Still Life
Today, with all its own challenges, has me thinking about the comfort of repetition and the scenes echoed through out our days and weeks. This is a common still life for me - coffee, pen and paper, borrowed words, and colors I love.
Note to Self
Do you write yourself notes? I've been writing them to myself for years, and though sometimes they ebb into something more akin to a letter, I've noticed this year they've been built more of reminders, something to keep me on track when the noise of the world drowns out my own voice.
Just before leaving the house today, I jotted these words to myself, knowing that this Monday was set to be a bit more challenging. I taped them to one of my computer monitors at work and all throughout the day I read them and remembered - this life is my own. I am guided by my own words and thoughts, I am in charge of my own reactions to the world around me, no matter how hard it pushes, and no matter how how I tug.
I shared my note today, as I have once before, and the responses reminded me that I'm not alone, and that for all of us who talk to ourselves, and mutter our way through figuring out our thoughts aloud, there are also those of us muttering our way through our thoughts on paper, and just like that it's even easier to remember my first line, the one I always include, because I am so lucky.
Get Out of Here
“To live is one of the rarest things in the world. Most people just exist.”
I'm always having to remind myself of this - to get out more, to have more adventures, no matter their size. Today we took a mini road trip, puttered through a few stores, purchased both practical and impractical items, ate a meal packed with nostalgia, listened to two podcasts, and share one small Blizzard, which should have been a mini size (our eyes are always bigger than our stomachs).
I spent the morning with paper and glue, the afternoon with Andrew, and this evening a very hot bath and some light reading are in order before the week takes off tomorrow.
This is day ten of writing and sharing every day, and there is more I want to share about this, and likely less I should share about this, but none of that makes enough sense to actually put to the screen yet.
I wonder, with only two comments, if anyone is really out there, and that thought is always countered by this question: does it matter to me if someone leaves a note in this space? Will that make these words any more valuable? Will it make this practice any more important? I've got lots of answers, and then again, no real answers at all, so I am tucking those questions away for tonight and letting it go.
Our Endless and Proper Work
Weekends are for jotting down other people's words - and this particular set is sticking with me tonight. I added the sheet I scribbled it on to my One Little Word binder as a reminder. Today was slow and steady, filled with lots of time making new things and reflecting on older ones, and though I'd hoped for more, I am happy with what was. There's time tomorrow, and there will be more after that, even though the week will bring its own challenges.
#muglife
Fridays are for ridiculous coffee mugs, laughing when you might have wanted to cry, being honest that you're not on your "A" game, and accepting that "D" game might be more like it. Fridays are for having your jam jams on before you even get through the front door, for watching your favorite episode of Murder, She Wrote for the millionth time, just because. Fridays are for wanting to let it all go, but deciding to keep what really counts, even if it means going to get your computer after getting comfortable on the couch. Fridays, like every day, are for be present even when it isn't pretty, and giving it what you've got, even if what you've got is messy hair, a borderline bad attitude, and half a miniature Snickers bar from the day before. One Fridays especially, you can just bring it, because this is #muglife.
Everywhere I Go...
“I keep turning over new leaves, and spoiling them, as I used to spoil my copybooks; and I make so many beginnings there never will be an end. ”
I keep stumbling upon new ways to begin, and my word remains close. Jo and I suddenly have so much in common, though to be honest, she always drove me a bit nuts.
Morning Walk
I've taken this photo before, different street, but the same photo, and by that I mean the same story: a morning walk to the bus for the daily ride to work. I've also shared these words before: I love the dark mornings of fall and winter, and the chilly walk down the street with tiny dots of white light to guide the way, with the morning moon hovering close. In the morning, I walk through a cast of characters, and I love them all as if I'd chosen them to take part in my own brief play. The Italian cafe owner, the police officer on his way in for his morning cup, the theater worker with his coffee already in hand, taking count of the lights out on the marquee, the man in a rush with his Lean Cuisine sliding from his grip, and the mother unloading her small boy from the car and reminding him one more time that of course she'll be back to pick him up, and once again it will happen before he knows it.
I never put my headphones in to listen to podcasts and music until I turn the corner and all of these people are no longer in sight. I tend to like to remove myself from it all when I can, and to take in the quiet as if it were my own, but there are times like this morning walk when I want to be in the world with all of my senses, and to hear the hellos in English and Italian, curses whispered to slippery frozen meals, the whimpers and giggles of a child, and a mothers sigh as she leaves the daycare simultaneously relieved to be done with the first step and saddened to have made it at all.
There is a very good chance I will take this same photo again, and tell the same story, and appreciate the same people, sounds, and assumptions (my own, not theirs), but oh, even knowing that, I imagine I will love it just as much then as I do now.
I wonder, who are your characters?
Showing Up
And at the end of the long days, the tough ones, I go to my shelves and I look through the physical manifestation of all that's been collected in my head and my heart, and I take a deep breath. I am a fan of words tucked in amongst ceramic fruit and wooden houses, tiny Lego figures in pink pig costumes, and turtles made by hand of green yarn.
Today made me feel like coming here might not matter in the larger picture of things, that just showing up to trot out a few words hardly anyone else will read wouldn't be worth the trouble. But at the end of this long day I remembered that just showing up is important, even if it's only for yourself, so I went to the shelves and I pulled out a few books and read a few lines, I picked up the tiny plastic dinosaur that rests on the small wooden Statue of Liberty but never wants to stand up, I dusted off the photo from the week we spent in the mountains, and I showed up for myself.