I was right! And 29 years, 18 days later, he still is, and he still likes me!
*Thanks for sticking around.
No Diving
July 28, 2011 By 3 Comments
Please forgive me if it seems as though I’m only half paying attention. You’re right.
Make no mistake, the half that is here, listening, is as engaged as it can be, it’s just that the other half is dozing in a hammock somewhere, maybe by a beach under a palm tree or maybe leaning against a boulder at the top of a windswept mountain or maybe against a vanilla-scented tree trunk near a western river.
Please forgive me if it takes me a week or longer to answer your call or your email. Truth be told, I’m not even checking to see who’s rung or written.
Understand that it’s not because I don’t care about what you have to say or that I’m not interested in what you are doing, it’s just that I am, these days, liable to be diverted and entwined by what is right in front of me: book, child, conversation, meal, thought, view.
Please forgive me if the daily routine is off, if the things that need doing are left undone.
In my “real life” I am a creature of habit and ritual and repetition and control. I have, much to many people’s frequent chagrin no doubt, a difficult time relaxing the reins. I am an all or nothing kind of girl. Apparently, the pendulum has swung. I am not unaware of the dishes stacking up in the sink and laundry left untended to. There is a part of me that savors the feeling of letting it go, not unlike that Sunday morning sleeping in feeling, knowing you should get up, but staying in bed just the same.
Please forgive me if my life seems devoid of depth or creativity or purpose. On the surface, which is where I spend most of my time, I sleep, I eat, I swim, I read, I laugh with my friends, I shepherd my children.
Know that my time as shepherd is as sacred to me as anything on earth, and I am more at peace skimming along on the surface of this life right now than I have been in a long time.
I Beg To Differ About the Leopard and His Spots
July 22, 2011 By 2 Comments
For instance, a stitch in time doesn’t literally save “nine,” but as a procrastinator married to a procrastinator who is the parent of two procrastinators, I can assure you that just sucking it up and doing it right the first time is much easier than half assing it and having to re-do it later. Need proof? Come look at the way my son puts his clothes away on laundry day. It’s a train wreck. Then come back when I discover the train wreck and listen the battle that ensues (and ensues and ensues and ensues) until they get put away correctly.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. There is no such thing as a free anything. There is always a price. Fortunately, sometimes that price is a pleasure to pay. Such as a friendship or a smile. Or just gratitude, because lots of people are lovely and giving and kind and generous and delighted to give of themselves just for the pleasure of doing so. The key here is to be able to identify who IS and who ISN’T like that – because for every selfless individual there is another person who enters into every relationship thinking “what am I going to get out of this?”
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Preschool variation: You get what you get and you don’t get upset. Normal person’s non-ornithological variation: Don’t be greedy. Besides, we all have too much stuff anyway. Last night someone mentioned that she was moving into a 700 square foot apartment with her two kids, and as I drifted off to sleep I imagined all I might get rid of and how could make my space tidy like the cabin of a boat if I lived in 700 square feet.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. I am a huge fan of instant gratification. I’m not a product of the right generation to have been raised to expect immediate results and immediate responses for everything, so I can only assume this is because I’m sort of hyperactive and I tend to do tasks quickly. I’m efficient. I’m also not very thorough when it comes to detail-oriented jobs unless they are very, very important to me. But I need to remind myself all the time that anything worthwhile is worth waiting for – and worth working for, especially as I try to make this point to and for my kids who ARE products of a generation who not only expect but have the audacity to demand instant gratification in almost all things. Buggers.
A leopard can’t change his spots. I think this is wrong, actually. Sure he can. Why can’t he?
In totally unrelated sporting news, Andy Schleck is wearing the maillot jaune today and I assume you’re all having a Gromperekichelcher and hoisting a Bofferding Lager in celebration.
