One sentence: little.

A book like you is bruised to hell.

Flat.out. Divorce, again.

I have a lot of questions. I am really a very simple woman when it comes to people, fundamentally.

Love is forever.
Right?

Love. You should recognize it when you have it.
Right?

These aren't actually questions for J, although I do physically ache to hear better days from him...They are questions for me.

It is one of the worst and strangest parts of separating what was joined, this unpeeling, this revision of memory to suit current times. I have even been back to the days before our marriage, during our courtship gyre, to look for signs of today's doom.  I am so angry and sooo sad that my own brain would be trying to corrupt something that I know was Love, and those memories will go with me to my grave.  I'm also dealing with wakeups of the pre-5 AM sort, and it is killing me, and I think fondly of graves, as a sleeping place .   (not suicidal ideation, but literal, quiet, sleep places.)

Go hug your divorced friends right now because this unravelling is WAY worse than it looks.

Its like organizing your junk drawer.  First, you have to deal with shit ALL over the freaking place.

Parenting through Divorce. shitcakes.

i'm uncovering all these old beliefs as i move around in my house... belief in the ethereal parts of myself, a wonder about how to bring them forth more, which of course, leads to songs of 'how do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?'... a belief in the animation of the inanimate, i have the feeling that my bathtub is deeply concerned for me.  the washing of my sorrow there on my weekends is leaving her with my residue in more than one way.


i'm processing, and sometimes the rawness is on my skin, and sometimes it is down deeper.  my kids are mirroring my process, one on the skin, one down deeper... they found out this weekend about the girlfriend, accidentally, and it is a doozy for me, and i can't spend any more time wishing it hadn't happened for them.


the transitions back into this home were rougher than normal, the elder fighting me, even trying physical challenge...(which resolved peacefully)...  i wasn't able to 'parent' it all this time, and they all got to see me crying, and i wasn't crying because of the challenge, but for myself.  ... and they knew. and part of me is weeping simply for the sadness that caused them.  I just can't hold myself apart from my emotions with such a sweeping brush. it waxes and it wanes, and 98% of the time i am so solid for them... like i always have been.

but man, that 2% .
today i'm going to take another bath, maybe hit the grocery, and then lie back down and watch a lot of tv with the youngest.  and then maybe another bath...

Friday Nights Gonna Be Allright

I'm sitting outside on the back deck, listening to birds and traffic, rehashing innocuous things I may have said to J., and having leftover Chinese and a bottle of beer.  I think I'm hearing robins and a cardinal and more.  The chickens are slowly making their way to the coop, and the cat keeps jumping into the air in attack/surprise mode.  There never seems to be any cause.  I have painted today, in preparation for painting tomorrow, and I am trying very hard to feel like a superpower in the world, instead of the one for whom all does not go well.  The fight is on for my self-esteem when I am alone, and I am frequently overwhelmed with aimlessness.  My hands are looking old, but it is color, and it is dirt, as I have gardened and planted and spread the possibility for growth, all around.

Aimless? Holy shit.  Are we all? Are some people really like heat-speaking missiles instead of roaming ones? I'm all over the freaking map.  It is truly disconcerting.

Today is Friday.  Legend has it that I am not supposed to post because no one reads on the weekend.  I do. A lot.

Vacation Week and I'm delirious...

I'm in the midst of kid-vacation and I'm not sure I'll get to writing here again this week, and I'll be sorry not to, as it's become therapeutic to feel connected to the world after so long in hiding...  So, whilst the father of the children has them all at soccer practice and for a sleepover (in the middle of the week!), I am just dropping a note.

I went to see Chakra Carol today (in the middle of school vacation week! )... and so, feel very shiny and newborn and now am heating up leftovers for the night of sunshine-y movies ahead.  Tomorrow I go to an animal shelter to meet some puppies and hope that one will come home with me. ... oh, that's a thriller... i've got my fingers crossed, but we'll see...

Carol tells me to be less judgmental about my thoughts... and that all people, everywhere, are obsessed with what others think of them.  How do you best strengthen your inner reserves? How do you stand more firmly on your own?  How, after fourteen years of thinking every minute of someone else's opinion, do you grasp what it is YOU think? I didn't think I was in hiding, putting my brain down for the past decade, but, it sure feels like that now...  solamente.

