She keeps a box under her bed, way in the corner nearest the window. The box is the size of a small jewelry box, but wooden and plain. In the box are hundreds of scraps of paper, one word written upon each scrap. Sometimes the words are scrawled quickly in pencil, sometimes they are boldly written in all caps with ink. Never names, although she wants to write the names of the ones who came before him. Just impressions or feelings or objects, enough to capture the thought but not enough to damage anything if the box were discovered.
Bench.
Coal.
Caramel.
Skin.
Cotton.
Smoke.
Dance.
Unwittingly.
Desperately.
He can never know about the box, should never know, but if he did, he would probably be puzzled and wouldn't bother to read more than a couple of scraps, and he certainly wouldn't lay them out to look for patterns.
When she feels tethered, she fingers the paper. With her eyes closed she can feel the bold words and the soft ones. She lets them slip through her hands to the floor and listens to the whisper on wood and wonders if the breeze blew them through the window could she follow.
If you were to paint her she'd be in a cotton dress, in bare feet, sitting on the edge of the bed in a plain room. It would be a hundred years ago, and she'd have rough, worn hands for someone so young. She might be looking out a window, or she might be looking at her papers near her feet. He'd be working in the field, visible through the window behind her, but small compared to the vast horizon.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Family Portrait
I used to wake up at five a.m. and write my guts out. This morning I woke up at five a.m. and itched to write, so here I am. The cursor is doing that blinking thing and there's an awful lot of white space to fill.
Crap, I'll just jump right in knowing it's not going to be perfect, and I don't have time to make it perfect, because my job and my family take all my time. That and sleeping and reading Game of Thrones and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.
The Kid is five years old now, going on six. He is not laid back. He is high strung. Change is hard for him. He has reddish-brown hair and freckles and bruises all over his legs because he randomly falls down. It's like watching the out takes at the end of the movie, the blooper roll, where the actor is standing there one minute and falls on his back the next, and the crew laughs. The Old Man and I are laughing all the time. The Kid asks insightful questions like, "Who is the boss in this house?" and "When do I get root beer with dinner? Is there a system, or are you just saying no tonight for no reason?"
I gotta say too that I totally deserve how happy he makes me. I really do. He and I go to the movies together and watch The Avengers and Cars 2. I love the movies because all the truths are universal and black and white and there's heroes and villians and no regular people who just screw up because they're human. There's no giving anyone the benefit of the doubt in movies - you might as well just shoot them with a laser and get it over with.
I used to call her The Baby, but she is now two years old. I'll call her Chica I suppose until a better term pops up. Remember from the story two years ago how I looked in her little baby one day old eyes and saw that she totally forgave me for being a messy human who desperately needed someone to give her the benefit of the doubt. Chica is incredible. She is assertive. She is wickedly funny. She is laid back. When I go to work and she is sitting on The Old Man's lap, watching Little Einsteins, she lazily waves goodbye to me with one hand, kind of a ghetto sideways wave and says "Bye Mom," never taking her eyes off Leo. I think, in fact, that she has a crush on Leo, the little red-headed ringleader, from Little Einsteins. She's kind of obsessed. She's also got the reddish-brown hair, but no freckles yet on her olive skin. She has something against shoes and socks. Her favorite outfit is a black t-shirt and a hot pink taffeta skirt fringed in bright yellow. I think she rocks.
The Old Man is still my better half, and I have to say that I absolutely deserve him too. He is patient and gives messy humans the benefit of the doubt as a default of his personality. He's not a morning person but he jumps out of bed to sit with Chica and let her play with his fingernails as she drinks juice from her sippy cup and watches cartoons. He comes home from work Sunday afternoons and sprawls on the living room floor to take a nap and lets The Kid and Chica sit on his back like a sofa. Every once in a while Chica swats at his head to make sure he's really not sleeping. I've given up suggesting he take a nap upstairs because I realized he likes the torture. The Kid has two loose teeth, so The Old Man spent yesterday morning at the bank getting shiny new one dollar coins so we can play tooth fairy the correct way. I was just going to give The Kid some nickels from the change jar. See? My better half.
