Here it is..........the last day of 2009. Most people I know say it is the worst year they can remember...Not me. The worst year of my life was 2005...and every year since then has been bad, but I have progressively found comfort in numbness. And on the rare occasion that I allow myself to not feel numb, I feel,........................well,...odd.... I don't want to feel odd, in fact, I don't want to feel numb. I don't want to feel like a part of me is dead and buried, though I am sure that it is....Here and there I get a few "breakthrough" feelings,...you know, those moments when you can almost hear the melodic notes of "hotel california" echoing in your brain and for a brief moment, you feel like you are 16 again.....and of course, within seconds, a voice from the backseat interrupts your
reverie with "Nana, can Sid and Ethan come over?"..OMG, what is that? How is it possible I am a grandmother? How is it possible that I have produced not only the next generation, but 2 generations??? Where did my life go? How did I get here and what happened to my cassette player and boyfriend and my Mexican cotton smock tops?
TSK,TSK,TSK....To all of you out there who may be reading this, and especially to those of you who are under 30, I think I can speak for all of us from the 70's...WE ARE NOT OLD PEOPLE! WE ARE NOT SQUARES! We are hip,......cool,.....fun...we have conscience, and we still want peace and joy to surround us. Now, I think I cannot speak for everyone my age, but for me, I am the same person I was in 1978...albeit with more chins and less colorful hair. I still want to lie in the grass and gaze up at the stars at night...(although since that one time I got caught by my then teenagers, I do always remember clothes), and even though I am considered decidely "un-cool" by my children and grandchildren, I still want to sit on the lawn at Wolftrap or Merriweather Post Pavillion in a long gauzy dress and flowers in my hair and have a cold beer and dance in circles while the band plays into the night...
Don't get me wrong. I also want to sit in my rocker on the porch at sunset and sip a cup of tea. (but only in my long gauzy dresses that have long since had to be made, not purchased, since I am too rotund to find them in the stores any longer)...I want the choice.
I want the choice to be who I want to be....and if that means at one moment I want to be young and free and rebellious, I can....and who knows, I may choose the next moment to don an old wool coat and my daddy's old derby hat, and sit with a corncob pipe in my mouth, smoking and rocking, and thinking....but probably mostly, I'll end up being the me that you all know and expect. .......A grey haired mouse woman with a handful of knitting, and piles of stuff surrounding me..
MamaMcCares
Sanity is all relative!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Same monday, different time
Blech! This feels like a very long day..........A very long day that I have wasted by doing nothing at all in particular. I am a lazy girl today, with no definite motivations or affiliations to anything. What a shame to have this whole entire beautiful day off from work and to fill it with hours and hours of nothingness, interspersed with occasional moments of irritation and disenchantment. Once again, BLECH!
So as I slowly back away from my computer tonight, wishing like heck that Mary and Brenda lived right down the road so I could go and loll around with them, I will resolve that tomorrow will be a better day, a more productive day, a day to actually fold the laundry that I washed today and put it away....with the hope that I will have somewhere to go (other than the dreaded work) to wear it. I NEED a social life...or at the very least, someone like me to sit around with in my pajamas drinking coffee and bemoaning my lack of energy.
And, as I may not return tomorrow to this unfortunate waste (figuratively) of paper, happy New Year to me, and to you and to all of us...God bless us, EVERYONE in 2010!
So as I slowly back away from my computer tonight, wishing like heck that Mary and Brenda lived right down the road so I could go and loll around with them, I will resolve that tomorrow will be a better day, a more productive day, a day to actually fold the laundry that I washed today and put it away....with the hope that I will have somewhere to go (other than the dreaded work) to wear it. I NEED a social life...or at the very least, someone like me to sit around with in my pajamas drinking coffee and bemoaning my lack of energy.
And, as I may not return tomorrow to this unfortunate waste (figuratively) of paper, happy New Year to me, and to you and to all of us...God bless us, EVERYONE in 2010!
Monday, monday....(on Wednesday)
It most definitely feels like a Monday....one of those blarghy Mondays....There is laundry reproducing in all the dark corners of my home, doing their sneaky, snaky tricks to double in size. There are dust bunnies cavorting in corners, as well,....hiding, lurking, pressing themselves against the baseboards to remain invisible until company arrives and they jump out to scare and intimidate,....me, mostly. Any why, you ask, is this loving mother of 3, or 5, or 6, or ocassionally more, doing nothing to dispel her home of the legions of dirt and grime and other creepy things that go bump in the night? LAZY...plain old lazy, and plain old tired of the same old tasks done in the same old way......
