landscapes

rearview

Posted on by sheri

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it’s me again. i’m sitting here in the dark. again. hello.

i’m wondering. do you ever sometimes just completely forget who you are? even though you’ve known yourself, like, forever? even though you’ve trialed and tribulated on that personage for several decades?

for example, after finishing lunch with my mom today, i ordered a GIANT, iced black coffee and promptly sucked it down through a straw. me. the wimp who only drinks decaf coffee BECAUSE I CAN’T HANDLE COFFEE CAFFEINE. what was I thinking? i can’t drink coffee. especially not midday for chrissakes. how could i forget this? after making this mistake so many times before? after knowing myself jittering and bumping on coffee all too well?

looking back, i think it was simply because the server offered it up in such a tasty after-lunch way. he made it sound like dessert. and it made me forget. just like that. frickin’ crafty hypnotist waiters …

let’s just say my coworkers got A LOT of “great ideas” in their email boxes after that. sigh.

i don’t know what happened. i just forgot who i was for a minute. or i just wanted to be that girl who can suck down coffee and be like a normal person after that. as if.

 

the urge

Posted on by sheri

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the urge, that pesky creative one, is really nagging at me. i can feel it, taste it, the weight of it is an extra heavy thing to carry. it’s an itch i can’t seem to scratch. unable to find my writing groove. reading more of what i want to read isn’t catching my ass on fire. the photographs i take look like the same old photographs i’ve always taken. i’ve even been considering setting up a tiny painting studio in my office — even though i can’t paint a lick. can’t tell it to go the eff away. tried that too. ed jokingly suggested taking up scrapbooking because he knows he can’t really help me find the thing that’s going to fill that gaping hole right now. i know that, but i still look to him with big sad eyes and beg for help.

maybe it’s hormones, i like to think. i’m finally making my descent into becoming that unsatisfiable old lady i always knew i’d be. maybe it’s early onset empty nest syndrome, i wonder. the boys are getting bigger, needing me less, heading out into lives of their own, just like i always wanted. good god, i need to get a life that’s all my own, i whine. i am dyyyyyying, i moan. there really must be a better way. surely i’m thinking too much. doing too little. but it does’t feel like that at all. it feels like i can’t … do … anything and so i mentally beat myself to a pulp about it.

but here’s a thought — and it’s a good, tough one that goes against everything i actually feel — maybe i just need to feel this. maybe i don’t suck because i can’t figure it out right now. maybe i’m not a horrible writer because i’m not writing miraculous prose just like that. maybe figuring it out is the thing i need. figuring it out or learning to sit with it, feel it. endure the discomfort because something it happening, changing, percolating, about to be revealed. maybe i don’t have to think of my insatiable urge as suffering (even if it sure as hell feels like suffering). maybe change and new paths are hard to find and perhaps that’s okay.

i am alive and full of creative energy and i want more. there are many worse things than that.

nothing doing

Posted on by sheri

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been thinking how happy i am to be getting back to friendship. the old way of friendship. the lazy, sitting around, feet pulled up underneath us, doing nothing kind of friendships. this is how friendship felt in my 20s before real adulthood (and for some of us, motherhood) set in, and god, have i missed it. all the busy-ness has filled up our lives to the point where we can’t even find the time to sit around without making appointments on our calendars. got time to do nothing with me on saturday? yes? great!

for me, nothing-doing has been sorely missed. i’m really feeling done with clicking on the same dozen sites over and over, just longing for connection. that connection and contentedness of good old fashioned, face to face nothing-doing.

let’s bring it back, shall we?

this breath

Posted on by sheri

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he fell asleep so gently right here next to me tonight. mere seconds ticked past between the deciding to lay down and the slow rise and fall of boy sleep. one hand curls tight into his bare middle, his silhouette a rolling landscape of shoulder, waist, hip, and legs in a tangle. his other hand rests limp at his side like a fallen bird, feathery soft fingers. his thoughts left hanging somewhere between swimming and reading and this living room couch.

i rest my hand on his soft, cool side and let it ride the heavy in-out, in-out. through the windows, the crisp breath of evening makes the curtains float in like ghosts. my own breathing unravels in a long sigh. in-out, in-out, this breath is a gift. the last month of summer is hours away now and soon morning will replace this night or the breath or the breathing, the hushed light of day, never promising us anything.

(written after reeling all day about this local tragedy that took place at our new-favorite camp)