there are hundreds upon hundreds of tiny decisions that we make everyday. to spin off and make the bed? carry the laundry up now? wait til the baby goes down? read books or sew the quilt blocks? why did 'miss lucy' do such a shite job knowing what the baby wanted? why did she name him 'tiny tim'- seems like a bad choice, somehow. ... walk to the window to watch the chickens? put the green paint on the canvas? start the laundry? make those brownies? buy the brownies? take the pasta aisle or the soda aisle? unload the rest of the groceries immediately or wait til the boys get home? address the boy's fighting or let them resolve it themselves?
so many. all the dang time. most of the time, without thinking. . .
but the big ones?
*do i want more people to read here? (all 3 of you !! are fantastic ((really)) but sometimes i pine for some comments to spur me on some more..) do i really want that? why the hell would anyone share something i wrote on fb? i have literally no idea. . . but i put it up there because a blogsite told me to.
whats my 'niche' anyhow? gross, blugh, shudders.
*how do i get more humor into my life? how do i shut down my carping and let out the goodnaturedness that i swear i really do have? i'd sure like moving through this life if i were a bit lighter on a regular basis...
*if i'd like to paint more, why am i so resistant to a class?
*if i'd like to write more, why is my journal dusty?
*if i think meditation is incredible and life-changing, why don't i ?
*why won't i exercise, damnit?
*how do i figure out my new position in the world, now that my dad has gone and my mom needs more companionship? how do i take a more central role when my whole body wants to isolate itself?
why am i jealous of people with wider social networks when i finish sentences with the above phrases?
answers? actions? whut.
i suppose its a rut. again. but i am tired to death of it. and completely inactive in my bigger choices, which is all sorts of frustrating. i feel pretty damn boring in my explanations to myself. TO MYSELF. gah . . .
Monday, March 31, 2014
tiny tiny, but lots and lots... blades of grass=meadows...
Posted by Kate Hall at 2:41 PM 4 comments
Friday, March 28, 2014
the stomach bug is trying to get me.
but i've got stuff to do today, man. i'm taking a pill from studio mothers and writing something even if it sucks. so here it is.
really, i feel terrible. i had two kids in my bed last night, tossing and turning apiece, and now this morning i have a stomach which is suspiciously volatile.
i've got to pick the two boys up from school to take them to their yearly physical and then make an attempt to race back home because there is an afterschool movie for the kindergartener, which is the only event for him IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. gah.
race. drive. race. maybe throwup, maybe dive into the nearest stall.
gha.
i've been wondering lately about skepticism vs. cynicism and which one of them leads to paranoia. what do you think?
i'm so irritated by baseless conspiracy theories assuming the absolute worst of people. it seems such a waste of time.
i mean, i assume that 'organizations' are awful, but remain committed to the fact that they are made up of individuals, who will at some point, assert their responsibility towards the world.
this may be crackhead logic, but i am sticking to my guns and wishing the world were a different place today.
maybe i should just continue on my self-isolation journey, and then i can feel more hopeful all by myself.
- i have a feeling that might not be effective. but i've never been that good at picking up hints, so i guess i'll soldier on...
-wmx.
Posted by Kate Hall at 10:27 AM 0 comments
Labels: sick, sleep deprivation at the extreme
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Hump day hip check.
I read someone's comment on someone else's blog, commiserating that humpday had given her the hipcheck. I think I am in love with that vision. (although, because I don't have an outofthehouse job, I don't really get to commiserate/evaluate something as a humpday...)
anyhow. today, everyone went to school, my mom slept over due to the impending blizzard and so the kitchen was cleaned! .... the blizzard that was supposed to arrive was just a whole lot of wind... it was peaceful. baby and i watched a lovely little movie for free... at lunch, hubsJ came home with the sickness. an hour later i got a call from the elementary school nurse that my 8 had thrown up...
the 6 got off the bus all bubbly. so thats good.
back in the saddle. and i had just caught up with the towels.
so we got hipchecked, teenaged girl style.
'nice socks, kate'...
sneer.
wmx.