There's a little pocket of magic where I live, and I'm probably the lynchpin of it all maybe, or maybe I'm just lucky. When I come home from work the first thing I do is take off my underwear because it's constricting, and then change into shorts and a t-shirt, and I get to play dodgeball and have water fights.
All I will say about work is that it's annoying right now and takes up way too much of my time, but one thing about having this particular family is that they force me to remember what is real, and what is just fluff.
Crap, I'll just jump right in knowing it's not going to be perfect, and I don't have time to make it perfect, because my job and my family take all my time. That and sleeping and reading Game of Thrones and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.
The Kid is five years old now, going on six. He is not laid back. He is high strung. Change is hard for him. He has reddish-brown hair and freckles and bruises all over his legs because he randomly falls down. It's like watching the out takes at the end of the movie, the blooper roll, where the actor is standing there one minute and falls on his back the next, and the crew laughs. The Old Man and I are laughing all the time. The Kid asks insightful questions like, "Who is the boss in this house?" and "When do I get root beer with dinner? Is there a system, or are you just saying no tonight for no reason?"
I gotta say too that I totally deserve how happy he makes me. I really do. He and I go to the movies together and watch The Avengers and Cars 2. I love the movies because all the truths are universal and black and white and there's heroes and villians and no regular people who just screw up because they're human. There's no giving anyone the benefit of the doubt in movies - you might as well just shoot them with a laser and get it over with.
I used to call her The Baby, but she is now two years old. I'll call her Chica I suppose until a better term pops up. Remember from the story two years ago how I looked in her little baby one day old eyes and saw that she totally forgave me for being a messy human who desperately needed someone to give her the benefit of the doubt. Chica is incredible. She is assertive. She is wickedly funny. She is laid back. When I go to work and she is sitting on The Old Man's lap, watching Little Einsteins, she lazily waves goodbye to me with one hand, kind of a ghetto sideways wave and says "Bye Mom," never taking her eyes off Leo. I think, in fact, that she has a crush on Leo, the little red-headed ringleader, from Little Einsteins. She's kind of obsessed. She's also got the reddish-brown hair, but no freckles yet on her olive skin. She has something against shoes and socks. Her favorite outfit is a black t-shirt and a hot pink taffeta skirt fringed in bright yellow. I think she rocks.
The Old Man is still my better half, and I have to say that I absolutely deserve him too. He is patient and gives messy humans the benefit of the doubt as a default of his personality. He's not a morning person but he jumps out of bed to sit with Chica and let her play with his fingernails as she drinks juice from her sippy cup and watches cartoons. He comes home from work Sunday afternoons and sprawls on the living room floor to take a nap and lets The Kid and Chica sit on his back like a sofa. Every once in a while Chica swats at his head to make sure he's really not sleeping. I've given up suggesting he take a nap upstairs because I realized he likes the torture. The Kid has two loose teeth, so The Old Man spent yesterday morning at the bank getting shiny new one dollar coins so we can play tooth fairy the correct way. I was just going to give The Kid some nickels from the change jar. See? My better half.
There's a little pocket of magic where I live, and I'm probably the lynchpin of it all maybe, or maybe I'm just lucky. When I come home from work the first thing I do is take off my underwear because it's constricting, and then change into shorts and a t-shirt, and I get to play dodgeball and have water fights.
All I will say about work is that it's annoying right now and takes up way too much of my time, but one thing about having this particular family is that they force me to remember what is real, and what is just fluff.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Behave Yourself
Four men have told me to behave myself. This has all happened very recently, within the last month. While those two words and four syllables - be-have-your-self - say more about the men than they do about me, I would like to explore in words for you, dear reader, just what circumstances compelled these men to attempt to put sideboards on how I live my life.
Exhibit A: I'm sitting in a meeting, in Grand Junction, surrounded by handlebar moustaches. I am cogently explaining the programs I manage and a new project in the works. Another male manager leans across the table to me and asks with a smirk, "How much is that gonna cost us? Thirty two million?"Referring of course to our recent thirty two million dollar accounting error in Denver. I lean across the table to him and say, "About three dollars a person, but thanks for asking. Your question was extremely helpful to all of us." Dead silence in the room for a beat. Then twenty people start laughing and handlebar moustache man is red in the face. Special note: This is not the only instance in which I give him the what what. There is another one, but you get the point.
