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Friday, December 18, 2015

Whats your calamitous yelp?

*i watched lord of the rings and not for the first time.
but this time i noticed that the warriors were preparing for a battle by screaming 'DEATH' as their rallying cry.
good lord.
and i found it to be totally powerful.  the one certainty in life and a powerful shout-out to it!  a challenge, a beckoning, a gauntlet of courage.
so fascinating, those thoughts, that rallying of spirit in the face of sorrow, loss, and inexplicability.

*my two top kids, older than three, had to come up with a worry apiece for the christmas eve service, that they are going to put in a column and leave behind for the peace of Christmas Day.  (john denver and kermit did it best, we are so SO Quaker.)
boy 2 says immediately 'Death'.   I so can't tell him anything about it. its certainly a reality, and one he will have to face, although hopefully he'll have some more life under his belt the next time it rolls back  on us.
boy 1 says hes not afraid of Isis anymore because America and Russia are beating them up.  Oh, heart on fire for this. so many innocents in the pile, so many. this ain't no Rocky movie.

so what is your yell to the sky?  i used to feel all 'BEAUTY!!' like Howard's End... but now I think that shouting the death and the terror to their faces might be more my style.

there are calamitous times ahead, and calamity jane put on  a dress after all.  its all good, and its all bad and its all right here, right now.


Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Where the wise men are...

Living in the sneakers these days... we all are... in times of difficulty, we're choosing comfort, some of us for speed/ease of motion/escape, some of us for sanity/escape/restlessness... its all in your perspective if there is any difference in all those choices.  sometimes what we choose for comfort is ultimately a miss, a danger to us.  you drink? you smoke? you eat fast food? (me: two of the three)

danger. danger.  what our pleasures are? the long game? are we shorting ourselves? of course moderation makes a difference. of course. but then, sometimes the long game makes it look less like moderation, right?

today i exercised, in my sweatpants and with sweat all included.  sneakers too.  messed up hair,  and flailing, lots of flailing.  there was nothing pretty about it. at all.  but i'm trying to take small steps to make myself stronger, to be 'in it' for the long game.  for my kids, yes, but mostly for me.  to have more faith in my own strength, to open my own doors, so to speak.

this past month i've been exercising every day. one day off a week.  this is the most consistent i've been about ANYTHING in my whole life, possibly.... exception child rearing, but that is different from minute to minute and seems to be all 'fly by the seat of my pants' type action. . . but this consistency?  was there a catalyst? nah.
i don't know.  i'm getting stronger.  i bought a new pair of jeans, and a fitbit bracelet. (expensive pedometer. not sure how i feel about it just yet. its just a pedometer! gah. got it on cyber monday so it was at least not full price... )  but otherwise, its all internal, and i have a quote on the board that says 'nobody but you'.... and it works for me, to remember that the work is mine, and nobody but me is going to know if i work hard, or not, and nobody but me is going to see the changes, and nobody but me is responsible for myself. I've been home with kids for a little over nine years, and I can't say that I've made the most of it, sometimes i feel like i've wasted it, in terms of my own self. and then other times, i just point (internally) to the kids and let it rest at that.  its a betwixt and between space.

I get confused as to what it is that i value.  I HATE that i now want to 'talk' about exercise.  man, i feel like such a chump, downright embarassed by my subject matter.  do you know what a 'surrender' is?  oh my gawd, a killer. (do you see how chumpy i am, holy smokes.) and, after 9 years of being home, and 14 of being married, I realize how little I value housework and domesticity... and thats hard to incorporate into a stay at home mom's self-impression.  and right? i value OTHER people's housework and domesticity, i do.  but just not mine.
what is that about?!
and what do i do about it? geesh.
i don't know.  i could start writing again?  i sure do value THAT.