I think I'd rather sail away......Ever think about it? A small but durable sailboat, docked on some safe inland lake.....stocked with crackers and cheese and a bottle or two of wine, and a pound of coffee and some cream....Imagine yourself, driving up under cover of dusk, parking your car in the trees, and then glancing surrepitously around, making sure no one is there who can witness your fancy....I'd climb aboard, and row out into the shallows, following the moonbeams just now lighting paths across the lake,....After a time, I'd raise the sails,.....enjoy a brisk joyride through the stars. To the center of the lake, the deepest and darkest part of the water, I'd drop anchor, toss out an old tattered quilt, and sit down, naked to feel the lake winds on my body and to watch how the moon forgives the old lady bumps, bulges and blemishes, as the silver light it casts hides and shields all.
A glass of wine, a wedge of cheese,....a few words of prayer, bits and pieces of an old melody playing in my brain, grounding me, and bringing me back to the psychic place in my head and heart that are my home.
Okay, okay,...................so it's only the ramblings of a middle aged woman. A middle aged woman who needs to tidy this house, this home to so many.....but I refuse to forget that there is also an ageless, timeless girl who lives inside this broken down old body...and she could care less about the dust bunnies and the mountains of laundry, and the fresh brocolli in the refrigerator which needs to be cooked tonight of spoil...
I think I'd rather sail away......Ever think about it? A small but durable sailboat, docked on some safe inland lake.....stocked with crackers and cheese and a bottle or two of wine, and a pound of coffee and some cream....Imagine yourself, driving up under cover of dusk, parking your car in the trees, and then glancing surrepitously around, making sure no one is there who can witness your fancy....I'd climb aboard, and row out into the shallows, following the moonbeams just now lighting paths across the lake,....After a time, I'd raise the sails,.....enjoy a brisk joyride through the stars. To the center of the lake, the deepest and darkest part of the water, I'd drop anchor, toss out an old tattered quilt, and sit down, naked to feel the lake winds on my body and to watch how the moon forgives the old lady bumps, bulges and blemishes, as the silver light it casts hides and shields all.
A glass of wine, a wedge of cheese,....a few words of prayer, bits and pieces of an old melody playing in my brain, grounding me, and bringing me back to the psychic place in my head and heart that are my home.
Okay, okay,...................so it's only the ramblings of a middle aged woman. A middle aged woman who needs to tidy this house, this home to so many.....but I refuse to forget that there is also an ageless, timeless girl who lives inside this broken down old body...and she could care less about the dust bunnies and the mountains of laundry, and the fresh brocolli in the refrigerator which needs to be cooked tonight of spoil...
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
A quickie
Time for just a quickie thought....Sunday...driving down the road, alone in the car...(a rarity)I was playing a Jackson Browne cd at full tilt,and "The Naked Ride Home" played. Since the first time I heard this song, it has reminded me of a particular time in my life, a particular way of feeling....................and when I heard it Sunday afternoon, as I drove just at sunset, I cried. Cried for all the things I am missing and have missed.....cried mostly for myself, that girl I was and will never be again....remembering the passion and the intensity of those days long gone by...I was thinking that it seemed, (at least looking at it now), that those moments actually vibrated with feeling..................like the vibration of each tender musical note picked out on a guitar. Every moment, every thought was ripe, just dripping with life at it's most pure form.
Long before the waters of love, hope, faith and duty were muddied by the responsibilities of real life. Real Life..."real life"..............thinking at that time I had it, then growing up and realizing I didn't, and now, wondering if I didn't have more of it then. Maybe real life is when you live and are guided by your wants and your passions and your desires....maybe the way I am living right now, the way people expect someone my age to, the way I rush around, trying to be everything to everybody is not living at all.
.........and just maybe, laying it all down, picking up the feelings I laid down so many years ago, I can start to really live again.
Can I do it? No one here knows me from those days...........no one at all, and God how I miss you two that did!