Exhibit B: I have several meetings with the Director over the course of five months, about a merger we are going through and about a very political project I've been working on. At one point I think I get exasperated and throw my hands up and say, "Dude!" After our last meeting he says, "Behave yourself, but not too much." Special note: I'm still analyzing that one.
Exhibit C: I'm sitting in a meeting in Denver, with a guy with a handlebar moustache from Grand Junction, not related to the special man from Exhibit A. We are discussing meeting options for our budget meeting. This older man, who was most likely hot shit in the 1970s, says, "There's a new gentleman's club. We could go there for the meeting." To which somebody replies, "But would the women be invited?" To which he says, "As long as they dance." I have three options here, as a high-ranking female manager who has the responsibility to stop sexual harassment in the workplace. I can ignore it. I can use sarcasm. Or I can very intelligently and firmly explain that the comments are inappropriate and unappreciated in the workplace. Of course I use sarcasm. I told him that his comment, coupled with the fact that he asked me to get him coffee at the beginning of the meeting, made me want to take him behind the building and beat him in a fight, which I was sure I'd win. I think I also told him, "Dude!"
Exhibit D: My father-in-law, a man I love dearly and use sarcasm with whenever possible, has been slightly befuddled at my insistence that my husband take some turns hosting holidays, as in cooking the entire Thanksgiving dinner, including organizing it and doing grocery shopping while I drank vodka from a plastic cup. At Easter dinner, I filled my plate ahead of my father-in-law, and he started blathering about the men always getting to eat first in the family and so on and so forth, to which I replied that if he needed somewhere to cry he could go in the back bedroom and I'd go the extra mile and get him some tissue.
Behave yourself. From each one of them. Independently. Without holding some sort of inner circle meeting to coordinate their strategy. I take it as a sign that I make them slightly uncomfortable, or maybe that I lack the tact, or maybe that I need to zip it more often.
I find it highly amusing.
Exhibit A: I'm sitting in a meeting, in Grand Junction, surrounded by handlebar moustaches. I am cogently explaining the programs I manage and a new project in the works. Another male manager leans across the table to me and asks with a smirk, "How much is that gonna cost us? Thirty two million?"Referring of course to our recent thirty two million dollar accounting error in Denver. I lean across the table to him and say, "About three dollars a person, but thanks for asking. Your question was extremely helpful to all of us." Dead silence in the room for a beat. Then twenty people start laughing and handlebar moustache man is red in the face. Special note: This is not the only instance in which I give him the what what. There is another one, but you get the point.
Exhibit B: I have several meetings with the Director over the course of five months, about a merger we are going through and about a very political project I've been working on. At one point I think I get exasperated and throw my hands up and say, "Dude!" After our last meeting he says, "Behave yourself, but not too much." Special note: I'm still analyzing that one.
Exhibit C: I'm sitting in a meeting in Denver, with a guy with a handlebar moustache from Grand Junction, not related to the special man from Exhibit A. We are discussing meeting options for our budget meeting. This older man, who was most likely hot shit in the 1970s, says, "There's a new gentleman's club. We could go there for the meeting." To which somebody replies, "But would the women be invited?" To which he says, "As long as they dance." I have three options here, as a high-ranking female manager who has the responsibility to stop sexual harassment in the workplace. I can ignore it. I can use sarcasm. Or I can very intelligently and firmly explain that the comments are inappropriate and unappreciated in the workplace. Of course I use sarcasm. I told him that his comment, coupled with the fact that he asked me to get him coffee at the beginning of the meeting, made me want to take him behind the building and beat him in a fight, which I was sure I'd win. I think I also told him, "Dude!"
Exhibit D: My father-in-law, a man I love dearly and use sarcasm with whenever possible, has been slightly befuddled at my insistence that my husband take some turns hosting holidays, as in cooking the entire Thanksgiving dinner, including organizing it and doing grocery shopping while I drank vodka from a plastic cup. At Easter dinner, I filled my plate ahead of my father-in-law, and he started blathering about the men always getting to eat first in the family and so on and so forth, to which I replied that if he needed somewhere to cry he could go in the back bedroom and I'd go the extra mile and get him some tissue.
