December eve

Here I am, blissfully alone, sitting on my couch, fake fire glowing, as I tap away into the ether. My circumstances changed with a blink. I went from wiping four-year-old noses to enduring pre-teen poses. I guess I like it all, but I'm glad I'm no longer in the JK yard, coming down with every variety of communicable ailment because I had to hold hands with the little germ mongers every day. Don't get me wrong, I loved them all, but I was also very, very sick, very, very often.

Middle school is much more civilized, germ-wise, although not so much otherwise.

The good news is that E and I get to escape to Cuba on Christmas Day. Hooray. I had to convince him to take me to a resort, rather than his kids, which was his original plan. I do have to do a lot of convincing with this man, which can be annoying, but at least he accomodates me. Can I say that I can't wait until the kids are grown and gone? Is that such a bad thing to admit to? His kids, not mine. Mine is challenging, but I like having her around . . . most of the time.

Ahhh, parenting. What a challenge thou art. Both E and I are dealing with kids on some kind of spectrum and it is hard going.

What isn't?

Why is that?

There must be a way, time, place that makes this all make sense.

Winter is a time to spend dark nights wondering about the sense of everything . . . when all is muffled in the cold, white shroud of snow.

What makes fall beautiful

Okay, I tend to complain a lot and have recently noticed myself feeling angry . . . so I'm going to try to focus on the small and beautiful.

At my mother's funeral, over a decade ago now, what I noticed was that my mother was noted for small and quiet things, not grand accomplishments. She always told me she was happy. What can I take from this?

I think what makes me happy are small and quiet things, too, although I suppose that's because those small pleasures are easiest to access. My husband, who has a big career and recognition, doesn't suffer the same sense of bewilderment and confusion that I do . . . I know that his career provides him with a strong sense of identity and security. I do wonder what would do that for me.

Strong intimate connections are what make me happy . . . but what kind of career is predicated on those and how can I begin to explore that at this late age? I wish I knew.

Late Summer

I`m up early on my last summer day with A. She is heading to the cottage with her dad. I fully expect not to hear from her for the next two weeks because every time I have been away, or she has, I hear nothing. Her father does not answer the phone. I feel that`s deliberate. I don`t know what to do anymore.

I prepare her as best I can. I hope for the best.  I let her go.

How should a person be? I wasn`t left with any answers. Thanks, a lot, Sheila.

I think my big question is . . . What am I doing here? And I haven't been able to answer that question. There doesn`t seem to be any resounding answer from the Universe and I don`t seem to have any internal sense of purpose - beyond feeling compelled to mother well and express myself clearly to those I love.

Art should, I think, ask us to consider our circumstances critically. We enjoy art, I think, because we are seduced into doing so by whatever particular form it takes.

Recently, I`ve been wasting a lot of my time on entertainment . . . wasting being a harsh word, but . . . I feel that my efforts to create and facilitate entertainment haven`t helped me grow in any way and I expect that everything I do can increase my understanding or further my sense of connection to ideas or people. Again, my challenge seems to be trying to forge connections and I cannot figure out why it isn`t happening.

What does it take to really connect? E.M. Forster was all about that. He was hugely influential for me. `Only connect!`

But what if you want to connect and no one else is really interested? What do you do then?

Can art be a means to connect without fear or threat? Maybe.

Maybe all I can do is withdraw . . . to muddle my way through some form of creative expression that will make me feel . . . even if no one else does.

How Should a Person Be?

The title of this post comes from Sheila Heti's novel, that I downloaded onto my new kobo and have been reading since we left the desert.

Her novel is making me feel less alone, less strange, less like a failure.

Maybe everyone feels a little like a failure, but probably not. E doesn`t. And he doesn`t think about meaning. I asked him, 'What makes your life meaningful,' and he said, 'I don`t think like that.'

Whenever I try to talk to him, that is the kind of response I get. He is perfect, has done everything he ever wanted to, doesn't have any regrets, and doesn't think about the future, beyond planning for his perfect children's perfect lives.

I can't talk to anyone else because they are all busy.

It is difficult to find kindred souls, and I do believe in them. My daughter is one, but she`s still a kid.

So . . . where does that leave me? I talk to my 7-year-old. Our conversations sometimes make sense, but often are so clogged in make-believe they don't make any sense at all.

Most of what I think doesn't make any sense either, so we're okay.

I just lost the rest of my post . . . about how you can worry about how you should be only when you have the luxury of time that allows you to do so. With kids, that vanishes. All you can worry about . . . is how to make it through the day, or week, or summer, or school year, or childhood.

