10.29.07
Firethorn berries
Fall’s bounty weighs down the branches. Under foot, seeds and nuts crunch beneath crisp brown leaves. Holly, firethorn and hawthorne are heavy with sprays of red and orange berries. They look like fireworks.
10.27.07
Sublime Sunrises
We have had the greatest pleasure in sunrise this week – I am captivated, overtaken, removed completely from my varied and numerous worries and drawn deeply into wonder. There have been a few mornings with sunrises I can only describe as sublime – how a colour can be both soft and intense, light both gentle and blinding, how within a fifteen minute time the sunrise light has revealed the beauty hidden within the ordinary and then allowed it to hide again is both a mystery and a miracle to me. The air is cold and hints of frost’s kisses to the blades of green grass; Trout Lake becomes misty and intriguing as the dew burns off in the hot sun. The sun looks like fire on red-turned leaves. October is truly spectacular.
10.04.07
and furthermore
as we have completed augustine’s confessions, i am tormented with self-doubt. i have trouble with being accepted based on potential. it’s not good enough. not at all, not for me. i could never live up to it.
the mystery has never worried me. i believe our purpose is to search for truth and understanding of the world around, within and beyond us. the great mystery of the divine, of our species, of purpose, does not cause me discomfort in any way. i accept that i will never know. it’s getting the e for effort that counts.
but i am sitting in a class and from the first moment the professors open their mouths to the final words of whoever was too passionate to shut up i have transcended my body and exist only inside my mind. there is nothing but the ideas.
its a river of gold in my veins and if i had eyes i would gaze in wonder at a shimmering substance beneath my skin.
instead i gently float, notetake everything, gasp as words leap from my throat, stumble through ideas, am misunderstood, trip over myself to make something come out, withdraw into thought again and sit in ecstasy. and fidget.
but outside of this i have a forest fire devouring the brambles of my life path. i do not know what to do. if only i were surrounded by bad arguments, it would be so much easier to chart a course. the moon is too bright to see the stars.
i have no doubt at all that i need to be truthful and farsighted. however i also must act and here is the trouble. i have always gone where the wind takes me. there is no wind today, but if I do not act i shall enable something negative.
Stay home or work
I’m enjoying a rare luxury today – time with the smallest of my children. We didn’t have childcare for today so I volunteered to stay home with her. I brought home the clunky laptop I use at work and did intensive telework in the am, now have switched to the more comfortable ibook for some rest time.
It has been idyllic. we took Em to school and then played and worked in a cottage-industry rhythm. Dancing my little ponies with one hand, reading a text with the other. Ate a good lunch, went for a short walk in the rain and now she reslestly tosses in resistance to naptime and I write here.
I want this every day. This is undeniable. All the other mothers at work will say “so do I, but I still come in to work”. It makes my heart hurt to be away from them. The mothers at work will say “so does mine, but you have to plan for when they grow up and don’t want you anyways”.
Think about the lost pension. The lost years of seniority and personal development. Think about it – sacrifice your future for just a few years?
She has fallen asleep. She’s snoring there. Until today, I didn’t even know she had a molar growing in, and that’s why she’s been so miserable. Think about that.
Think about the obligations, the ties that keep you held in place. The promises to colleagues, the workplans, the projects, the working groups. The teleconferences, the chance to push your mind into new possibilities. The opportunities. Oh, the opportunities.
At home the opportunities exist within yourself alone. Do I have the ability to stay home and be content? What would I have to do to be self-actualizing while staying home? Is it possible?
There are so many unknowns. What I do know for sure is that I haven’t felt this whole since I was home on mat leave. Thinking about going back tomorrow, of staying… it reminds me of that christmas when I was 10, and I had this beautiful present to unwrap from someone who usually gave me gifts I would have called “rad”. This time it was tube socks and white fruit-of-the-looms. The sinking feeling, the blush, the ‘i was wrong’, the disappointment, that’s what I feel about going back.
But then again…. I like my job.