Posted by Kate Hall at 3:57 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Sprightly
i could spend an entire day browsing pretty things and places on pinterest. honestly, and sincerely. facebook is losing its allure lately, right down to the boredom of monotonous games actually forcing me to get up from the computer. astonishing, never thought it would happen....
but looking at wonderful bedrooms? covered in quilts, beds made... empty spaces? clear and open countertops? sparkly lights and wooden floorboards? sign me up. a respite for these tear-cried-dry eyes of mine.
we have made our garden bed, now let us lie in it.
hubsJ has literally made us a garden bed, and when loam arrives, we will be comforted by the dirt which we have grown in...and hopefully? in which we will grow. and by we? i mean me. i want to grow something, watch it change without being fearful of it... feel responsibility without crushing defeat.... just a little thing.
dust to dust and so forth. while death is still so heavy with me, this is the flipside season to it, and i am aware. though still sunk.
... and stink and dirt are what my family is doing best these days. between the vomit and the crazed desire to be outside in the foolishly-cold-not-spring-yet weather we are having, we are dirtydirtydirty. and our jumpshots are slowly improving, and my muscles are being used, ever so slightly. and gasping breaths are being had, and neighbors have been sighted.
- i cut the last of the sick ones hair this morning. that'll learn em.
( might have to dash out to a barber to get him fixed up... seriously. poor thing. thats what you get when mums get inspired by the crazeddaze of spring.)
we'll all muddle through. or not. but still.
Posted by Kate Hall at 11:53 AM 1 comments
Labels: death, do it yourself, play
Monday, March 24, 2014
Vomitarium, if only there were some way to power cars with it... we'd be all set.
the third of my kids went down to the stomachbug store this weekend... piles upon piles of towels and sheets and a comforter too! are headed to the laundry machine/center of the house this morning. and i am only vaguely aware that he is not quite finished. the tv is on, he has a bowl within reach, i am calling it enough.
it is amazing how differently the three handle the vomits. one, almost adult-ly, wakes up, goes to the bathroom, hits the john. he is 8. he calls when he is mid-way, usually.
the baby, just wails and pukes forward, onto whatever is held in front of her, when something is available, otherwise the wail brings the pail.
the current? the middle, will be fast asleep, throw up all over everything in sight, then come and notify us that it has occurred. once we have been alerted, he will be fast asleep, cough, we run...because he'll cough til he throws up, turn over and go back to sleep. he does not get up, does not rouse from his sleep, just rolls over/in it, and retires yet again.
this all has made for exciting nights this week.
the laundry is intense.
the slowmotion of it all is something i can only report, but not describe ...
we have been getting days off, but the nights man? shoooot. we've been getting our asses kicked.
Posted by Kate Hall at 12:24 PM 0 comments
Labels: laundry, sick, sleep deprivation at the extreme
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Dog
i can say that there is a new dog in town these days.
it is not a friendly one, but it does make its presence known and we are all having to adjust to it being attached to my hipbone. i call it 'loss of faith'.... and you can call it what you will but it is a huge fucking animal sitting in the middle of my chest as i go about my daily business.
and yet it isn't.
an enormous earthquake the likes the world has never seen, the darkest night, that, evidently, i share with many... i don't know where to point my inner dialogues, i don't know how to, where to give gratitude...
and yet,
i've had friends my whole life who were doubters, athiests, 'intellects'without faiths... and i always thought their lives were somehow less glowy, less likely to tend to joy, less less less. and what i learn is that, while maybe that was true for them, or is, or isn't... i really have no idea... but for me, the change is minimal... except its not, its incredibly huge, but it is ALL internal. the world outside of my eyes seems all the same. i still love those friends, i still love my friends who feel certain about things, but i haven't talked to my mom about this, and i probably won't. ever.
the change is big, and yet i feel like i may be still on a fatalistic wheel, taking my turn at the biological determinism landing, figuring out why exactly the cardinals are red, biologically speaking.
figuring out why it is that i feel the way i do about things, why it is that i approach my children so, why it is that i am scared to go to the back of my yard where i watched my dad getting cpr, if there is a great 'nothing' beyond here, why do i chase figments so ? why does my brain rattle and rattle around its treehouse?
in some ways, it makes everything seem sad, this loss. did i really lose God when i lost my dad? it seems i did.
i had to cancel an appt with Chakra Carol because of my belief-loss, and so I had to talk about it with her, and it was good, and I'll probably go see her and have coffee and she'll still like me anyhow. probably.
