Unrelated bits & pieces

* I drove back from the ophthalmologist (a random unidentifiable pain & redness in my eyes prompted the visit) tonight, and it was the most disorienting and sweaty palmed trip ever. Headlights in dilated eyes: not fun. Now I have blurry vision and the feeling of vertigo whenever I look at anything up close. But look at me, I’m still blogging. Wheee! Oh, and despite the redness and/or agony, I apparently have perfect eyes. Some good news. I like that.

* I’ve been enjoying creating small pieces of art nearly every day. I’m going with the idea of altering a book. This particular book was found in the basement at my inlaws house, and is called The Love Affair, which offers bits of advice such as the following:

The average man decidedly shrinks from what he calls a ‘brainy’ or ‘highbrow’ woman, and if she is in the unfortunate position of having to secure his attention, no man of her own type being available, she must conceal her intellectuality instead of trying to use it as a blandishment, which is a mistake very frequently made.

Better off as an altered book, don’t you think? Or perhaps this is my problem. I use both my brainy and highbrowness as blandishment. Don’t you? It’s fun to paint blithely over the text, watching how certain words or bits of text come to the fore while others become completely submerged.

* I’ve decided that I’m going to spend several months taking a picture of DH every day. A sort of practice in observation. I want to see what I notice. I’ve never made him the focus of any creative/artistic endeavor and want to spend some time with the images I take and see where it goes. See what I learn, about him. So much of him I don’t really know. Isn’t this almost always the way it is with the people you love? You think you know them, but really, you only know these small slivers, like looking up at a new moon and thinking that tiny sickle is all of it.

* The cold snap that has swept across the country and left orange groves in California frozen, and people without power in Oklahoma has hit here with a vengeance. -15 degrees out, and our pipes in the upstairs bathroom froze. Huh? Yeah, you read that right. Tomorrow will be day three without a shower. Really. Whimper.

Wanting to dream

My eyes ache tonight, from crying and laughing both, and I’m on the verge of being sick. I spent the weekend away with a close friend, talking over sushi and Japanese beer, about the way things really are. How everything in my life right now is like a delicate broken china cup, held together with dime store glue, and the tea is very hot.

We went rock climbing. I haven’t climbed since before I was pregnant, and my mind and body marveled at the sudden feeling vertical; instinct sending rapid telegraphs along tendons, muscles quivering. My heart thrumming in my chest, chalk on my palms, and then swinging out into open space at the top of the wall before the belay down. It felt good to simply say, I don’t know. And also to say my heart is breaking, but that I’m hopeful. Very hopeful.

Because this is true. I am. And I have reason to be. We’re talking now, daily, and part of what we’re talking about is what really matters. Sometimes it feels a bit like walking through the odds and ends of furniture and relics in an antique store looking for a particular set of silver spoons, but we’re finding things we didn’t know we wanted or cared about at all.

And it’s hard to say what it is we really want. We thought this was it: on this land, in this house, but somehow we’re drowning here. Debt swallowing up our love, and our freedom both. And also, because though we dreamed of this: mossy wooded trails and apple trees and kind neighbors, we never thought to ask ourselves when we wanted this, and what else we really wanted in our lives.

So we’re starting over, and asking this: what really matters? And our answers shock us both. To see the night sky in Australia. To bike together across Europe. To travel through the west with Bean and hike the mountains there. To shout out into the vast space of the Grand Canyon. To work on a coffee plantation in Central America. To spend a month on a sailboat. To teach in a foreign country. To have another child. To write. To publish. To live a life rich with experience.

Startled, we look at each other from opposite ends of the couch. Maybe we want more than this, here, right now. Maybe we need more, to keep us whole.

And also, when I came back after a night away, hugging him, pressing my head into his chest in that place right under the curve of his chin, I felt like I was home.

Hi. Already.

Hello, Internets !

I haven't checked my stats in so long, I believe I've forgotten my passwords. But I know that there are many cool people out there who come here, and some of you write me absolutely awesome emails, or send me lovely chocolate covered figs, or gorgeous photos, or cds with amazing girly housewarming tunes (thank you, thank you, a zillion times, thank you!)

But others of you I'm sure, lurk your way through my posts each day, never toching your keyboard. And in your honor, it's that week again. That's right. NATIONAL DELURKING WEEK. Go ahead, say hi. Every single one of you. You will make my day. My week, even. Really. And just for you, I painted this picture (in keeping with my January art every day resolution.)