Long before the waters of love, hope, faith and duty were muddied by the responsibilities of real life. Real Life..."real life"..............thinking at that time I had it, then growing up and realizing I didn't, and now, wondering if I didn't have more of it then. Maybe real life is when you live and are guided by your wants and your passions and your desires....maybe the way I am living right now, the way people expect someone my age to, the way I rush around, trying to be everything to everybody is not living at all.
.........and just maybe, laying it all down, picking up the feelings I laid down so many years ago, I can start to really live again.
Can I do it? No one here knows me from those days...........no one at all, and God how I miss you two that did!
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Sunday morning
Yikes...................my original post disappeared. I was just commenting on how I wish I were one of those "nice" mama's, coming down the church steps with my freshly scrubbed young ones, my deliriously happy husband, and heading to the local casual french eatery for a bit of lunch. After we would head home to our CLEAN home...(Yes, I am told that , in point of fact, a clean home is possible on Sundays)where I would change out of my polished cotton church dress and into my size 8 jeans and tee shirt, and head out into our garden, (hey, it's a fantasy, it can be warm and sunny all year long) where I sip lemonade as I gently glide about, gathering fragrant blooms for the crystal vase on our polished mohogany dining table.
But no,...................instead, on this Sunday morning, I am sitting squat legged, on a tiny stool in my closet office, hair tangled at my neck, fat and sweating in my floor length flannel granny gown.(at noon...) and truthfully, if there were a local casual french eatery, (and there is not), I am pretty sure I would not want to put clothes on and go *out of my house* to eat. Going out of my house is becoming much like *walking naked through traffic*..........I feel vulnerable, peered at, made fun of, and just plain exposed. and worse, I feel judged.
Judged, you say? Yes, judged....Not measuring up. Let's see...I am too fat to be pretty, my hair is too long, too gray and too "free", my clothes are either terribly uncomfortable due to problem #1, or freakishly too big, or so far out there, people think I am tripping on some decades long acid trip from the 70'2....I either should not be working and be a stay-at-home mom where I volunteer and bake cookies (can't do that either because I wouldn't be able to chain smoke at will...not that I do, but I couldn't if I wanted to)or I should have one job, one job that pays well, where I am held in high esteem and can take off whenever is neccesary. Rather, I have more than one job, both of which are low paying, making me feel as intelligent and as successful as a......................well, never mind, I certainly don't want to offend anyone else.
Let's just say, I do feel, well,.................not good enough. Not pretty enough, not kind enough, not smart enough, no rich enough, not poor enough...In general, just below average. And I do NOT want my children to grow up and feel like this, because I can tell you already, they are VERY special people.............with very special talents and abilities and more importantly, VERY SPECIAL hearts and souls. And I am guessing, if one had asked, my mom might have said the same thing...I will never know exactly.
But sitting here on this sunday morning, I know that despite the fact that I am an ugly duckling that no one would look twice at, I am full of redemptive qualities.....I am creative and resourceful and bright. I am generous and loving and kind (though not as kind as I used to be....I left a large packet of kindness and decency in my mother's casket at the funeral home, and it was month's later before I realized it was missing, and of course, it was too late by then). I am in love with my family and most of their friends, and I am fiercely loyal. But when I am alone, there is a little voice that worries that I am invisible, that I am a nothing, a small microscopic part of a larger nothing...I don't want to be nothing. I want to matter. I want to raise strong healthy children who always feel tall and proud and gracious and kind and part of something large and magical and noble. and as small as I am, I am doing that. Yes, I am doing that. and in doing so, I am making the world a better place.
But no,...................instead, on this Sunday morning, I am sitting squat legged, on a tiny stool in my closet office, hair tangled at my neck, fat and sweating in my floor length flannel granny gown.(at noon...) and truthfully, if there were a local casual french eatery, (and there is not), I am pretty sure I would not want to put clothes on and go *out of my house* to eat. Going out of my house is becoming much like *walking naked through traffic*..........I feel vulnerable, peered at, made fun of, and just plain exposed. and worse, I feel judged.
Judged, you say? Yes, judged....Not measuring up. Let's see...I am too fat to be pretty, my hair is too long, too gray and too "free", my clothes are either terribly uncomfortable due to problem #1, or freakishly too big, or so far out there, people think I am tripping on some decades long acid trip from the 70'2....I either should not be working and be a stay-at-home mom where I volunteer and bake cookies (can't do that either because I wouldn't be able to chain smoke at will...not that I do, but I couldn't if I wanted to)or I should have one job, one job that pays well, where I am held in high esteem and can take off whenever is neccesary. Rather, I have more than one job, both of which are low paying, making me feel as intelligent and as successful as a......................well, never mind, I certainly don't want to offend anyone else.
