Want more? Head over to Susan's blog. Oh my my.
30 November 2012
Della photos by Susan Mullen
Want more? Head over to Susan's blog. Oh my my.
29 November 2012
Scrambly
Sometimes treading water looks like you aren't going anywhere, because, well, you aren't. And the not going anywhere can very easily look like not very much... can seem like lack of progress, lack of effort, lack of busy-ness and productivity. But there is a lot of scrambling motion under the surface keeping you from drowning, and boy howdy, that sure counts.
Inside, I am feeling all sorts of scrambly.
There's a lot of motion under the surface. A lot of inner work, adjustments, re-realizations, some discomfort, a new cold, many projects, not quite enough time, and no where near enough down time.
There is no down time.
I need to figure out how to figure that out. How to allow for it. Make space for it. Fill the space with down time that feels like down time. I am working against myself at the moment, filling filling filling. Running out of time feels like a daily deal.
Even my dreams have been frenetic and over-filled. I wake puzzled by the flood of images, quests, seeking, complexity and nonsense of them and their too muchness.
Today I am trying to get some things off my list. Some of the too much. Some of the weight of unfinished business. I am trying to avoid avoidance. Do stuff that has been dangling and lingering. Just hit send, just hit publish. Just put it out there, not waiting until or unless, but just trying to get things done *enough*, enough for now.
One of my new updates today is to my heartwork creativity blog. Please feel free to check it out.
Note the new tab for consulting.
Note the new tab for coaching.
Note the coaching is currently FREE for an email exchange. Interested? Contact me!
Back to my scramblings and do-ings, just have really missed being here.
Really.
Really, really.
Inside, I am feeling all sorts of scrambly.
There's a lot of motion under the surface. A lot of inner work, adjustments, re-realizations, some discomfort, a new cold, many projects, not quite enough time, and no where near enough down time.
There is no down time.
I need to figure out how to figure that out. How to allow for it. Make space for it. Fill the space with down time that feels like down time. I am working against myself at the moment, filling filling filling. Running out of time feels like a daily deal.
Even my dreams have been frenetic and over-filled. I wake puzzled by the flood of images, quests, seeking, complexity and nonsense of them and their too muchness.
Today I am trying to get some things off my list. Some of the too much. Some of the weight of unfinished business. I am trying to avoid avoidance. Do stuff that has been dangling and lingering. Just hit send, just hit publish. Just put it out there, not waiting until or unless, but just trying to get things done *enough*, enough for now.
One of my new updates today is to my heartwork creativity blog. Please feel free to check it out.
Note the new tab for consulting.
Note the new tab for coaching.
Note the coaching is currently FREE for an email exchange. Interested? Contact me!
Back to my scramblings and do-ings, just have really missed being here.
Really.
Really, really.
12 November 2012
playground
Today I took Della to the playground. I generally don't. We go to the farm, where we interact with each other and the animals and the tractors, but not really other families, other parents, other moms.
Today, we went to the farm, and the day was just so glorious, 70 degrees, warm breeze, nearly intoxicating...I could not imagine going inside. So, on the way home, we stopped at the playground.
I do this thing-- I feel like I am the new kid at school, spend time looking at my shoes, or just at Della, in some self-protective-feeling tunnel vision. Wider awareness comes with something like monstrous trepidation, like I am a big fat faker. Like I am the only one making it up moment by moment, an interloper, a charletan.... something negative and out of place and yet
and yet
I am there with my amazing daughter.
And people smile at her and at me.
And people say hello, and so do I.
My internal scars and scarlet letters do not show on the outside.
I said hello to a woman looking my age with a 2 year old, and a 3 month old.
To a woman much younger with four kids, all under 5, the youngest 6 months.
But I am guilty of so many things:
envy,
a temptation to assume genetic connection,
a temptation to assume easy fertility,
to assume ease...
Today I tried my best to just be me. Not totally self conscious interloperKate. Just Kate. With Della.
