State of Obvious

Having an (almost) teenage daughter can be...quite an experience.  "I hope you have a kid just like you," so the saying goes.  Usually, you only hear this if you're a rough kid.  I was a rough kid - in some ways.  I gave my mom a pretty hard time.  And, if she wished for a kid that was 'just like me' to come along as payback - the parent gods smiled on that wish. Today (after a pretty tragical and frustrating encounter) Carly said: I just needed to get mad at somebody.  I don't know why. Well, if that doesn't sum up teenage angst, I don't know what does. It also kind of applies to adult angst.  Some days I just want to be mad at somebody and walk around stomping my feet.  Today I felt like that.  In between good things, though, so at least there's balance. And balance is tricky this days, too. It feels like the house is a wreck (it mostly isn't, but sort of is). It feels like I'm swimming in work and can't catch up (this o...

Have you ever felt like there is something waiting there, just out of reach?  A thread that's unwinding faster than you can grab on to the end?  Like there is something just out of sight and if you turn your head at just the right time, you might finally see it? That's writing for me these days. Reviving ye old blog is an attempt to revive ye old writer, the one who lives somewhere deep down inside.  The writer in me ticks like a clock.  Most of the time I don't notice the sound.  It just IS. Tick tock. But, every now and then, the sound gets loud.  Almost deafening, almost drowning out everything else until I have to pay attention to the time. TICK TOCK. It's at that point that I get out the pencils or keyboards or notebooks and begin.  I read old stuff and marvel at the problems that riddle my lines.  I jot down notes or delete stuff that never came to fruition.  I try writing.  First blips, then sentences, then paragraph...

My husband and I decided we need to make a plan.  Actually, 4 plans.  And, actually - if I'm being honest - it was really my idea and he's just coming along for the ride because that's how it usually goes.  And I'm not sure that sounds quite like what I mean.  But, I digress. We need 4 plans.  We don't have 4 plans and we're not sure what's going to be in those 4 plans.  But, right now we're thinking 4 plans.  Plan 1: Budget/money/spending.  We have struggled with this for all 20 years of our marriage.  We've been bailed out, scooped up, helped out ... and still, we struggle.  So, this plan is at the top of the list of plans. Plan 2: Shoot - I already forgot plan 2.  Plan 3: To move or not to move, that is the question.  To move where and how and when?  We're leaning a particular direction, but...big decisions are hard.  Also, do we store our stuff or get rid of it or move it? Plan 4: Double shoot - I forgot...

It's a cold December night and I'm thinking of things I would say if you were here.  I might say: I've missed you. or I'm sorry it's been difficult. or Tell me about the good things. or I might say nothing at all. A lot of life is spent saying nothing at all.  Sitting in a movie theater or watching TV.  Riding in a car.  Tonight Carly and I drove home together from Grandma's house, almost all the way in the silence of an audio book.  I think she listened to about half.  The other half she spent just thinking. I sometimes wonder what internal monologue sounds like to everyone else.  I know what mine sounds like.  There's a lot of "why'd you do that" reasoning and "I should've said..."  It's words, though.  Apparently, that internal monologue isn't the same for everyone.  What did the monologue sound like before I had words?  That's a question I can't answer.  The night outside was inky black whil...

I dreamed a dream once of what this would be like.  Of life.  Of patterns and songs and ticking off boxes to find my way.  Trouble was, I keep looking at the wrong list. This year's list: - Turn 40 (check) - Move again (check) - Send the boy on a mission (check) - Finish admin license - Get lost (check) - Get found (check) - Lost again (check) Wait, that went off track.  Adulthood is a lot of getting off track.  And back on.  It's weird. I thought at 40, I would have it all together. But, I'm barely keeping it from falling apart.  Weird. So, this is me where I am now. 40, working, waiting.  My boy's on a mission in Boise.  My girl's 12 going on 20.  My husband hates his job most days, and loves it alternatively.  Same for me.  We live in a small town I don't like very much and dream of going somewhere else, but we don't know where that is.  I want to be a writer, but I don't spend time writing...

So this is seventeen. It's charm and silence and sighs. It's longer legs and towering above my head. It's venturing out alone in a car. It's struggling and succeeding.   It's struggling and failing. It's beauty in small moments and watching TV together. It's independence and complete dependence. It's being sure and being completely lost. In many ways, seventeen is nothing new.   He's still him, and I'm still me.   In many ways, seventeen is nothing I've ever known. It's a strange feeling in my heart, in this space that he occupies, in this chamber, in this place. My own seventeen was a lot more mystery, a lot more self doubt, a lot more fear. My own seventeen was painful and strange. And so this new seventeen is scary, too. It's letting go, even though I'm not ready. It's holding on for dear life. So, this is seventeen.  *Photos by Payneless Photo...

I'm in the well.  The deep well of what have I done. Below me echoes the sound of a thousand feet of blank air. Above me, light fades to a pinprick.  On all sides are the slick, slimy bricks built to hold back the earth, to keep it from caving in, to create a passage for bringing water from below. Once, I looked over into my child's face and saw myself staring back.  Saw the insecurities and pride, the wonder and alarm.  It was strange and yet - satisfying. I've created immortality, it flows in his veins.  And yet, he is his own self.  A self I have always known.  He is both new and old at the same time, a million years of love and change meeting in the moment of conception.  Lives won and lost, all leading to the here and now.  Looking over, I see him as if distantly. It sounds like nonsense, these words with no form. These thoughts that pour out like ink on the page.  It sounds like too much thinking and not enou...