I want to channel me some Katharine Hepburn.  She wore pants, damnit.

these are tricky times.  And I am overwhelmed all the time lately by the choices I have made, and they just keep coming and coming... and I am also overwhelmed by color all the time lately and I have NO IDEA what that one is about. but I completely love it.  COLOR, my god, COLOR!!! I don't know if I need to paint every room in the house or just start using my pastels and my paints more...

i've got one canvas that i've been adding to for ages and its just a big shloppy mess at this point... but i tellyou, i literally feel like a rockstar when i've got paint on my skin...
its probably toxic and i'm hallucinating slightly, but damn, its good.

cheers to vacation week.
cheers!

wax and wane, mofo.

this week the laundry machine broke. i looked it up to fix it, and realized there is no way in hell i could reliably do this myself.  fine. paid 'the man'.
this week the vacuum cleaner broke.  I fixed it myself. damn 'the man'.
this minute, the fucking pipe outside broke and water was everywhere. we are flooded. outside.
i know how to shut the water off, but not how to fix a fucking pipe. dropped my phone in the deluge whilst talking to the soon-to-be-wealthier 'man'.

these are ups and downs, and halves.  i am not feeling overly lucky these days.
i did make it through a whole baseball game with j, not without upset, but through. it will be harder when all the extended families are there, next time.  he is so good at pretend, it is downright disconcerting.  i deeply fear that he may not be pretending, and he may just be unbothered by all of this. and that is really freaking me out.

but the coldness of the game is done.

onto sunnier days and visitations with 'the man'.

Wind Blows Right Through...

wiggled our toes in the sand, dug holes, raced through the rocks.
felt so so good to get my toes cold in the sand, to be near that open expanse, to be in play, again.

first beach day of the season.  never gets old.

Books at the two week mark...

I've been reading, in between bouts of soccer practice, sadness, baths,  and baseball.  Hallelujah for the printed word. Hallelujah.... Sing it ...

Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter, by Nina MacLaughlin....a mild mannered newspaper reporter finds herself unfulfilled with the day to day Internet connections... "...there is no other place I can think of where one can consume so much and absorb so little..." That sentence so resonated with me I had to underline it with the nearest thing, and this pretty little hardback book, got the pink crayon treatment.  She leaves her job, and gets a job as an assistant to a female journeyman carpenter.   The book is easy and delightful to read, and Nina has no problem admitting she knows little more than how to lug. AND, the work is interspersed with anecdotal facts, literary references, the hammer museum in Haines, Alaska, and the origins of the "journeyman" title.  I'm not going to tell you...

its lovely. and good to know that such a radical shift can be done, and can work out. and so, so attractive to think about trading up to a trade... :)

Dawn of the Dragons by James A. Owen... this particular book contains two novels, so i was well and satisfied for quite a bit of time... and I must confess, I loved this, and can't wait to read it again when I've forgotten about it... It has, wait for it, dragons... and then?  some of my most beloved authors and character and myths and so so many things ... As I learned more about characters, and their roles in history or myth or literature, I would literally giggle as the coincidences unfolded.. If I weren't so impatient, I would have gone back multiple times to re-read storylines, as I discovered that a character was really, say, Pan, not Peter, or maybe Peter, or that they were Perseus. . . I just LOVED it.  I hope there are more novels out there in the series (there ARE!) but I have a large stack still to work through, and I MUST STRUGGLE ON...

Click my links and ads, the amazon people say they'll drop me if nobody clicks my link.  ? Weird, right? but try it...

the cuckoo's calling by Robert Galbraith.

If you are a dork, you know that Robert Galbraith is really J.K. Rowling.  I have no idea how or why people use multiple pen names, but such is as it is. Its completely unconnected to Harry.  COMPLETELY.  Have no expectations of that.  A straight-up mystery, which a detective named Cormoran Strike, which is a fair beginning.
Its a good mystery, fifties style, if you like them, with the incident happening initially and the rest of the novel spent unraveling the truth behind it, and then the detective exposing the truth only he could see at the end.  I had a hard time getting through it, as my attention is jumpy at this point, but I would still recommend it, particularly if you like mystery without gratuitous sex or violence.  rock it.

Mistress of Morose, as well.

While I may, in fact, be a superhero of love, I am also the Mistress of Morose.  The most likely images to hit my head whilst I am feeling this way are the following:


tsunami
floodgates buckling
dark tunnels
shit-storms
overwhelmed
swamped
rollercoaster gone wrong


yes, i made a list.  this list did not make me feel more productive and on top of my game. it did not.
these are tidal times, for me, and I'm often swamped by the twins of fear and anger and then whammied by the oedipal son/brother/lovers of loss, grief and self-pity.

its a party.


party.

(i always wear my glasses, but the reflection was fierce, and i'd rather you see my eyes, today.)

Other people are really out there.

You know? I've just discovered that I"m not the only woman going through a divorce.  These past few months have been greatly illuminating, but occasionally in fluorescence, so its been a hit and miss sort of game.
 I don't always show up so pretty in the light.

But really, I'm just beginning to crack the ice on women who write and talk about what it is like, and its just heartbreaking to recognize how isolated I have been feeling.  Maybe its the legalese involved, the desire to protect kids, the wide-ranging experience of something dying, which never really ends... but I don't know anyone else going through this, not well enough to talk with... its been terrible.
but i've slowly been uncovering, and discovering women who write about it, and are living it, and getting through it... and i'm really relieved. so very relieved.

 It feels really wonderful to be connected to the world, even if its through a windowpane. so good.
I'll share some of what I'm reading eventually, but I thought I'd just drop you a line ...

Superhero of Love.

