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Monthly Archives: October 2015

Cycles part II

18 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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cycles, daughter, evolving

The moon is waxing now, a bright belly of silver growing thicker before the shadow beside it.  Perhaps it is race memory, one we can finally touch and see when we look at the moon and see the burgeoning belly of a mother she goes through her phases.  How lucky we are to be able to see this cycle, faithfully, consistently, every month, keeping us company in the dark as we walk the long driveway back home, opening the door to who knows what when we get there.

We’re familiar with the phrase and the warm feelings we have when we say “the miracle of life.”  Once in a while I see a gravid woman and I wonder what everyone else thinks when they see her belly.  Got some baby going on there, I say to myself and I remember my own baby-making days, those early times.  Then I turn away and get back to the business of the day which is usually selling auto parts, largely having forgotten the art of patience.  I am not a patient person by nature, and it shows in the way I raised my son and the way I handle myself and my customers… but I am quite patient with my co-workers for some reason. Maybe it’s because I need allies?  Do I have this same patience for my writing? No.  Perhaps I would write more if I did.

Today I ask, do we have that same awe-inspiring feeling when we see a person taking their last steps out of the living world? Do we give the same appreciation, respect, and awe for the “miracle of death?” No. I know we don’t. Because it’s a leave-taking, one we did not ask for and certainly did not give permission to receive.  Yesterday I began meditating on the miracle of death, watching over a human being–someone I love–struggling to stay in this world yet somehow knowing they have to move on into the next.  The nurse wondered if my father needed something for anxiety (ah, those magic pills) and we said no, he’s ok right now.  I’d like to ask the nurse for something to help me with my anger… but that’s too easy, isn’t it?

The moon will wane into darkness, just as she sets each night into the ocean waves. Each setting is a new beginning, a moonrise for someone else out there beyond the waves. I told someone that a long time ago, and I wonder if those words are remembered.  I suppose what’s more important is that I know it is true. Each breath has a beginning and end. Can I sit still long enough and appreciate?

Cycles

17 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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cycles, daughter, not writing, turnturnturn

Writing now feels like I am beginning in the middle of things instead of the beginning.  As a woman who is mildly OCD, it’s important to start at the beginning, chapter one, with the first word, not leaping haphazardly around from thought to thought like a cricket on a hot skillet. Ever see a bead of mercury slide this way and that, it doesn’t know where it’s going but for the hands that are tilting the surface it sits upon?  That’s how I feel these days, and it doesn’t lend itself to much creativity.

Starting this story at the end makes no sense, but I have limited time to write and less mental energy to do so.  So here goes. My father is at the end of his life’s journey courtesy of cancer. My brother uprooted his whole life and moved back here to be with him as he goes through this, these last eight months. They lived in my house in the finished basement apartment and renewed their familial bonds. My brother is handling as much as he can because he’s not working a full time job as I am.  He is handling everything beautifully and we have full confidence in him.  I struggle with the guilt of getting to work on time and trying to be a good worker bee, making lots of mistakes because I’m a tad angry and preoccupied (tad=very) instead of being by their sides. In the meantime, I’ve closed the valves on creativity for now.

Today I’m applying for FMLA (family medical leave), and I hope they don’t give me too much garbage about it. But it needs to be done and they can just deal with it.   Just like the pile of laundry on the couch needs to be folded and two-day old dishes in the sink need to be washed.  There is coffee in my cup now and… I hope I won’t come home too tired to have a beer before bed as it has been for the last eleven days.

Create in a storm when the heart is breaking and the mind has no clue what it’s thinking? I suppose it will come back eventually.  It did once before.  Until then, I have a pile of clean socks to keep me company.

Upcoming

02 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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Junot Diaz, New Yorker Festival, New Yorker magazine

Notes from the desk of Indigo Vales:

Looking forward to my first visit to the Gramercy Theatre.  The New Yorker magazine is holding a New Yorker Festival this weekend; many wonderful guest speakers and performances, one of which will be a conversation with Junot Diaz.  I was intrigued by the articles he wrote for the New Yorker and a dear friend recommended him highly. I finished “Drown” and found it to be a story I could not put down, an absolute page turner which is a difficult thing to do when one has to get up early the next morning and attend to adult responsibilities.  It’s tough putting a great book down, but I managed.  Looking forward to reading his other novels soon.  I hope to learn much from the conversation at the Gramercy, and the book signing he will do downtown later at McNally Jackson Books.

In other notes, I have one eye on a hurricane in the Atlantic…and one eye here at home.

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