fling o’ rama
Having accepted congratulations for putting flylady to the side for a time, I just spent probably two hours throwing away crap in my attick hideaway.
It’s a big lovely room. That also means it’s got room for a LOT of crap.
It has been a horror since Christmas. Which was FOUR MONTHS AGO.
I can’t remember what the argument right around Christmas time was about, probably division of housekeeping labor (the fact that there is none, but we’ve settled that reasonably happily now), but I remember crying and telling my husband- – I think I’m going to start abbreviating his name CKK (Curt Kirkwood Kinda)– anyway I remember crying and saying ‘That room is ME!’
Sure, it was theatrical. But it was also true. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. Good old mommy, just throw it in her room, she’ll sort it out. Or, I am the only person in this house who can POSSIBLY take care of this. I’d better put it up in my study, on top of all the other crap nobody can possibly take care of but me. I’ll get to it some day.
Since Christmas this room has been at its absolute height of representing me, I’ll tell ya. It was full of globs of wrapping paper, shipping boxes, packing materials, gifts yet unwrapped, and just shit that the entire family figured I could somehow find a good place for. My healing table (like a massage table) had turned into a work surface/catchall/hidey hole for more shit. You could not see the floor in here.
Then, obscured behind Christmas, was all of my hoarded craft stuff. I have gotten so much better over the years, but… when it comes to crafts and paper products, I am a hoarder. I cannot, cannot cannot organize or let go of fabrics, old diaries/notebooks, items that need mending that I should really just THROW AWAY, unfinished craft projects, scrapbooking stuff… It’s a horror.
Everything I keep, you see, I have to organize.
This room represents me because it takes on everything, and everything never gets finished or processed. I just say, sure! And I take on another task, or pick up another item or commitment whether emotional or physical and figure I’ll get it sorted out somehow and then stow it in my room or in my consciousness until I can’t even think. It’s very sad.
I think of this when I’m in my office, too. I am a stickler about keeping public areas of my workplace clean– tables, dusting, bathrooms– but my office is a piled up mess. My file me pile takes up a table that is, I promise you, a square yard. I’m so busy taking care of my staff and my patrons that my office never gets clean.
I threw away and put away so much. I could just about vacuum up here now.
I have two attic storage areas. My back aches from stooping to come in and out of the mini doors to those dark, miserable little rooms. When I go in there I see all the crap I have still managed to hoard, for years and years and years through over a dozen moves.
I have thrown away so much at every stop, and still here I am. I have boxes and boxes of books, diaries, photos, fancy and expensive clothes that will never, ever, ever fit me again even if they were to be in style ever ever again, holiday decorations… to me that unwillingness to throw away symbolizes fear and denial.
If I could just throw (most of it) away, that would be the energy of a person who is ready to accept and embrace abundance. The more we accept or retain crap, the more we attract it. I believe that with all my heart.
When I shut the sweetly painted doors of my attic storage, I can try to pretend all that stuff isn’t there. But I know it is, and there is going to have to be a reckoning.
What book did I just read that in? “There will be a reckoning.” That echoes in my mind– I think it was kind of comic, but WHAT BOOK WAS IT?
Ah!! Wee Free Men. One of my girlfriends put me onto Terry Pratchett for my stepdaughter and I really liked that book meself. I need to go dig up the next one.
What do you think… is taking care of me first, even when it means that something for others will not get done, still best? We said at healing school that when we show up authentically– which includes setting boundaries and caring for ourselves first– it frees others to show up authentically. But what if I don’t get my goals met at work, or what if something doesn’t get done at home? What if?
This is at the very core of one of my greatest lifetasks, I believe. We just finished Jennifer Weiner’s Good in Bed in my women’s book group, and it’s such a witty, insightful book. The insight comes from the main character’s sense that she doesn’t deserve– anything. It traces back to her relationship with her dad, and impacts her dating choices as well as how she takes care of herself and creates incredible self blame and psychotic post partum depression when her baby experiences problems at birth. It is just ingrained in her that she doesn’t deserve these blessings. I think that’s the spiritual root of my miscarriage a few years ago. Somehow I didn’t deserve that blessing. I’m not saying it’s my ‘fault’– I’m saying I need somehow to get in touch with that essential worthiness that is in every single human being except, it seems, me. Somehow I’ve got to part that veil.
