Gray days affect me. I try to pretend, and go about my day as if they don’t…but they do. These kinds of days feel oppressive. Once the sky opens up and heavy rain falls, I feel better. It is almost as if it is the waiting. Waiting for the weather to do one thing or another. But for now, it is just gray and hovering. I usually find that my mind is trying to assign another reason for my melancholy. Even when my husband suggests the sky as the culprit, I grimace and recoil and wonder out loud how he can be so flippant. To try and combat this feeling, I force myself outside to run errands, “because it will be raining later.” Is that logic, or hope? Getting things done, checking things off my list is supposed to help…and it does, but only a little. Little things seems to vex me on days like this. My car alarm goes off while I am getting out of the car. On other days I can shrug it off and treat it just like any other moment in my day, but today I am flustered. Standing at the checkout of the little grocery stop, something clearly drops to the floor as I am digging through my purse. It makes a distinct sound as it bounces off the yellowing linoleum floor. Even the lady ringing up my groceries hears it, and suddenly engages me with a tiny smile when before she was rather stoic. We both look around, nothing to be seen. Something fell, something I came in with will be left behind, and that makes her giggle. What was it? I am not sure. But the moment causes an unease that I will probably carry with me for the rest of the day. That is until I realize what I have lost, or perhaps I will never know. Unease continues even as I write this. Talk radio is supposed to help, but the noise is not comforting. Why don’t I get up and turn it off? Because it is a gray day and I am equally still deciding. One small moment brings a quirky thought. As I am putting away the organic fat free milk (for my daughter), frozen Brussels sprouts (for my husband), and sugar free hazelnut creamer (for me)…I am suddenly aware that, while standing in my kitchen and lifting these few essentials out of a paper bag, I feel like I am in a movie. Here is a scene played out over and over in fictional recreations of real life. The quaint paper bag, the lonely girl in the kitchen, a friendly dog sleeping on the floor, on an overcast day. Usually it is a scene that is used as a familiar pause before something interesting happens. I am strangely comforted every time I watch these scenes. A prelude, or an interlude, or an exhale between life changing moments. Or maybe that is just a romantic notion to distract me from the thing that I lost.
Hit or Miss
•May 14, 2012 • 3 Comments
My carcass has been flung
At the mark
I meet the bullseye
With such force
We both continue rocking
Back and forth
For a few breaths
Or a moment
While I hang against
The concentric circles
I feel a slow sliding
Has begun
The friction between us
Tugs at my flesh
The dew that lingers
Coats us both
And speeds my travel
Towards the earth
As I remain inching
During my descent
My free ear alerts me
Another’s bow is lowly echoing
The corner of my eye compels me
An arrow slices the shadowy air
In moments it may marry my insides to the mark.
— April Resnick
On Mother’s Day
•May 13, 2012 • Leave a Comment
I am grateful to be left alone. I want to sleep in and to have some time to myself, time to find my own trajectory. I find this holiday over-wrought and romanticised, much like other people find Valentine’s day. I am immediately confronted by the obvious fact that I do not, and cannot, live up to the standard set by greeting cards and Time magazine covers. Hell, I can hardly live up to the standards set at parent pick-up and at the playground. But these are things we seem to not be allowed to say in the company of other parents, or non-parents, or parents who have lost children. Somehow my honesty about the entire emotional spectrum of motherhood immediately invokes looks of “you shouldn’t say that.” Why? Don’t we all feel these things at one time or another, even while we love our children? Do the platitudes of “time goes by so fast” and “don’t take it for granted” automatically negate the truth of our immediate experience as parents? Isn’t it possible to enjoy your child, be fully present with them, and also be fully present with yourself, and your emotions, and the ups and downs of real life. I think perhaps in our struggle to always “stay positive” we are doing a great disservice to our own humanity. My daughter will see me struggling with life and emotions. My daughter will see me as human, not as some goddess. And that might enable her to have more compassion for her own humanity…I hope. My mothers are not goddesses, they are human. Perhaps it is time we learn to see that as beautiful, grit and all. Acceptance in this very moment, whatever that brings, to give it and receive it, that is what I want this Mother’s Day.
An explanation
•May 13, 2012 • Leave a Comment
So where did my title come from? It came out of a conversation with my “Expressions of Meditation/Creative Writing” group. We were chatting about things that you can and cannot say about your daily life in polite company. The PC rules of daily mundane conversation, if you will. It struck me as funny, and I made a comment as such, that we are not allowed to admit that we dislike certain things without getting the hairy eyeball from most people…even though I am pretty sure that 99.9% of people have also thought the exact same thing. One of them being that sometimes I hate my cats and secretly look forward to the day that I will not longer have to clean up after all of their bodily functions. I care for them, feed them, pet them, and enjoy their company…but am quietly thrown into a vortex of hating everyone and everything in my life when I have to clean the litter box, or cat vomit, or the vindictive piles of “I am mad about something so I have left this for you right next to the place that I am supposed to leave it (and clearly know how to) so there.” Most people are so busy commenting and posting about how cute their furry companions are, but never admit to the obvious flip side of the coin. It is similar to when, while walking your loving dog, you feel a slight twinge of “I can’t believe I have to do this” before you responsibly pick up after their squatting. Anyway, there it is in case you were wondering.
The Rabbit
•May 13, 2012 • 4 CommentsQuiet, soft, unassuming
Barely a noticeable twitch
She sits frozen as you approach
Empty eyes of endless inky night
Not even she is knows when she will bolt
Give her long enough
She will harbor sickness
Take a bite out of your best laid plans
Her space, the stuff of legends and fairy tales
Buried unseen under your feet
Waiting to break an ankle
Or turn your world on its head
–April Resnick
Not So White Rabbit by Grace Slick
Welcome…
•May 13, 2012 • 2 Comments
…to my world of essays, poetry, and ramblings…
Where honest observations and a common human experience are the rule rather than the exception. Are you tired of normal niceties? Are you even slightly interested in radical honesty? Do you wish there was a place to be real, a place where you can see your own daily struggles without judgment, a place where humanity trumps trying to make everyone comfortable, and because of that we all feel a little more connected and a little more compassion? A tall order indeed, but well worth a try.
Enter at your own risk…
sometimesihatemycat 