That`s the next movie I want to see - Childhood.

We saw Palo Alto  in the desert. It felt like a movie about living in the desert.

I think the desert is easier to live in than the wilderness. There is less to attend to.

How should I be? Apparently, according to the signs I`ve been seeing, I should be nothing much of anything at all . . . the universe keeps shutting doors. Bam! Not for you. Bam! Sorry! Bam! Think of something else.

Funny that Heti`s mind never goes that way . . . her gripes are with others. She knows she's right where she should be.

Lessons from the Desert

So, in beginning to think about this post, I was reminded of the fact that Jesus also went into the desert. I am not religious, but I opened my little red Gideon bible, given to me in 1978, and it opened to this passage:
             Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

This was a prolonged chapter about fasting and temptation and Jesus sending the devil away. Was this the whole desert section? I`m not sure. Maybe I am confusing wilderness and desert. I live in the wilderness . . . I just visited the desert.

I loved the desert. I felt it taught me a number of valuable lessons. I`ll try to summarize them here:

1. what appears stark and barren may be thriving with beauty and life
2. look closely
3. breathe deeply
4. drink water
5. step carefully
6. attend to yourself in the heat

Oh, there`s more . . . but for me the desert was mostly just soothing with muted colours of sage and terra cotta; contrasting textures of pointed cacti, waving rounds of brush, corrugated mounds of red rock, and dusty, bloodish sand; delicate purple flowers white lacy branches; and sweeping blue skies.

E and I were there so he could ``conduct research.`` While he did that . . . I wandered about Albequerque . . . spying on the Breaking Bad RV tour and reading in sun soaked squares. Later, we retired to our desert resort . . .

So, as I fantasized about escaping our less-than-ideal marriage, I was lulled into acquiescence by our
luxurious surrounds.

This is marriage. I forgot our 2nd anniversary this year, cotton, but rode a horse named Cotton at the resort, as he munched his way through the desert to the shores of the Rio Grande at sunset. E rode ahead, on a horse named Topaz, a survivor of a rattlesnake bite. We reconciled ourselves to each other and whatever this is . . . struggling with stepkids and bio-parents, with our orange not apple marriage, with mid-life and foul tempers, with the messy richness of clashing cultures, bad manners, and good intentions.

Easier, please. I`d just like it to be a little easier.

Suffice it to say, I can relate to Walter White.

Mid-Summer

It doesn't feel much like summer. I am walled in with rain. Oh, dreary mess. I am listening to the top 100 best Canadian songs on the CBC . . . and am waiting for the Payolas to make an appearance . . . and Corey Hart . . and Neil Young's 'Heart of Gold'? Where are they??

Anyway, a distraction when I need one from everything else . . .

I am staring at the beautiful, wilting red roses that I was given on Monday, my second anniversary. I desperately want to see 112 Weddings . . . to see if everyone feels as disenchanted as I do . . . but I won't be around for the run . . . as we are off to the desert.

I can't get the title 'Desert of the Heart' out of my mind . . . and pulled it out to re-read it . . . thinking it might parallel my own particular pain at this time . . . but, alas, it doesn't . . . it is set in Reno and is about some other kind of love, even if redemptive. I don't feel anything can redeem my well-meant mess.

Recently I visited my mother's crumbling homestead. It is almost a ruin. She would have been devastated at the state of our family. I realize it takes a lot of work and will to hold people together, but there doesn't seem to much you can do if people do not want to be together and are not directly bound by blood or love.

I have been asking for help, not from anyone in particular, from the air, the summer, the universe, but no one is answering. The answer seems just to be 'carry on.'

Does anyone else have a better answer?

The sun doesn't seem able to bring any light.

June 14, 2014

Ah, June. Lovely month. I just returned from a stroll through the burb . . . to the Couche Tard for mediocre coffee . . . but alas, nothing else is walking distance away.

I'm almost through this year . . . and from this end of things . . . it really was unbearable, despite my attempts to see it in a positive light. I'm done with doing whatever I've been doing and really must find a better way.

After experiencing what I thought of as a quarter-life crisis in my twenties, I'm back to crisis mode at the now-appropriate mid-life point. What now? is all I can think . . . as my second marriage is a mess of disappointment and frustration, as my career is crushed, as my confidence is lost . . .

Thankfully, I do have a super cute and curious kid, but she is exhausting.

I have to recover this summer . . . I have to rediscover who I am and what I can do . . . because all I've been able to focus on all winter are my failures.

Bring on the sun.