Behave yourself. From each one of them. Independently. Without holding some sort of inner circle meeting to coordinate their strategy. I take it as a sign that I make them slightly uncomfortable, or maybe that I lack the tact, or maybe that I need to zip it more often.
I find it highly amusing.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Prayer to Our Lady of Guadalupe
My talismans are
an Our Lady of Guadalupe coin polished by my thumb
a My Little Pony figurine and
a Bakugan sticker
all stuffed in the console of my car
Help me embrace the world with compassion
whatever you do to the least of us, you do to me, She says
Help me embrace others
you do not have to put yourself over others to be loved by me, She says
and every word I think
my exhaustions
my frailties
are polished by Her thumb, over and over
I am Her talisman.
Special thanks to New Mexico artist Robin Lassiter for her vision of art, We Are Luminous Beings.
robinlassiterart.blogspot.com
an Our Lady of Guadalupe coin polished by my thumb
a My Little Pony figurine and
a Bakugan sticker
all stuffed in the console of my car
Help me embrace the world with compassion
whatever you do to the least of us, you do to me, She says
Help me embrace others
you do not have to put yourself over others to be loved by me, She says
and every word I think
my exhaustions
my frailties
are polished by Her thumb, over and over
I am Her talisman.
Special thanks to New Mexico artist Robin Lassiter for her vision of art, We Are Luminous Beings.
robinlassiterart.blogspot.com
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Munnay
I will write today. I will find time between the Toys R Us trip to buy Tinker Bell shoes and coloring books (which I am truly, totally excited for, no shit) and the library and naps and lunches and dinners and cleaning the food off the walls. I'll write something poetic, probably, deep enough for readers to crawl into and make themselves comfortable, relax in repose until they have to crawl back out into their own busy lives. I
sorry, got interrupted there. Was doing a "Mr. Krabs" impression for my 22-month-old. "Moneymoneymoneymoneymoney."
will clearly articulate some inner truth of my life today. I
"Moneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoney." Now my kid is rubbing her hands together. "Munnay. Munnay." Sweet.
Her laughter is a pleasing counterpoint to Spongebob in the background.
I forgot what I was doing.
sorry, got interrupted there. Was doing a "Mr. Krabs" impression for my 22-month-old. "Moneymoneymoneymoneymoney."
will clearly articulate some inner truth of my life today. I
"Moneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoney." Now my kid is rubbing her hands together. "Munnay. Munnay." Sweet.
Her laughter is a pleasing counterpoint to Spongebob in the background.
I forgot what I was doing.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Be Awesome
To all you strong women out there:
You've walked there in your mind to what could be, you've asked "Why not?" Follow your own footsteps to the edge of reason. You might have to get around some cobwebby trolls who whisper "It'll never work" or "You don't have time to be awesome right now." Some of you with strong conflict resolution skills will politely but firmly ask them to step aside. The rest of us will have to get them off balance somehow and push them into the weeds, then taunt them and run.
You've walked there in your mind to what could be, you've asked "Why not?" Follow your own footsteps to the edge of reason. You might have to get around some cobwebby trolls who whisper "It'll never work" or "You don't have time to be awesome right now." Some of you with strong conflict resolution skills will politely but firmly ask them to step aside. The rest of us will have to get them off balance somehow and push them into the weeds, then taunt them and run.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
The Truth
He made the case for freedom of thought and expression - and a certain humility regarding one's own cherished beliefs - on the grounds that, no matter how much certainty is in our own hearts, human beings cannot know for sure which truths are true, and that believing we can leads us down a terrible path. --Cullen Murphy
The truth today. Objective fact. Behaviors. Actions.
I did not cross everything off of my list. I rushed my child to bed so I could pay bills. I thought of my children at 2:15 pm and wished I could be with them. My stomach hurt too much to exercise. I received my budget deadline, 15 days from now. I took a project away from my best employee. I had a difficult time forming thoughts. I realized, at least three times, that I need a couple of hours alone to think. I watched Pawn Stars. I weighed the pros and cons of two decisions. In one week I will question my decision. My mind spent more time with the unknowns than with the knowns. I struggled to make pleasant conversation. I made it look easy. I lost two pounds. I wish I had a nemesis - an easy person to blame for all my self-doubt.