But I still heard some sort of apology in my voice when I noted Della's diaper needed changing, and the bag was in the car,
I heard some sort of awe when I said "wow, four kids, that's really something"
I felt some sort of "less than" in the way I held my body
But all in all it was a glorious day,
we came home with sand in our pockets and dirt on our knees
we ate popsicles and talked about our big big day
and the evening wrapped up with me, in a tangle of rookie mistakes, tripping myself up with dinner and dishes and daycare lunch preparation when really, I should have just gotten down on the floor with Della, but instead found myself creating a perfect storm of dropped rice and a too-small casserole dish and sticky stuff dumped under the burner, while Della put on her own boots, stomped through the kitchen kicking clods off the treads, and was ratcheting up Mommamommamomma, increasingly calling for my attention and me, saying one more minute one more minute one more minute with a lump forming fast in my throat
and Della ended up lying on the floor crying
when all I really wanted to do at that moment was exactly the same thing
and it got alright once the casserole was in the oven
and I gave up everything else
so, tonight I am rewinding the day, reveling in the great day that it was
because if me
in spite of me
along with me
which is really what this is all about I think
magnificence.
stuff burning on the stove
and rice on the floor.
Today, we went to the farm, and the day was just so glorious, 70 degrees, warm breeze, nearly intoxicating...I could not imagine going inside. So, on the way home, we stopped at the playground.
I do this thing-- I feel like I am the new kid at school, spend time looking at my shoes, or just at Della, in some self-protective-feeling tunnel vision. Wider awareness comes with something like monstrous trepidation, like I am a big fat faker. Like I am the only one making it up moment by moment, an interloper, a charletan.... something negative and out of place and yet
and yet
I am there with my amazing daughter.
And people smile at her and at me.
And people say hello, and so do I.
My internal scars and scarlet letters do not show on the outside.
I said hello to a woman looking my age with a 2 year old, and a 3 month old.
To a woman much younger with four kids, all under 5, the youngest 6 months.
But I am guilty of so many things:
envy,
a temptation to assume genetic connection,
a temptation to assume easy fertility,
to assume ease...
Today I tried my best to just be me. Not totally self conscious interloperKate. Just Kate. With Della.
But I still heard some sort of apology in my voice when I noted Della's diaper needed changing, and the bag was in the car,
I heard some sort of awe when I said "wow, four kids, that's really something"
I felt some sort of "less than" in the way I held my body
But all in all it was a glorious day,
we came home with sand in our pockets and dirt on our knees
we ate popsicles and talked about our big big day
and the evening wrapped up with me, in a tangle of rookie mistakes, tripping myself up with dinner and dishes and daycare lunch preparation when really, I should have just gotten down on the floor with Della, but instead found myself creating a perfect storm of dropped rice and a too-small casserole dish and sticky stuff dumped under the burner, while Della put on her own boots, stomped through the kitchen kicking clods off the treads, and was ratcheting up Mommamommamomma, increasingly calling for my attention and me, saying one more minute one more minute one more minute with a lump forming fast in my throat
and Della ended up lying on the floor crying
when all I really wanted to do at that moment was exactly the same thing
and it got alright once the casserole was in the oven
and I gave up everything else
so, tonight I am rewinding the day, reveling in the great day that it was
because if me
in spite of me
along with me
which is really what this is all about I think
magnificence.
stuff burning on the stove
and rice on the floor.
09 November 2012
06 November 2012
This I know
I began the day early. Della is NOT adjusting to the time change, so we are up at 4, and stay up too late (well into fussyland) and oh, it will be nice once we get it together and sleep enough again.
I walked downtown, through frosted everything, 19 degrees...
I voted.
I used to live in upstate New York, in an era that included old fashioned mechanical voting booths. Little levers to swivel down for each candidate with a satisfying click, and a giant lever that whooshed and ca-changed, took the tally, zeroed the levers, and opened the curtain in a wildly dramatic way....
Today, I filled in circles like an old school standardized test but with a black felt tip, not a #2 pencil.
I fed my ballot into a machine.
And I walked back, sunshine just barely reaching the tops of the trees, and was home by 8am.
Today has been full of anxious buzz. My mind doing me no favors by worrying worrying worrying.
