got the dryer so am attending to the laundry situation, rather happily, i might add. the tv is 'broken' again but i had the kids playing pbskids.org games while the dryer was installed, so i'm not keeping kosher, exactly...

there is simply no way i can explain how incredible our backyard is today. when you walk out the door, you are surrounded by roses, peeking through the branches of the lilacs, the cherry tree, along the pickets of the deck... my god. the smell is just astonishing. astonishing.

and all the muck of yesterdays heat has been rinsed off-

do you think i could make an analogy to seasons and life and land in a hopeful bask? if, in fact, a 'bask' could be the verb i'd like it to be, here.

i'd like it to be, here.

Temper Temper Tempeh

the thing is: I just don't have anything nice to say, I'm full of rot and loathing lately and I'm exploding with the silence of it... anger management, my ass.

one of the problems for me is that I , like most moms who are with kids the whole day through, have no place to direct my anger, no place to express it in a healthy way or no knowledge of what that healthy way actually is. 'can't do it in front of the kids' and so on...

so, what do stay at home dads do, assuming them to be more in touch with a physical expression of emotion? do they really squelch their angers down? run outside and throw bottles? do they drink lots of wine, eat boxes of pasta at a go*? what do you do, mamas, assuming females to talk more, process more about emotions but not know any better how to deal with them if they aren't positive ones? unless of course, you do know what to do with it.

chakra carol post in the past says anger is about wanting someone to feel guilty. amanda says its about fear, i think it both. but whats the gender divide here? and what the hell is the relevancy if we can't get me to figure it out?!

i'm sort of laughing. a little bitterly, maybe, but laughing. sort of.

*In the past few months I have actually had the pleasure of watching myself develop the seriously problematic eating-for-comfort strategy. It doesn't actually work, I find myself getting upset AS i put the fork to my mouth and then feeling bloated and sort of yucky afterwards. so- what for this purposeful upset? i don't have enough to be angry about? i have to get mad at my need for comfort!? my inability to find it in a real way? c'mon . this is f'in ridiculous. (i'm quitting on the f word for a few days because of my last post, thank you. )

the more I eat, the more danger I put myself in as regards my Crohn's, so its no joke. part of the self-destruction on the slowest scale.

there is also the degree to which getting larger is to bland oneself out, making tempeh of what was once cayenne... maybe making my external match what i feel is sometimes my internal, or the flavor of my lifestyle.

- sidebar regarding tv and intentional parenting: have cut it down to one half hour show per day for almost a week now, with some sort of special movie/show as we get ready for bed... kids ask but don't argue when i say no. . . crazy. . .

playing with them a lot more,the kids MUST entertain themselves soon, I'm not very good at playing four year old and two year old. well, truth be told, i AM good at it, but don't think I play by the right rules, too 'mommified'. they'll get it soon, I think, the blocks are calling them, and so forth. . . looking forward to getting some laundry done soon, getting a dryer this week so I won't have to wait for sunny days anymore. i like sunny days. I want more sunny days, light on the rot and loathing, please.

what to do when angry: expletiving style (much profanity ahead, use your discretion)

FUCK YOU. fucking fuck fuck fuckfuck and some fuckity, dawg.
freakin fuck -the fuck?! fucking fucked fuck.
fucking inane fucked up fucker.
thats all.

Post this, suckah.

if you've read here for awhile you know that, superhero powers aside, i could spend an entire day talking nonstop about how much I suck. I do , I am just decrepit. . . sort of. i like to use the word suck too much, sometimes with a vengeance because it rhymes with fuck and because it sort of signifies nothing. My mother tells a story (regularly) about how when she was newly married to my father she asked him what it meant, and he told her in great detail about what suck could mean in regards to sex. They were married in the sixties, for your information. holla. lets not think about it too much. Now, i have never actually asked my mother about this in any way, but have heard the story dozens of times, mostly in reaction to one of my siblings or I having used the word, which we were forbidden to do when children. Also, taking the lord's name in vain was a soap-in-the-mouth experience. and we aren't even mormon or anything, just 'proper'. heh.