I really don't know how it happened, but it did... I was walking around looking for something to eat, realizing that all the shops had closed, it was barely dusk!... and I had a big realization.  It wasn't an epiphany with musics and angels and light, but it was much more quiet, more of a deep, in-bone-recognition than I would have expected.  I think walking a little bit must've channeled the energy in the right direction, for once.  For all the years I spent with J, in worry, and in trepidation, betrayals, fear, anger, flatlines, etc. , I loved him. I had faith in him no matter what he did to abuse the relationship.  I kept waiting for him to choose me, but no go... but what this is!?!:
  I have an amazing capacity to love. , against all odds... right to the moon.

amazing.

That's a pretty big sentence. and a pretty radical shift in perspective.
Throughout all of that, I still loved.  My heart still functions, even now.  Even as he treats me like a stranger after fifteen years, I still worry for him, and wish him well.  I am fucking amazing.

I am a SUPERHERO.

I have chosen an incredibly hard road to go down, to give my children more of my solidity, and my goodness.  Because I love them, possibly MORE than I love myself.   It's more definite than possible, because I still have a lot of work to do.  but there it is.

I am a SUPERHERO.

I may still be dealing with shame for how I let myself be treated, but it is a great feeling to have put such a satisfying twist on it, and to deeply believe it.  It changes me, charges me. . .

(do i sound too woo-woo? can't help it. i'll revert back by tomorrow, i'm sure. not in thought, but in type.)

Trump is a boss. (already been said, yes.)

already been said.

Donald Trump is a boss.  He’s not a particularly good one, but he is a clear boss.  He says what he thinks, no matter how ignorant, and has never needed to think about consequences ever, because he has never been a worker, only a boss.

Well.

I think the reason so many people like him, despite his obvious, and horrible foibles,  is that bosses are comfortable, even bad ones.  They are TV characters, life story characters, we all know them, we’ve all had them. (everyone but Trump).
 

IT is good to have someone damn the torpedos, and fly straight into the fray, and it is good to say what you feel, in anger and frustration.  These things ARE good. They ARE.  Especially if they say what you are feeling... liberation!!

But the truth is? Its too simple, even for Americans.  The world, even our little pieces of it, is more complicated than a boss who ‘cuts through the shit’. 

Americans all get one vote, money aside… so we are all the BOSS.  And since we know this to be true, we KNOW that we have to work as a group, whatever that group might be, in order to make our votes heard. That just doesn’t work if one person is only content to yell and scream insults and never, actually, work. We know this, because we have worked. We have had bosses, and we have had to fit into a group.   Internationally, America is not in a Boss position, we are one of a powerful group, but we need to actually work to keep peaceful power, to keep connection.  It is ACTUAL WORK, DONE BY ACTUAL PEOPLE, WHO DO THAT WORK.

We’re all the boss, and someone like Trump can’t work in that system, because he sees us as people who work FOR him, and he can’t help it, he’s a product of the privilege that comes with gargantuan wealth.  The man has bankrupted FOUR businesses, for christsakes, you think people who ‘WORK’ would choose to do that FOUR TIMES!?

He is never ‘won’ anything because he’s never been on a level playing field in the first place.  He’s ALWAYS had all the best equipment, the refs in his pocket and the crowd full of fans.  Good for him.  He has led a blessed life.  

But in charge of the American destiny?  No thank you.  We need people who understand what it is to work, to sometimes lose, and to get back up again, just to get back to work.  

thinking about this stuff:

My ten year old made rainbow. he must be learning about grids at school.  I am going over it with oils... shared creating...

1. the effect of shame on creative ideas.

- i've been ashamed i haven't been making more stuff, expressing more joy through the color, and the make...  on top of the shame i have felt in my own personal home life. shame for the life i was living and for the constancy of my hope in the face of no-hope. lots of shame. SHAAAAAME. it was such a long time.  how long will it take to unravel itself?
so, now that that is moving slowly into a past tense, now what?

2. lots of women get divorce tattoos, evidently.  should i ?  of what? formless, over here. waiting for inspiration, or not, as the case may be.

3. i read this: in order to shed light, one must be prepared to burn.

dear lord.


i feel very teenagery these days, because i am in something of the same position, forming who i want to be in the face of a wide-open vista. with the added limbs of children and place.... how do i go forward, all Ganesh-d out?

Laundry Lines...

“We don’t need great writing to tell us that obviously amazing things are amazing, just as we don’t need high-powered telescopes to tell us that the sun is warm. What we need from great writing, most urgently, is an understanding that the mundane itself—snails, fireplaces, shrubs, pebbles, socks, minor witticisms—is secretly amazing.”

– Annie Dillard

I totally just 'borrowed' the Annie Dillard quote from "A Design So Vast"  blog, and you should really go read there sometimes... 

this is my mother-in-law, hanging sheets, one of her favorite pastimes, as she sits for my daughter so i can go teach quilting at the primary school.  a doozy of detail.  she fusses with the placement of the clothespins, to no end.  but the sheets and towels dry, and have the smell on them of this cleansing wind. its amazing.