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 |   Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland |
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Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland  Welcome to the place were I chronicle my own falls down dark holes and adventures chasing white rabbits! Come on In, Take a Bite, You Never Know What You May Find... "Curiouser and curiouser." Alice in Wonderland    |
| Blog City DAY 2136 May 22, 2020 Some people love chaos, others crave order. Is it the implicit coldness in order that you need or is it the random warmth that gives you a rush in the unknown ? What pattern works for you? I have always been a person who craves order over chaos. I like planning for what is coming and having a plan B if I'm unsure of a certain outcome. I don't like surprises as a rule. I feel the most centered when I know things are in order in my house and in my life. If I want drama or chaos, I can live that through my writing, and often, I've used that as a kind of escape or an exploration. I get the appeal of the great, wide open...sometimes the thought of running away, taking a chance on the unknown has been tempting. I believe I am a creature best served by order ultimately. I don't mind pressure, or taking calculated risks but chaos isn't my style. Blogging Circle of Friends DAY 2744 May 22, 2020 "The full range of human experience from joy, love, and lust to greed, betrayal, and despair can be expressed in any activity." Do you agree or disagree? What activity best expresses all of them? I think art, in all its forms, is the most powerful medium available to us for expressing the full range of human emotion. I consider writers as artists as well, I believe they craft with words over paint or clay. |
| It seems I've quarantine my own muse these last two months and writing has seemed like a luxury I could ill afford between playing teacher in addition to working from home. I have been taken by surprise by the demands on my time in a time of self-isolating. This week, my state slowly began reopening and with it came a drive to get back to what makes me, well me. That means writing...fitting it in anywhere I can. This forum, and these blogs feel like the best way to come back from what has felt like an extended slumber. Blog City Day 2136 May 21, 2020 Prompt: When do you feel the most creative? The hour of my highest productivity has changed over the years. In the early days, it was always in the evenings. I would write well into the wee hours, uninterrupted by the hustle of an active house. There was something about the silence that would fuel me. Post motherhood I have found that early mornings are when I am inclined to write more. The dogs get me up before the sun most of the time. The world is quiet and something that grounds me and makes it easier for me to let the words come. I tend to write in my head, securing one or two cornerstone phrases to memory, until I can sit down in front of my computer and put it all together. Blogging Circle of Friends Day 2743 May 21, 2020 I feel pity for.... I have never really like the word "pity", it has negative connotations for me. The people I have pity for make me feel sad, they make me feel empty for them and for my connection to them. I feel pity for my adopted brother who has burned every bridge to anyone that ever loved him in a blind, substance-dependent rage. I feel pity for my mother who has cut herself off from real, meaningful relationships with her children and by proxy, her grandchildren. I feel pity for an ex who turned my admiration and affection to dust with his fists. He lives in a state of regret now that even though I have given him my forgiveness, I could never again give him my friendship. I feel like I have far more compassion for people than pity these days, I believe that to be a good thing. |
| Blue skies and sunshine have dominated these last few weeks as my corner of the world slowly and awkwardly embraces a new normal in the wake of COVID-19. While we may not be out of the woods yet, it is hard to ignore the burgeoning hope borne of anticipating shopping trips and movie nights out again. For my daughter, she is most anxious for play dates and time with her friends. This whole thing has been hardest on the kids I believe, especially the ones who do not share their home with siblings. Without brothers or sisters as de facto playmates, our daughter has felt the isolation more keenly than her Dad or I ever could. As I returned to working in the office full time, she has dutifully packed up her school work and snacks each morning to go in with me. To her credit, she has complained little about trading our spacious home for my narrow office for more hours a day than I wished were necessary. She has adapted to working independently as I shoulder some of the responsibility of helping the company best position itself for the challenges of a post-covid world. On our commute in this morning, Sara Evan’s “Supernatural” came on the radio. I was instantly transported, through a haze of glossy memory, to a time when I was a newly minted mother. I used to love the rolling, Celtic melody of that song. I played it often back then, it made me feel happy and hopeful. As the tune spilled from the speakers, I was suddenly once again that young woman, slowly dancing across the sun-warmed wood floors in my bare feet, my infant daughter cradled against my chest. I could feel her full head of dark silk tucked under my chin, her tiny, clutching hands at my chest and the side of her perfect face pressed in close to where my heart beat fiercer than it had ever before. It had felt like magical moment suspended in time. It was that kind of tactile memory that floods your every sense. The kind you experience as a flash of time when you can feel it all again, with every cell of your being. I believe those type of memories are gifts, bestowed on us by the benevolent beings when we need them the most. With my throat thick with emotion, I flicked my eyes to the rear view, trying to reconcile that tiny baby with the growing girl in the back seat. I can still see her in those soot dark lashes and sloping brow. The soft curls are gone and so it the round, cherub face. My daughter, closing in on age 11, is morphing into a strong and graceful beauty. She has an athleticism that inspires me, a quick wit that delights me and a kind heart that melts my own. Those tiny clutching fingers have grown into lovely slender digits that flit effortlessly over piano keys and nimbly type out text messages to her friends. She is reaching that age where she begins to move farther from me as she meets more and more of the world head-on. There are times though when the child reveals itself, more so during the time of this quarantine. It seems that the swift and uncertain turn of her world has regressed her in some small ways. For example, she has insisted on falling asleep between us again, as if it gives her a measure of extra comfort at the end of these strange days. She seems to want the physical contact with us more, bestowing random kisses and full armed hugs, when she had taken to shying away from them before. In other ways, she’s dropped her guard. At times her growing maturity has suddenly slipped to reveal the child again. Just the other day on a hike with her Dad, she was startled by a snake crossing the trail in front of her and it was as if the shock of it turned her into a panicked child again. She ran screaming and crying up the trail. She would only be calmed by a piggyback ride from her father, well past the part of the trail where the offending creature had disappeared into the brush. If there are positives to take away from a pandemic like this, it is the time we have been given to spend with our daughter, to focus on and enjoy the moments of quiet and chaos that come with her growing up. It has made me pay more attention to the precious balance of life and the amazing gift of lucid memories. There might even be something almost something supernatural about it all…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtN9GB08AsQ Share this post: |
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