ANYHOW, all that suckage aside, I have yet again hit some sort of emotional cliff, wherupon I make a wild leap for the other side of the chasm and plummet to my death. I am much too lonely and i have had to fill my time today just to avoid the computer and the so-called contact that I receive from it. yesterday i spent my time trying to sew while giving the boys little or no tv and ended in a weep fest with my own bad self. i am beginning to believe there is something to the position that one should not have technology around-but i am scared silly to get rid of the cable and absolutely refuse to get rid of the dvd capability that we have... but i am honestly, upset about how much i rely on the tv to get myself through the day. i don't watch it, but 'they' do... and sometimes sports are on late at night but i know nothing about that... and so...why stay home then? if they spend hours a day watching the television and not improving themselves through play and interaction with the world, why not just plug them into a large childcare factory, at least they'll be with other kids playing and not watching elmo or some other curiously furred creature, right? would a job just settle all this out? a job for which i would feel pride and sense of worth, which motherhood simply does not provide, a job? i ask you? a job?

what for? i ask you. what for, this wild moving fireflickerflame of blue?

Superpowers

(this is an old photo, which I love, you can see the redhead in my lap, just barely... but there is a jumping skinny superhero behind me, in my lap, and OF ME... all abound, around. )

I am a woman of super powers. Without saying a word, I can make you think that I COMPLETELY get you, that I have experienced your life EXACTLY, that I am a woman of mystery and have a totally wild past which, if you just knew me well enough, I would blow your mind with...
its a superpower, and it is Super. but its also a cartoon. so, that makes it, un-real. as in, not the truth. i'm not going on a pitch for what the truth is right now, or ever really, but it isn't the thing. not the thing, its something else,
and it isn't what they ever think it is going to be. . . i've got that lady's smile.
i'm beginning to go down a long junior high type spiral and i would just prefer not to.
===
superpowers. today i gave my son a story about a superhero who fought with a dragon after bringing the lady of the woods back to her castle. it was a lovely story and the superhero could press his nose and get a head full of porcupine quills, the better for battling with...
the battle itself was undertaken mistakenly because the dragon was having a tantrum and couldn't hear the superhero saying the magic words, 'please, dragon, please'...

and the battle was ended when the dragon was preparing to roast our superhero but instead hiccuped and laughed at the absurdity of it all. . .
making it possible to hear the magic words, of course...

it was wonderful to be making C. giggle, he's experiencing a lot of anxiety about growing up, which I find to be something mysterious and mystical in a four year old, although I know it to be a fairly common sensation. A desire to stay small. I wonder sometimes if that is what our nation's weightloss world is about, a desire to retreat to a smaller space in the world. not for everyone, i know, there IS just healthful living and so on, but the idea of wanting to be small/stay small raises many questions for me, some big, some little:

i'm short, is that the same as small?
when i was sickened by crohn's initially, i was a super skinny, mini mini, everyone noticed, commented, wanted to know what i was 'doing' and so on, only one person asked me if i'd been sick, was he the only honest person in my life at the time? the only man? i donno. either way and if so, where is Andy Sherman?

what is it about- a four year old being nervous about bigness? is it the changes, the newness of new schools?
why do we think smaller is better?
digital/tinier/micro/nano... its the anti-american ideal?, no? what our country is aging into, now that we are leaving our teenageyears?
what will the cowboys have to say about this?

resistance is futile . or, We love Owen...

so. Owen is a commenter from the last post. Evidently, he is not my husband. I thought, for sure, weirdly, that it was my husband, just because it is very easy to tell myself that only he and I and sometimes someone else, read this.

not true.

and because the comment was so fabulous, i have decided to use the omnipotent 'we' when describing myself, when i can remember to. we can remember to...

right.

all that six hour blush aside, I have come to this conclusion (i'm sure it'll be temporary, so 'conclusion' may in itself, be rash..) perfection is ugly.

Right? all the zenny's of the world say that the majority of our struggle is a refusal to accept what is. I get that, boy, I do. I do not want to have the life I currently have. I should be WAY more trippy and kid-oriented and not resent them their very noisemaking ability- that which, by the way, I am responsible for- because I freaking grew them in my stomach.

There are multiple times per day when I raise my eyes to the heavens and question the Maker, and ask if really? really? is this REALLY what I am here for? to witness THIS?! to bear the slings and arrows of these two sometimes TERRIBLE children? sometimes, they are just freaking AWFUL. and it is there, the immediate sense that somehow I have put them at jeopardy by naming them publicly... there it is, a wierd superstitous throwback to the days when witches sank...

what the hell.