It’s actually a species of insane egomania… it brings everything back to oneself. If you’re religious, this conviction is a sinful denial of the nature of your loving higher power and it’s holding you back from your higher power’s ultimate plan of joy for you. If you’re not religious, well, this conviction is just– a species of insane egomania that’s holding you back from joy and growth.
But it is so easy to know intellectually that one has a problem with thinking they aren’t deserving, and another thing completely to say, oh, yes I am, and in fact if I care for myself I’ll be there for my family and friends and coworkers more than ever.
What if?
There’s no answer. It’s just something to think about.
And… I can reckon, I can shift my energy to the kind that accepts abundance, some other day. I’m just glad to be able to see the floor, and I’m hungry.
so thankful
I have to post quickly, just because the mood of my last post was so glum. I’ve had so much I wanted to say, but between my thinking of late about the energy I pour out toward others and whether that might be better turned inward, and my activities of the last week or two, I haven’t been able. And I’m still not. I just wanted to say briefly.
I’ve spent the last two weeks and way too much money sweating over trying to have a great birthday party for shaky baby yesterday. I am an extremely ambitious party planner, but I am not a top down person, and my husband figures if you can’t get it done the day before or the day of it’s not worth it so… you can imagine the chaos and mass of half done tasks all through the house and yard. I really need to call up my inner military strategist.
I also really need to be more consistent about all those things most of the time so I don’t have to panic when it’s time to have folks over. Or throw away all my stuff so dusting is not a major project. Or, just get over it. Why can’t I just say, fuck no I don’t dust, ever, why would I? My life would be so much easier.
I can’t believe how much I stress. I just want so badly to have people over, and I forget between times just how badly I can screw it up. I never hit the right stride of preparation and relaxation. Or else, I need a maid/server.
We spent her birthday with a dear friend of hers from school… then I had a cold and stayed home with her Wednesday as well, then our baby sitter had a terribly contagious issue at her place so we didn’t have child care Thursday so I split my day up between having her all day and working the evening 1/2 day… then back to work in earnest Friday, half a day Saturday and that insane party.
I think the kids had a good time, truly, and I hope the parents did too. We did manage the pinata of course, and to decorate cookies. A couple of friends brought very nice additions to help out. The weed flowers which make our back yard look so ragged, but which are so beloved of shaky baby, were a huge hit, they were scattered everywhere like fresh rushes for us to tread upon. Thoughtful parents took all the dangerous implements of destruction or bodily harm that I thought I’d adequately stowed away and truly adequately stowed them away. I am trying not to think about anything except the positive– like, after everyone left, my weekend still had two days left in it.
I took her to get her hair cut Thursday, and washed her hair in real shampoo tonight– we usually do water only, or Tate’s Natural Miracle. Her little curls came right out. They are tighter than botticelli but looser than corkscrew, but cut so close to her head they just tighten right up. When you look at the back of her head you can almost hear ’sproingggg’. I need to get her one of those silky mob caps women used to wear to keep their hairdos pretty as they slept, or just a satin pillow case.
As I kissed her good night I realized I’ve spent most of the last week simply celebrating her existence. That is entirely appropriate. She’s an amazing little girl and she is an amazing blessing. I wished her happy birthday again. She said, am I six now? I said no, 359 more days. And we need to think of something special for when you’re six, like going to New York or Paris like Eloise. She said, will Eloise be there? I said no, but we can go to the same places, right? But we need to save our pennies.
My step daughter is here– my stepson had to stay home so he could be in a robotics competition. Today we went to the park in the morning and ate McDonalds breakfast (I know, not vegan, but a girl’s got to eat) picnic style, flew kites, talked to one of my girlfriends who was there too, went to Lowe’s for garden plants, kept a friend’s children for several hours while she’s in the hospital so her exhausted husband could clean and nap, decorated more cookies, and when he took the little ones home, worked a bit in our raised beds and planted some of what we bought today.