---
i've always chastised myself for inner dialougues that sound like blogposts or conversations, because i believe it is a weakness to need an audience... but i give over to it now, if i have no other place to point it, it will wind up as a lecture to myself, and while i may need a lecture? i will have to be satisfied somehow, and here it may end up, to keep me closer to sanity than otherwise. i don't know if i'll write more at all, but at least i give myself permission to speak to myself in my writing voice. at the very least.
i'm trying to write out these changes, because they are really so molecular. i don't have any clue how to move about without a light within, and just a heart... i don't. who am i without my 12-year-old-girl- within, that Aslan-believer?
and its easter. and i'm sure it's evolving and changing and i'll hold on while it roils.
Posted by Kate Hall at 6:52 AM 1 comments
Labels: do it yourself, faith
Sunday, March 16, 2014
well, its over. and she'll rally again...
i'm done with the afterschool 'destination imagination' hoopla for the boy. my big, 'push it through' event of this year. and we are finished... and the boys won third prize in our region, so that is pretty damn amazing. it was a very exciting day, with a stage walk and all.
and, of course, the let down of it ending, for him, my 8, means that he is sulking unmercifully on the ride home and i almost ditch him by the side of the road.
we made it, but barely.
euphoria last night has made me a headachey mix for this morning but i am up and rallying. i am tired of rallying but think maybe there isn't anything else, really.
i think i've forgotten to make choices for myself for 8 years or so, or maybe i started that when i got married, as a lark... and then forgot.
a deep well.
(jack handy? )
tricksty, tricksty.
i'm reading a circle of quiet by madeleine l'engle. i'm amazed by how good it is. i think i'm going to have to go read all her books as an adult and see what i can find... her writing is really really good, and it caaaalllls to me. i haven't finished it yet but hope to go slow enough to recollect it all later. a very good sign.
i've also picked up the prayer journal of flannery o'connor... and what i'm surprised by there is that it is too familiar, and i don't want to read it. it is literally her prayer journal, prayers written, god thought of.. .and it pleads, and rambles and discusses, like my inner workings, and i fear it goes contemptuous in my familiarity. i put it down. i have my own work to do, i don't even want to read what work she had to do.
i've also read book two in the chronicles of the necromancer: the blood king, by gail s. martin... because i love me some sorceressing and swashbuckling. just wanted to flush out the reading partridges.
and i'm reading five little monkeys jumping on the bed, multiple times every day. multiple upon multiple.
Posted by Kate Hall at 7:51 AM 1 comments
Labels: books, mothering, raising boys
Monday, March 10, 2014
Tree shot sky.
when it comes right down to it, i don't think that people think for themselves very often.
its much more comfortable to do what is 'written', 'right', 'explained', 'advised'... and we are all so connected to so many systems of thought and love and family that we have untold number of sources to look to for advice. i find, lately, that the impetus to ask my dad's advice, seek out his knowledge, has grown. well, crapshoot. lost my chance.
my son took this picture on a walk for animals in the woods across the street last spring. It is tremendous. Do you see all the curves first or later?
it seems my dad's death has shaken many people. he was one of those guys people just thought would always be there, til the end... too soon, etc. etc. i have been knocked right off my mooring and am at sea, while still trying to do this household, mother, wife thing. i can't say i am doing much at any of them these days. my mind feels diseased, replaying things that are over and finished, ad nauseum.
The afterschool coaching gig that I have been doing will be over in one more weekend, and I find myself hanging in and on for dear life. It began the week my dad has his heart attack, and I missed it... and each week I have been in dread of it, and soon it will end.. and I fear the end while I plan my utter collapse at its end. I will have to drive home, and so I will.
may be i should go on one of those nature walks with the boys. the picture is such a good one.
Posted by Kate Hall at 3:50 PM 1 comments
Labels: death
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Pamela.
Today I sat in the Target parking lot while the baby slept. I had the heat on, I had the seat warmer on high and I talked to the best of the best of friends. We talked, we cried, we cursed the weather... I had goose bumps and the whole lot of the world was discussed. I clutched a purple stuffed bunny-she reclined on the bed. i wish every day could be this good.
she lives in wisconsin and if someone out there knows how to get Wisconsin and Massachusetts closer together, please come forward. really.
talking with a friend like this is a breath of warm summer air, a tire swing...
an excellent breakfast out.
a leisurely full-body stretch.
the forsythia bloom.
i wish it to you too. i wish it to me more often.
miss you pam.
Posted by Kate Hall at 2:40 PM 0 comments
Labels: friends