You are old enough to wonder, to ask, to reject what is presented to you simply because it was presented to you. But you also cling to the idealism of youth. You feel there must be some single, all-defining Truth - and you think that once you find it, all that once confused you will suddenly make sense. --Brandon Sanderson
I am acutely aware I need to do our taxes and visit C with her new baby. I don't know when I will have the time. I am more honest with a pen than a keyboard. I will need to type this later. I am overwhelmed with the amount of work I have. I feel like I'm doing nothing well. I badly want to accept a C grade from myself. I want to accept occasional failure. I work with amazing people who don't tell me what they really think because I am their boss. If I quit work tomorrow, no duties or tasks would be important enough to warrant an immediate replacement for me, at least in this merger, this economy, where government is shrinking and putting more on workers is the "right" thing to do. The truth, right now, is that we are all grateful to have a job, and to have the job of the guy who just retired on top of our full-time jobs, and the truth is we cannot complain, or we shall be looked upon as lazy, or inefficent. In the name of great efficiency, the great Truth of work, we absorb the duties of those forced out, praying that we get to keep our two jobs and no pay raises. Government is too big, too inefficient, so we need less people, less resources.
The moment we allow the economic calculus to invade everything, then nothing becomes worthwhile anymore. --E.F. Schumacher
My truth is saying no. And yes, my job feeds and houses and clothes my family, and I need my job. So I say no to small things, strategically, so that I don't end up sleeping at the office, so my employees can go home to their personal lives. And the real truth is that I would like to say no, but I don't.
Leisure and time to think are luxuries we cannot afford in today's economy. The truth is I have everything I want except the time to enjoy it.
I believe that people have their own Journey. --Brigid the Tri-Babe
The truth today. Objective fact. Behaviors. Actions.
I did not cross everything off of my list. I rushed my child to bed so I could pay bills. I thought of my children at 2:15 pm and wished I could be with them. My stomach hurt too much to exercise. I received my budget deadline, 15 days from now. I took a project away from my best employee. I had a difficult time forming thoughts. I realized, at least three times, that I need a couple of hours alone to think. I watched Pawn Stars. I weighed the pros and cons of two decisions. In one week I will question my decision. My mind spent more time with the unknowns than with the knowns. I struggled to make pleasant conversation. I made it look easy. I lost two pounds. I wish I had a nemesis - an easy person to blame for all my self-doubt.
You are old enough to wonder, to ask, to reject what is presented to you simply because it was presented to you. But you also cling to the idealism of youth. You feel there must be some single, all-defining Truth - and you think that once you find it, all that once confused you will suddenly make sense. --Brandon Sanderson
I am acutely aware I need to do our taxes and visit C with her new baby. I don't know when I will have the time. I am more honest with a pen than a keyboard. I will need to type this later. I am overwhelmed with the amount of work I have. I feel like I'm doing nothing well. I badly want to accept a C grade from myself. I want to accept occasional failure. I work with amazing people who don't tell me what they really think because I am their boss. If I quit work tomorrow, no duties or tasks would be important enough to warrant an immediate replacement for me, at least in this merger, this economy, where government is shrinking and putting more on workers is the "right" thing to do. The truth, right now, is that we are all grateful to have a job, and to have the job of the guy who just retired on top of our full-time jobs, and the truth is we cannot complain, or we shall be looked upon as lazy, or inefficent. In the name of great efficiency, the great Truth of work, we absorb the duties of those forced out, praying that we get to keep our two jobs and no pay raises. Government is too big, too inefficient, so we need less people, less resources.
The moment we allow the economic calculus to invade everything, then nothing becomes worthwhile anymore. --E.F. Schumacher
My truth is saying no. And yes, my job feeds and houses and clothes my family, and I need my job. So I say no to small things, strategically, so that I don't end up sleeping at the office, so my employees can go home to their personal lives. And the real truth is that I would like to say no, but I don't.
Leisure and time to think are luxuries we cannot afford in today's economy. The truth is I have everything I want except the time to enjoy it.
I believe that people have their own Journey. --Brigid the Tri-Babe
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