You should have seen my little 1.08 year old out in the four o’clock sun and breeze. She would lay on the beach towel, butt in the air and face to the ground, kicking her legs out– just luxuriating in the fresh air and the loving earth under her cheek. It was a beautiful thing. I love all of the kids but they mostly entertain themselves– the 1.08 year old is usually stuck with me. I did take about ten minutes or more with each child especially to do something with them, though. I’d envisioned their visit as a structured repeat of the birthday party, or actually as a chance to do the birthday party right in all the ways I’d failed yesterday… but they arrived just as we got back from Lowe’s so I couldn’t prepare, so nothin’ doin’. They were a bit bratty, but shoot. Their mom’s in the hospital, I had not sorted anything out for them to do– it was fine. I know that even when one of them (including mine) is crying or tattling every five minutes they’d still rather be together. I sure wish shaky baby had let me play the ’whoever pops their balloon first wins’ game though.
Have most of my herbs planted, the ones I spend a fortune buying at the supermarket anyway, and some flowers… husband working on strawberries, peppers, tomatoes, onions… have no idea whatever what to do with the rest of the yard. I got an extra azalea, some Spanish lavender and a gorgeous blue (really purple) hybrid tea rose. I did not get the hydrangea… I thought about how much space it would need in full sun, which would be exactly the area that I’d prefer to keep open at least until I plan my yard a bit better.
The places I want to fill up with lovely fragrant blooms are in shade to semi shade. For the rest of the yard I have in mind these woodland/cottage/formal gone wild curving vistas stretching away, leaving plenty of lawn for play and leading the eye or the walker back toward a couple of different seating areas among the trees and flowers, plus a butterfly garden… curving vistas really take up a lot of space, and a lot of planning, and a lot of money. Too much is not enough when it comes to putting plants in, and it looks shabby to just put in a bit here and a bit there, especially on that endless east fence line. Trees always look so much more stately in threes or rows, and I don’t know how I’ll work it out and stay within my budget and get much done during each planting season, and the more I think about all we want to do the smaller my yard looks! We can always move our raised beds, of course… We’ll see.
I did realize that I want only green foliage and purple, white, lavendar to gray, and variations on blue and fuchsia that appear purple in my vistas. That was a HUGE step forward. Knocked out the Carolina jasmine (jessamine) I wanted for the scent but… wrong color!! Fringe flower is the right color and it smells lovely… but it was seventeen dollars. Next time. The pale purple hybrid tea smelled delightful so that was my splurge.
And so… off to clean party mess for a time before bed. One more lovely weekend day to go for me before back to work!
Tree says climb
I think it’s a child’s job to put us in touch with the rightness of certain impulses or experiences that we’ve long since lost sight of.
I have some low level angst about (among many, many other things) raising my child and stepkids living here in the Dixie Burbs because I feel strongly that children need unstructured outdoor time in order to thrive, preferably in the country. We live on a busy street, our land is stripped of topsoil and floral or animal diversity, and there’s no f-ing way I would let my kids out of my sight for any amount of time *at all* even in our spacious fenced in back yard. I’m terrified they’ll wander away and get hit by a car or that someone will entice them with candy or just snatch them.
As a child I spent hours alone doing things I would never let my child do alone at the same age, ever. I spent hours outdoors by myself. I walked for hours in the woods, sometimes in charge of my much younger brother, and played at the edge of ponds and creeks.
My husband grew up in Napa CA but it was a different place then. Starting from about the age of eight he and his ragtag band of friends stayed out on their bicycles all day long. They could safely pedal all over town, and wild, undeveloped land was just around most any corner. He never heard of any strangers abducting or trusted adults molesting kids left alone in this way, and nor did I.
I couldn’t let my child or stepkids do that, I’d be panicking the whole time.
Too, I wish my childhood had been a bit more balanced. I wouldn’t take anything for those long hours of freedom in the woods but my family always lived in pretty isolated spots. Social support really helps a child make sense of and heal from trauma.
For me and for my husband both I think the long, long hours out in the fresh air in all weathers was a blessed refuge from unhappy (or worse) home lives.
But looking back on it I can’t imagine much that is more precious. The fantasies spun– everything from Narnia or Tolkien style epics to Little House in the Big Woods-style survival on my own in the snowbound woods– the serenity found, the difficult situations that began to heal in those hours outdoors– there is just nothing better. I think a lack of nature– wide open space, freedom to navigate as one pleases, fresh air, sunshine, cold or heat, mud, dirt, plants, insects– makes a healthy child, emotionally and physically, and I think lack of those things is at the heart of many so-called ills for today’s kids, no matter how loving and present their parents are.
