Snow Sounds

The heater kicked on, otherwise, silence.  As discussed with my second graders this last week, rain goes plop, snow says nothing.

I'm at the tale end of a week spent in school survival mode trying to get through final projects and a paper before tomorrow when my sister will be here for a much anticipated visit.  It's also her birthday today.  For her, I am forever grateful.

I just took some ingredients out of the freezer to thaw for dinner, told the husband, and nearly killed him with passive aggressive glaring when he requested I stop by the grocery store for an additional ingredient that would make the dinner that much better.

Operating near capacity makes me realize how very much I limit the size of my capacity with my own expectations and brain.  My sore calf muscles are case in point.  I recently did a WOD, during which my mind was saying, "Stop, no you can do this.  Try harder.  OK.  Enough.  Wait.  Breath.  Stop.  Come on!  Enough." After, I realized how much harder I could have pushed myself…a metaphor for my life.

To lull myself to sleep after some long days, I am continuing on a journey with Cheryl Strayed and Wild, diving into the mess of literature she read, currently this, and generally getting lost in the life it breaths.  Lost to found?  My kind of subject matter, including the beautiful, relevant, and poignant poetry of Adrienne Rich.  I write all of the last bit with high recommendations.

“No one has imagined us. We want to live like trees,

sycamores blazing through the sulfuric air,

dappled with scars, still exuberantly budding,

our animal passion rooted in the city.” 

― Adrienne Rich, The Dream of a Common Language

“I touch you knowing we weren't born tomorrow,

and somehow, each of us will help the other live,

and somewhere, each of us must help the other die.” 

― Adrienne Rich, Twenty One Love Poems

“To write as if your life depended on it; 
to write across the chalkboard, 
putting up there in public the words you have dredged; 
sieved up in dreams, from behind screen memories, out of silence-- 
words you have dreaded and needed in order to know you exist.” 

― Adrienne Rich

I am in a place without much forward planning.  I know the next pillow will come, but today needs tackling.

I hope you're tackling yours, too.

Happiest of Birthdays, Katie.

Seize these days,
Jo