Into the Wild Wood and Home Again

OK, I'm sick of waking up every single hour all night. There's only so much magic in a cup of coffee (or two).  They are not work-related dreams that keep me wakeful. They are, upon clear-eyed inspection, unfounded fears. Though last night's dream that involved a persistent stalker who was trying to get to me through threatening to kidnap Holly sucked entirely.  The world is a turbulent mess, our nation is in constant crisis mode (the third indictment of a former president? wildfires? daily mass shootings?), and so on. I'm just trying to get through each day without losing my mind or snapping at people without real cause. And failing, on occasion.  I think we know too much. Or not enough to put things squarely in order? I've tried removing myself from social media, limiting my consumption of the news cycle, and focusing on more positive things. There's just so damned much of it, it's like waves of toxic sludge lapping at my feet. We can only dance in the wa...

 ...and it's August 1st. I feel the sand trickling a little faster in the hourglass of summertime. Why the weather chose now to cool off, I've no idea (could be the Super Moon?)-- it tips my brain towards the impending school year. I hope for a couple more weeks of warm weather to use the pool. Holly loves it so much, as do I!  That all said, ugh. I don't want to look at the accruing pile of "must bring to work" stuff I have in the corner of my living room. I don't have to, not yet, but it's starting to whisper.  But not today. Today will be reading the poetry collection I am working through and making notes. Today will be working on two submissions of my own and getting them sent out. Today will likely involve some shenanigans of some sort-- and that's fine by me.  Tomorrow is soon enough to let the whispers get to me, if they do. It seems my post yesterday intrigued some readers-- it got the most traffic any post has gotten since I started this blog....

Yesterday after church, a friend asked me if I am all ready to "go back"--he meant, to work, to school-- I replied, "bite your tongue! I have another month!" He laughed. I didn't. Far too many people don't understand what "summer break" means to most teachers. My mind is never that far away from what I will need to be doing; think of it as pre-planning. We don't just shut that off and fluff about all summer. I'm constantly reading, thinking, researching, etc. After this many years, I did front-load a little-- the syllabi for each of my fall classes are both done, and will only require a little minor tweaking. I still have to build the Google classrooms-- my online presence for my classes that helps keep me on track and gives the students a place to go to when they need to know what they may have missed or what is coming next. Yes, we survived quite nicely without those for a long time, but once we pivoted to the online platform exclusively ...

Ok, Sunday, bring it on. I ended up doing a pile of house chores yesterday, and it felt good to have things clean and orderly. Granted, they won't stay that way (my house is not a museum), but it was good. And I got the stretch of quiet time I needed, too. I read, I watched FoodTV, and I did some computer work that was necessary. All good things. I even managed to make bread. So what does today look like? Well, I am hopeful it won't rain. The weather was lovely yesterday until about 3pm, and then it was a deluge. What a surprise. This has been a pretty darn wet summer. I need to spray neem oil on my plants, in hopes of keeping the bugs at bay. I don't know if anything is going to come of my garden, other than the few cherry tomatoes I've picked. The plants are lovely, but the fruits are few. I need to put the weekly dose of chlorine in the pool, even though the forecast is for a cooler week, and we won't be getting in it. I just want to avoid scummy yuck. And I have...

Silence. Or rather, ambient quiet. It's been a very busy week, filled with lots of sounds, many of them from a sometimes disgruntled but often just chatty toddler. Add to that the usual television/radio/street noises, and it's been a sort of jumble and cacophony of sound. Even the almost constant hum of the air conditioner and assorted fans are part of the mix. Not today. The only sounds right now are the faint tapping of my fingers on the keyboard, a muffled hum from the cars going by (not frequent, it's still pretty early on a Saturday), and the hum of the A/C. I need stretches of quiet just as much as water and sleep.  When Meg was quite small, I would pick her up from daycare on my way home from work-- just past lunchtime-- and we had a deal. I would tell her that I needed 20 minutes of quiet time, during which she could play or read quietly in her room, and then we'd go and do something fun together. It worked like a charm. She learned to respect other people's...

How is it that television personalities come to be like extended family members? I was listening to the morning news, and there's a big shake-up coming-- one woman is leaving, as she is moving to be closer to family and friends. And the morning weather man, one whom we are all fond of, is moving to the evening slot. What???? Who will do the Monday rooster?  And there are the familiar actors in film; we feel a certain fondness, like seeing old friends, even if the movie we are watching is not all that great. Or even if it is; then, we feel a sense of pride for them, for a job well done. They don't know us, will likely never meet us, but yet, they are fixtures in our lives, at least on the periphery.  We cry when a favorite actor or musician dies. This week, Sinead O'Connor died, and yes, her life was a decades-long struggle with mental health and pain. She was a woman who demanded to live on her own terms; sometimes polarizing, but authentic as hell. And Tony Bennet passed ...

Today's forecast of yet more rain is going to slow me down a little, and that's a good thing. I have a few errands to accomplish, and there's always dishes to do, but for the most part, I'm going to just see what the day has in store. I have a bad (?) habit of, as my dad used to say, "wishing my life away." Which is not entirely accurate-- but yes, I tend to look ahead and see the days falling away from the calendar, and not appreciating the gift each day can be.  I have to remind myself I have a full month before school year #37 (eek) starts. Yes, there are a couple of PD days the week prior, but I AM NOT ON THE CLOCK YET. I need to shut that termagant siren off-- she can just hush for a few more weeks.  Yesterday was pretty dang idyllic; great weather, Holly was awesome, G helped out-- we had a great day that included ice cream and pool time. That's summer. So I'm not going to fill this day with must-do stuff. Nor am I going to unstopper my metaphori...