Unstructured time outdoors instils a contact so desperately needed –with basic physical realities, with one’s physical self and one’s inner resources– and so painfully absent. I know I certainly am missing it ever since I became a creature of cerebral pursuits, by turns plodding and suffering incredibly through educational, professional, romantic, financial and parenting experiences.
I’ve always felt a faint-to-painful unease living in urban / suburban situations but over time I’ve just learned to make do, as we all do. Having a baby brought me closer than I’d been in years to the pleasures and boundaries of being a truly physical being again… but that was only the tip of the iceberg of what I did not even know I’d lost.
So at our place we have these crappy scrubby trees that are probably just weeds nobody ever cut down and then it was too late and they were trees.
We spent several hours working in our yard this weekend. (I asked my husband if he remembers trying to throw away the kindling wood, and told him I’d blogged about the whole tree/fire saga. he just made a ‘nyah’ face at me. Haha!) Anyway, darned if she didn’t climb those crappy trees and just love it. It was the first time I’ve ever seen her do such a thing. My ass squinched up real tight, reflexively and painfully, in the way that it does when I’m afraid something will happen to her– I had visions of falls, like in Bridge to Terabithia, wasn’t that it? or of her getting hooked or cut or worse on some jutting branch or the chain link fence next to the trees on her way down. I had to control my urge to hustle her down out of that tree, and reduce my admonitions to her to be careful and hold on tight to only once every other minute.
And it was pretty darn neat. She was so happy. She climbed over, and over, and over. She installed herself in one of them and just stayed up there, peering at us through the leaves like a gorilla in the mist and saying mom, dad, look at me! Look how high I am (about four feet). She sang, and sang, and sang, Winnie the Pooh style, little made up songs about how she felt up in that tree. She got stuck over and over and went from asking us to get her down to navigating her own way down. She begged to climb the tree one more time when, hours later, it was finally time go go in
I suddenly remembered something I’d long forgotten.
Tree says climb.
I remembered at least cerebrally even if I couldn’t really bring it back, the compulsion of childhood to climb any and everything vertical. Because it’s there! What a wonderful mindset to be in– tree says climb. I climb. Why can’t we live our entire lives that way?
Of course my angst kicked in– I can’t give my baby real nature, she has to climb these crappy scrubby weed trees.
I realized that to a child a tree is a tree, whether it’s an ancient crab apple tree with limbs broad enough for me to lie down on and stuff myself on crab apples, or a scrubby little crap tree in the Dixie Burbs. I always got in trouble because I could not control my longing to climb a small young ornamental tree in my grandmother’s tiny suburban back yard (it’s huge, now, in spite of all the abuse it took from little me). She’s just four, almost five. So many mundane, substandard things are full of wonder to her.
What a lesson. I feel even more grateful for our yard, such as it is. I realize that she has the faculties to create a precious experience of fresh air and connection with her physical body, of challenges to her strength and bravery, right where she is.
Tree says climb.
a chilly November morning
There’s really nothing nicer than waking up with my little family on a chilly November morning… except knowing that tomorrow I’ll wake up and I won’t have to go to work! For FIVE DAYS!
I’m starting to get shaky baby excited about her big girl bed. I mean, we’re nowhere near purchasing it or building it, but I figure, soon, and the more we build up to it the happier she’ll be. Right? I love, love, love, waking up with her warm sleepy little boddy in the bed in the mornings, but I would also love, love, love, waking up with some room and a good night’s sleep free of kicking and prodding from this large toddler who owns all the space and kicks off all the blankets. I mean, she’s welcome to come back in the middle of the night if she wakes up scared or cold… but the blessing is that my little girl is a heavy sleeper and once she hunkers down for the night I believe most nights she’ll be just fine snuggled in her little big girl nest.
Speaking of love, love, love, we’ve been reading Eloise. I got them for her long ago and they are priceless. She loves them, and I love them. And Nanny says everything three times. Does the Plaza even still exist? You know I’ll have to take her there to stay some day and let her tell the operator “and charge it please and thank you very much.”