Ok folks, so here's the truth.
I have a vested emotional and intellectual interest in the outcome of this election.
But...
But I also have the ability to do many things... I can make my voice heard. I can march on washington. I can lobby and rally, call and whine, take action, civilly disobey. I can vote. And so can you.
I may not believe the same things you do
I may not think the same things you do
You may have voted differently than I did
But up until Della, I would have fought and died for your right to free speech, free expression.
Now I have Della, and I am not quite so quick to give up my life, however,
the point here is
anxious? yes,
but with perspective too
I walked into and out of my polling place in 5 minutes.
How lucky am I, that I CAN vote, and that I live in a town where, as far as I know, there is no bullying. There is no broken touch screen bullshit. There is no line around the corner. I am so so so incredibly lucky. And luckier too, because I know it.
I walked downtown, through frosted everything, 19 degrees...
I voted.
I used to live in upstate New York, in an era that included old fashioned mechanical voting booths. Little levers to swivel down for each candidate with a satisfying click, and a giant lever that whooshed and ca-changed, took the tally, zeroed the levers, and opened the curtain in a wildly dramatic way....
Today, I filled in circles like an old school standardized test but with a black felt tip, not a #2 pencil.
I fed my ballot into a machine.
And I walked back, sunshine just barely reaching the tops of the trees, and was home by 8am.
Today has been full of anxious buzz. My mind doing me no favors by worrying worrying worrying.
Ok folks, so here's the truth.
I have a vested emotional and intellectual interest in the outcome of this election.
But...
But I also have the ability to do many things... I can make my voice heard. I can march on washington. I can lobby and rally, call and whine, take action, civilly disobey. I can vote. And so can you.
I may not believe the same things you do
I may not think the same things you do
You may have voted differently than I did
But up until Della, I would have fought and died for your right to free speech, free expression.
Now I have Della, and I am not quite so quick to give up my life, however,
the point here is
anxious? yes,
but with perspective too
I walked into and out of my polling place in 5 minutes.
How lucky am I, that I CAN vote, and that I live in a town where, as far as I know, there is no bullying. There is no broken touch screen bullshit. There is no line around the corner. I am so so so incredibly lucky. And luckier too, because I know it.
05 November 2012
US *In which, I wax political*
Us.
No,
not US and THEM
Just: Us.
Have you seen an image of earth from space? A little blue marble, in the middle of a whole lot of mystery. It's just US folks. Us. We're all in this together.
The person we elect tomorrow has an immense and unbelievably difficult and challenging job. An extraordinary job.
A terrifying job.
A job with responsibility for caring for everyone: the sick, the old, the young, the rich, the poor.
As you make your choice, please, think about us, all of us.
Think about inclusivity rather than exclusivity.
We are all in the same boat, even if it rarely feels that way.
I wish we could trade divisiveness for togetherness, without the aid of foreign threat.
I wish somehow we could just see that we are all in this together.
As we stood in the cold, I stuck a pro choice sticker on my baby and my husband asked, so you are choosing for her? And I said, no. Pro choice is all about maintaining choice, it allows her to choose whatever is right for her.
Inclusivity.
Please vote.
'nuff said.
No,
not US and THEM
Just: Us.
Have you seen an image of earth from space? A little blue marble, in the middle of a whole lot of mystery. It's just US folks. Us. We're all in this together.
The person we elect tomorrow has an immense and unbelievably difficult and challenging job. An extraordinary job.
A terrifying job.
A job with responsibility for caring for everyone: the sick, the old, the young, the rich, the poor.
As you make your choice, please, think about us, all of us.
Think about inclusivity rather than exclusivity.
We are all in the same boat, even if it rarely feels that way.
I wish we could trade divisiveness for togetherness, without the aid of foreign threat.
I wish somehow we could just see that we are all in this together.
As we stood in the cold, I stuck a pro choice sticker on my baby and my husband asked, so you are choosing for her? And I said, no. Pro choice is all about maintaining choice, it allows her to choose whatever is right for her.
Inclusivity.
Please vote.
'nuff said.
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