If we are not to struggle against what our lives are, if we are not to fritter our hours hiding in (caves, televisions, drugs, alcohol, judgement, vacuuming, stamping it up!, sex ?hahahahahaha., and so on... ) how are we to move on, to make change, if we are to be so g'damned accepting?

its all perfect, as it is, because it is...

so i hear.

hear? ha, more irony.

perfect is, evidently, ugly, not what you thought it would be, no part of anybody's dream, and yet, still perfect.

maybe symmetry is the cruel joke here.

how's that for something to get into?

p.s. I really appreciated the comment O, but had to make it funny/public or it would keep me from writing because I'd be embarassed. ya dig?

Negativity and the negation of it...

Lately to battle my own self-obsessions, I have been lingering on facebook for far too long. I suppose it could be called leisure-time but I question that there is anything healthy or truly rejuvenative or relaxing in it, I seem to just be waiting around for something of interest to pop up- while the real life that I actually have, is unfolding all round me , and I'm just looking away.

I think I need to cut it out. The slow wasting of my self, and the building up of the negatives, those people who want to blame the president/democrats/republicans/global warming/immigrants for their crappy lives, who only post about troubles they are having, who make public their dislike for their ex's or their children or their bosses...

it seems so unrelenting. how can Arizona stand itself? How can any American possibly castigate new immigrants? HOW?! how can we be so far from recognizing ourselves?

and while I have long known that I can't really watch tv programs anymore, for the level of anxious aggression that it stimulates in me, its taken me a lot longer to head this way with the whole social thing, because i actually really NEED the social interaction, whereas I do not need to know about the desperate housewives that don't live in my neighborhood. or the skills neccessary to solve a murder. or the amount of food one human being can stockpile in their basement because they are fearful, like I am. . . I love re-meeting my old friends, reading about their relationships, it feels like getting to know them... but I would really like to SEE them and test, i guess, whether there actually is a relationship there. my guess is, there is . . . a shared something. . . and I think that is what I am looking for... the sharing... being part of a large whole in a way that it will help me to recognize myself, what i was before i became the space. the spacer around which are built words like 'mother/wife/housekeeper'... (jen did it well, at diagnosis:urine)
I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to find that knowledge 'out there', but it is comforting to share, to know that other people are looking to share, and that we're all in for some cosmic warmth and glow. . . if we just stop looking away.

so, happy mother's day... loser glowbugs...
I have a great grin, and I'm using it now... loser glowbugs...

remembrance, reminder

so i've been depressed, had some marital strife, a panicstricken re-living of loss, a bit of pneumonia, a flood, a repair/remodel, and yesterday i registered my big boychild for kindergarten. I want to have another baby.

i know.

someone put their hand on my shoulder, tell me to put my feet up and think about how I might never be able to do that- any of it- again... how hard it is with three kids, how tired and fat you are, how, how...

I like my world of impulses, i do. and i feel the impulse, which has 'pulse' in it, so must be linked to life and living and proof of something bigger than me... right?

and I already have a dog. so?

My self-esteem could NOT POSSIBLY be lower. the fraud and fake that I think I am, is bordering on a freaky vain thing at this point. nobody is more 'dorky/awkward/fearful/sloppy/etc. than I am... I WIN!!!! WHOOOOHOOOO... .

I tend to live in a bubble of quasi-toughness, which is true, (I am tough, I have spent a lot of time making it so, and it has worked to a deep level, covering up/scratching the eyes out of... the quivering sand creature watching the oil spill in... ) and yet a lie... (as I could never do roller derby because of a fear of being hurt) but I'd like everyone to think I would do the tough girl thing in a flash. Its fairly emblematic of my current life situation. I want to be a roller girl, but really can't. and because I don't really want to be that roller chick, i feel bad about myself, and then I end up trying to make it fit, that someone else must be making me feel bad about myself or that i really am some kind of loser. well, if i am, then so are you, and maybe i should just redefine the whole 'loser' category, and cut myself, and you, you loser, some slack.

what say we all?

time for a baby?! with my own bad self?

