Notes from the green field

Glorious Spring has Sprung.  Never mind that tonight the forecast is calling for a rain/snow mix.  Today, we ran on the green grass; picked up stale chips from a previous benefactor and feed the geese; and biked as if our lives depended on it.  One of my favorite short stories is about a girl who lives on a planet where the sun only appears for one day every seven years.  She obsesses about the day the sun will appear and her cruel classmates lock her in a closet and forget about her on the day the sun arrives.  The passage where they finally remember her, after the sun has set, and unlock the closet has stayed in my mind for 30 years.

Spring in New England is a bit like the one day of sunshine.  One can't lament the fact that the trees are still bare and that snow could still drop at any moment.  When the moment comes, you have to seize it, drop everything you are doing, and run.

Conversation while recovering from our one Spring day:

Daughter:  If I do get a tattoo, it is not going to be all over my body but just on the inside of my wrist, like Anna has....

Mom:  What will it say?

Daughter:  Peace and love

Son:  If I have to get a tattoo, there is only one possibility

Mom and Daughter:  What's that?

Son:  The recycling symbol, of course

Bad Ass.

Thanks, May

I just finished reading the last journal that May Sarton published entitled, "At Eighty Two".  I don't know when I started reading her journals but my favorite is "Journal of a Solitude".  She was also a poet and novelist and traveled the world.  Her great sorrow was not to be considered a a first rate poet, which I don't think she was.  This last journal you can skip, as well.  It chronicles a deep depression, her ill health and the difficulties of old age.  All those things are admirable to write about but I was left feeling sorrowful for her because she spends so much time on obligation...writing thank you notes for flowers and so little time creating.  My wish for my old age is just the opposite.

Regardless, she falls into the camp of those women who came before, who broke out of society's conventional roles and broke ground for all of us.  She loved women, poetry, and life....especially poetry.  Here is one of her favorites from Yeats, as quoted from her last book:

A Coat

I made myself a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat.
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they had brought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there is more enterprise
In walking naked.

Thanks for the poem and the reminder of how much we need our poets.

Cold Harbor Trail lessons

A runner could get excited when they see a trail with this title.  One could envision the sound of the waves and the briny air pushing one on to greater distances.  Lesson One:  if you are running in the central part of any state, any trail name with the word "harbor" in it is apt to lead you down a false path.  Lesson Two:  if you stop paying attention to the roots that are lying in wait for you to ponder if there ever was a harbor of any sort anywhere near here, you will fall and have some new things to ponder, like can I run with a sprained ankle?

Lesson Three:  If you stop perseverating on the harbor business, you will begin to notice the beauty that can be found on an early spring day in New England, when the ground is still saturated from snow melt, the tree buds are contemplating busting loose, and the daffodils already said "what the hell".

Lesson Four:  Running can be a form of praying.  Today, my run guided me into thinking less about my time, and more about the day that was enveloping me; less about my creaking knees, and more about the creaking birds; less about me and more about the universe.  Amen, and blessed be

He's the Man

Son:  Mom, if ever thing went your way, what would that look like?

Me:  I think the house would be cleaner, other than that, everything is pretty much going my way

Son:  If everything went my way, there would be no more war, deforesting, poaching, or pollution.  I think more people should drive solar powered cars too.

Me:  Oh, you are thinking big

Son:  Do you want a do-over?

Weak in Review

Notice my calm visage.  It is all smoke and mirrors, brought on by a quick run that felt spring-like but not so spring like that you still don't need a hat and gloves.  I am blogging less, running less, creating less because I am working more.  The irony is that I am working more for problems that might happen in the future, thus very effectively pulling me out of my present life.  Something has got to shift.

So here is my week in review, just for giggles:
 Monday:  Job interview in town about 30 minutes from here.  With my aforementioned need to shift, thinking it is a good idea to pursue one job instead of 4 part-time gigs.  Spend 15 minutes scrubbing out the ketchup? stain on my one suit.  Spend 15 minutes looking for one heel.  Spend 15 minutes figuring out what to do with my hair.  Spend 15 minutes looking for appropriate shirt to wear under suit.  Realize that I no longer have fluidity when I have to wear anything other than cords and boots.  Exhausted before interview starts.  The interview itself consists of 6 people peppering me with questions for exactly 20 minutes.  How did I do?  I believe I am as rusty at interviewing as I am at getting dressed for the interview.  Also, I have reached the age of a bit of arrogance and inadvertently laughed at one of the younger person's questions. (it was a bit silly).  She did not appear to be amused.  Roving reporter sent me this link to cheer me up: 
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2011/04/07/how-to-be-yourself-in-an-interview/    It did and it will you too. 

Tuesday:  Worked two jobs to make up for taking the interview on Monday.  Met an 87 year old with terminal cancer.  Helped put some things in perspective.

Wednesday:  Rushed to drop off camp forms that are due today for camps that start in July.  Realize that organized people, although sometimes less fun, have an evolutionary step up on the rest of us.  Rush back home to pick up my son for karate.  Husband calls to let me know he has heard from son's teacher and son was inadvertently exposed to pornography at school.  Really?  Son gets in car and we have a talk about pornography, sex, cultural mores, mating, the beauty of the human body, the F-word, spiritual connection to love-making, and mortality.  Did the talk go well?  About as well as the interview.

Thursday:  Long day at the middle school where I work.  Some people got hurt, futures changed in under a minute.  This all went down on a day I wasn't in the building.  I feel like a Picasso painting, fragmented and not put back together in a coherent fashion.

Friday:  Decide that I am not leaving my current job which is probably brought on by my not hearing from the place I interviewed with, how lucky our thoughts match:)  Rush home from work to fix dinner at 4:30, pick kids up from field trip and get them dressed and ready for literacy night.  Daughter is crying because she is a reader and is very anxious.  Son helps situation by stating "what you're feeling now is why I would never do this in a million years".  Daughter faces her fear and gives a great reading.  While relaxing with 300 other parents in the cafeteria, roving reporter reminds me that I have 20 minutes to get across town and pick up daughter's lacrosse uniform from the trunk of a car.  She takes daughter, husband takes son, and I get uniform.

We are all charging through life at this pace, I get that.  I say yes to everything and then spend a lot of time trying to manage it all.  My friends are great at helping me thread the loose ends back into the tapestry but they have their own gigs.  So, next year one sport per kid, no coaching, and one or two less jobs.  There is strength in doing less but doing it more mindfully.

Have a peaceful week-end!