Let's just say, I do feel, well,.................not good enough. Not pretty enough, not kind enough, not smart enough, no rich enough, not poor enough...In general, just below average. And I do NOT want my children to grow up and feel like this, because I can tell you already, they are VERY special people.............with very special talents and abilities and more importantly, VERY SPECIAL hearts and souls. And I am guessing, if one had asked, my mom might have said the same thing...I will never know exactly.
But sitting here on this sunday morning, I know that despite the fact that I am an ugly duckling that no one would look twice at, I am full of redemptive qualities.....I am creative and resourceful and bright. I am generous and loving and kind (though not as kind as I used to be....I left a large packet of kindness and decency in my mother's casket at the funeral home, and it was month's later before I realized it was missing, and of course, it was too late by then). I am in love with my family and most of their friends, and I am fiercely loyal. But when I am alone, there is a little voice that worries that I am invisible, that I am a nothing, a small microscopic part of a larger nothing...I don't want to be nothing. I want to matter. I want to raise strong healthy children who always feel tall and proud and gracious and kind and part of something large and magical and noble. and as small as I am, I am doing that. Yes, I am doing that. and in doing so, I am making the world a better place.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Blog-Schmog................what am I getting myself into? How bad can it be, right? BAD!! On the positive side, I can watch myself grow and flourish, (or sink and rot). My daugher is blogging, and it is entertaining, it is poignant, and it is truly a peephole into that clever brain of hers. As long as we are talking about daughters, and I have 3, they are amazing. Sometimes monsters, sometimes friends, sometimes dark portals into our own vanishing youthful years. I alternate between crying for them, for the hurts that have come into their lives through the years, shaping them into who they are now, and cheering them on, hoping the insight they have gained will serve them well, and that one day, when they arrive at old age, (hopefully out of breath and with a gleam in their eye), they won't look back with regrets...won't have long lists in their heads of what they "should" have done, or "could" have done differently.
Mostly what I want for them is to live every moment right now,.............slow it down, and indulge their every sense, feel every summer breeze that lifts the tendrils around their face, smell the grassy summer smells and the spring lilac,......feel the heavenly weight of a little face pressed into their neck.
It is now, at the precipice of 50, that my heart most longs for the opportunity to take things back.....to have a "do-over" in a few things. And I can't go back. I can only go slower (if I can, and that ain't easy around here) and speak to them in a soft whisper to "relax..................enjoy..." These are the things that you can never get back, my darlings. Never again do you have that breathless, flirty , "anything can happen", "it's Friday night" feeling. Before you know it, Friday night is not a night to look forward to with plans for dancing, dining, partying with friends, it's a night to look forward to putting on your sweatpants and not rushing to the laundry room to clean clothes for work the next day.
It is now, when I have so many things to say to the people that I have loved and lost and can't...and worse, it seems with the passing of these people, the people who knew me as young that I no longer EVER was young. It is, as though, I awoke from a dream at 50, my memories of young adulthood ever foggier and far away.
Mostly what I want for them is to live every moment right now,.............slow it down, and indulge their every sense, feel every summer breeze that lifts the tendrils around their face, smell the grassy summer smells and the spring lilac,......feel the heavenly weight of a little face pressed into their neck.
It is now, at the precipice of 50, that my heart most longs for the opportunity to take things back.....to have a "do-over" in a few things. And I can't go back. I can only go slower (if I can, and that ain't easy around here) and speak to them in a soft whisper to "relax..................enjoy..." These are the things that you can never get back, my darlings. Never again do you have that breathless, flirty , "anything can happen", "it's Friday night" feeling. Before you know it, Friday night is not a night to look forward to with plans for dancing, dining, partying with friends, it's a night to look forward to putting on your sweatpants and not rushing to the laundry room to clean clothes for work the next day.
It is now, when I have so many things to say to the people that I have loved and lost and can't...and worse, it seems with the passing of these people, the people who knew me as young that I no longer EVER was young. It is, as though, I awoke from a dream at 50, my memories of young adulthood ever foggier and far away.
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