Chakra Carol should be on a conference call today. I'm going nuts. and so are you, and so are they.

positive.

hearing aide agogo

just about every night i wear my hearing aide to bed. it started when i had my first kid, wanting to be 'available' if he were to cry/needme/blaghblah... he was a first kid, thats my explanation for leaving the blissfull silence of the truly quiet sleep. truly. but its been about four years now, my ear is wigging out, the aide is wearing out and it is time to give it a rest. The boys can both walk and vomit at the same time, if need be, and my bedroom is literally 10 steps from their room , if that.
the way that the universe conspired to tell me that i need to let it go? hm.
last night while i slept, the aide fell out. i woke up and realized it and did me some zenning and just let it be lost while i went back to sleep. this morning, while the four year old and husband slept i sort of felt around, didn't find it, was still zenning and just put in the other one, the superexpensive never used 'new' one, and went downstairs with the two year old whose favorite FAVORITE thing in the world to say is 'mommy, wake up.'...
my zenning lasted about 20 minutes, i came back up, looked all around, felt under all the sleeping bodies and pillows, began searching along the floor, moving fallen objects, etc.
hubby goes downstairs, starts his morning ritual of tea and cigarettes...
i come down, drink coffee, putput, go back up to look again, 'knowing' it is there...
i start to lose my shit entirely. the four year old wakes and goes down for breakfast of boiled eggs. i am losing my shit. panicking completely, in a very quiet, sane sort of scary way.
"Today is field trip day, i have to go be with all the parents and i have this shitty aide in, i'm not going to hear anything they say, i'm not going, i'm abandoning my kid again, i can't hear, i'm a bad mother, someone get him a good mother, why am i always the social freak? i don't want to have these ears anymore, i'm tired of being afraid of this, this hurts my head to listen so hard, i can't even hear him right now... " and so on...
Finally, I go get husband, tell him that I am losing my shit and he needs to help me find the g'damned f'in thing. he comes upstairs, i have already stripped the damn bed, making piles on the floor, he looks, i pace and hold my chest (singular, not plural) he lifts the mattress, moves the boxspring, finds the damn thing in a dustbunny under the bed.
I burst into tears like i haven't done in ages.
so... good start to the day . . . everyone is napping, the field trip went smashingly (for the most part) and what the hell? no more sleeping with a hearing aide in, maybe the deep sleeping will hurry the pneumonia away...
anything is possible... and universe? i am listening.

Penpalling.. pal-ing, not palling, like balling...

So, i have a new penpal that I exchange letters with once a week or every 10 days or so. And it manages to make me feel pretty, in a sweeping gown sort of way. And writing words on paper is something I have really missed, though sometimes I feel I have gotten caught up in the speed of everyday life and can't get myself thinking at that slowness and depth anymore. Even when the letters are filled with the fluff of life, it is still the opportunity to sit down and commune with the tangible, feel the pages in your hand, know that something IS being shared and with an actual person, not some virtual version. With the blog, I know that people read it, but it is often just an exercise in expression, or complaint, or description, it is easy to imagine that there isn't anyone out there and its just a document on the typewriter. (especially when there are an appalling lack of commenters...heeh.hee. :)

Its the slowness of it that I had forgotten. The thoughtfulness with which I mentally prepare a response, an exposure, a query... its really there, and the 'intention' in my letter writing is missing from many other elements of my life.

I've never gotten to the point of jumping on the digital/technological bandwagon and am lacking many of its better parts. I have no i-anything, for instance, and while I can definitely see the reason to get rid of the hundreds of cd cases that my two year old has stripped of their papers and tossed into a pile in the study, I can see that, but- my god- why would anyone want an up-to-the-minute twitter account of my every action? or someone else's? I am overwhelmed by the lack of privacy just because I have children. why in the world do i want to have my cellphone with me every time i get in the car? 'just in case'... what an awful thing. We are invaded and we seem, not only to allow it, but to welcome it and glory in its speed and omnipotence. Look at the verizon ads, there are so few places in the country where you cannot be reached! why the hell do i want to be reached?! all the time, 'just in case'...

I want the slowness of my letterwriting to pervade, more often, and more deeply.

I love me my penpal, and I love me my mail man, and I think that is all the tech I need right now.