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Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Compartments

I'm sorry that I haven't been writing lately. There is just always a lot going on... I have chunks of time free from 9-12 in the morning and then I spend the rest of the time driving here and there and shuffling kids and errands and there is a flurry of in between.... but... compartment. . .

I love this word... puts me in mind of ikea cabinets, tiny Swiss cubbies of organizing madness.  Symbols of cleanliness and godliness in a very distanced, respectful fashion.
It must be a truly satisfying arrangement, cleaning up, putting everything in its place, seeing how segmented life can be when you just have enough compartments.

Its not a real satisfaction, for me, because it would be entirely delusional.  I appreciate it in other women/mother's lives, I suppose, if it fits for them.

I've sort of given up on them.  ITs all messy.  I myself don't fit into one, my kids don't really care what goes where and we all, in our non-OCD ways contribute to an enormous house-wide compartment that truly, has no sides and spills into the roadway once the weather changes...

Currently my house is full of crowded corners. There are the things I am trying to clear out of J's. Yes, still.

It is a situation that makes sense, but I dread the 'day' when he comes to 'clear out' and so am really trying to take care of packing that up and getting as much of it out of my space as I can.  My grand plans, too, are on hold until he and his things are cleared out and I can take action on yard sales and burnings of things left behind.

Is the past in a compartment? It is so changeable and fluid, I don't see how it could be... but it certainly has no present day play, so it should be dead.  Packed up and stored.  But it isn't, is it?

I'm working hard these days on making it not matter so much to me.  It is a thing I have carried on my skin for a long time, making meaning where there isn't any present day play.  And it is time and has been time to shed that particular skin.    

Naked, baby. Naked.

Is there a naked compartment?  Oh, IKEA, I think you may have failed me.

Monday, March 6, 2017

Cigarettes

I'm well on my way to quitting, finally, mostly.  I've had three in the past month. And because the three have been in the past week, i am quibbling and adding the 'mostly'... I started by having a sickness, a fevered inability to walk outdoors or imagine drawing a deep breath that wasn't for sleep... and it just rolled from there.  The kids have noticed, I have noticed.

I think about it a lot and the three that I've had in the past week have been wonderful, unfortunately.  I know that, if you haven't smoked at any point in your life, you just don't understand.  And i'm here to take a stab at helping you with that. (Because? Man, get out of here with your practicality. Get the hell out.)

Its possible you scorn the smokers, that you make that face when you smell that smell, that you feel a righteous indignation when you see the mom on the front stoop smoking while the littles play... but man... man...

My friends and I smoked cigarettes in high school when we could get a pack with the spare change we found on the floor of the car.  If you don't think that taxes have done anything, I am going to put a large glowing arrow on the beginning of my paragraph here... packs are ten to eleven dollars now and  we never could have started if that was the case when i was sixteen...

I smoked with alcohol and in bars when I was in my twenties, and it was cool. Bad girl stuff.... toughening up a suburban middle-class, okay family white girl, I suppose.  But the key point in that sentence was the DESIRE to be toughened up... because here it is... when i step out of the kitchen, the house and sit down and have a cigarette, I feel like a badass, I feel separate and distinct from the work of the home, the work of the mother, I feel my spirit RISE and get ready to do battle... and its surprising and not surprising how all the work of the home can really deaden that feeling of RISE.

Its like a sparkle light... (if you can manage to take Cancer out of it, and really, who the hell can?! I mean, come on ... this shit will actually KILL you.)...a tiny ember of The Who i used to be when i really was a badass.


But its on its way out of my life, like so many things this year.. and I don't quite know what to do to get in touch with my badass... i suppose i could start drinking whiskey but really I've had enough of that for awhile...
What do you do to feel your strength? Your badass?