I dreamed that my mother put up our Christmas tree and it didn’t match my color scheme and and put it in the wrong room, the living room (somehow we were all living in the same house, my old house in rural New York, and my husband and I were dating I guess) and I wanted another tree in our dining room (of this house, the one we’re in now, which is where we talked about putting it, once I get my sewing mess tidied away) (dreams always require all these parentheticals) and I asked if we could at least have two. She said no, and I was sooooo angry and disappointed. I don’t know what that’s about especially since my mother is always very kind about my decorating ocd, but anyway I woke up and found myself in my own warm sweet bed in my own sweet little house and I can put up my tree anywhere I want, in any color scheme I want.
I have one very large, very strong, very furry dog. She’s huge, and at least five pounds of her hugeness is long luxuriant fur. She’s beautiful, and sweet, and full of energy even though she must be about ten years old. She’s rough, but she doesn’t mean to be. She just gets excited. She barrelled into my right leg as I was letting her in from the yard this morning and nearly broke my angle. Luckily I was standing on my left leg or I’d have been down and heard that sickening pop that I often hear– once every couple years at least– when my ankle gives out and then I fall on it. Ugh! I’ve recovered though. That should teach me to wear platform slides over tube socks around the house, especially when I’ve barely woken up, right?
Sigh. To work.
I am so glad to be home
I can finally exhale, or something. I feel disoriented because I’m not being picked up from some airport or loading up a work vehicle. And I like it. I am going to feel like returning royalty when I walk into my office, because my two favorite and closet coworkers are so darn sweet. Closest. That’s closest, not closet. I hate to go back to work but I’ve had a productive and enjoyable weekend, especially yesterday when I went and did some practice healing work in the morning and had my women’s book (and gossip and cool moms’ support network) group (Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner in November, How to be Good by Nick Hornby in December).
Thanksgiving week is finally here… well I shouldn’t say finally, because compared to how prepared I usually am for the holidays by this time of year (not perfectly, but due to obsessiveness and flylady, pretty darn good), the season has really sneaked up. I have to wait on reimbursements for work travel to buy Christmas presents, which kind of sucks, but at least I can start dreaming and working on it. Our list, including our kids who get big gifts and our nieces and nephews and kids of friends and coworkers and the children’s teacher and my, uh, stepwife (my stepkids’ mom) is up to 22. Uh, 23. I just thought of someone else.
The stepson’s red room looks great, after *four* coats, at least the areas we painted with rollers do, but the areas we brush painted look a bit thin. Sigh. I don’t know what we’ll do about that. I am DYING to get his stuff out of the girls’ room and back into his room and start loading him up with Kingdom Hearts themed stuff.
And then there’s the tree… and the groceries, which require even more thought cause I want to do something nice that’s not meat… It’s fun. And I wish I could stay home and do it from now til Christmas.
flushable wipes
Y’all, they ain’t. Flushable.
That’s what the roto rooter man says.
He really lectured me. Then when my husband came home he held one up on the end of that thing he uses to clear clogs and told my husband, NO MORE.
But he’s not the hiney hygiene freak I am.
The nice man took care of the initial clog, but we wonder if we have a broken pipe between the house and the street. But for now, out of sight is out of mind.
I am sickened by the thought of not being able to use my flushable wipes, or by not flushing them if I do use them.
Eww! What do I do?
Go to cloth like one of my other friends? She says if you can do a diaper you can do toilet paper and feminine hygiene products. Her husband refuses, though. Heh. She always has one roll of TP just for him.
I don’t think I’ll report back.
ten meeeleeeon dolars
okay, so it was only one THOUSAND dollars. Only.
(remember that home warranty we didn’t buy? and my husband said the only thing he could forsee being a problem was the hot water heater?)
our hot water heater started gushing Thursday morning.
the repair guy took all day to show up and say, yep, its the hot water heater, a’ight. Don’t think ah kin get one tonaht.
I couldn’t help myself. I said, if we’d known this earlier we could have already got one, huh?
Then in a strange series of events someone actually did show up to replace it. I don’t know how that happened because I was sulking in the back room from the fight we’d had the day before, which morphed into almost a week of solid, destructive nastiness.
I don’t know how long we’re going to be broke because of it. It’s my dangold birthday, and I love to celebrate this time of year, right through Epiphany, and I have all this work travel to do… eek.
But it will be okay. I’m just thankful I have a job to help us cover something like this. Maybe it will come back to us on our taxes? And warm showers are a damn good thing.
