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.

half & half

Posted on by sheri

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quote by jane austen; print by Ex Libris Journal

god, is it scary this quote just feels so completely right on? kinda makes me laugh, kinda makes me cry … obviously! haha. i wonder. is this a definition most artists would find fitting? we feel it big no matter which way we’re feeling and we’re always feeling pulled by both poles? i’ve had moments where i found a pile of fruit dropped from a tree incredibly agonizing. but a dead mockingbird, wings pulled in tight, as if it were sleeping peacefully on its back, that was so beautiful, hopeful even.

is this just what it means to be human? is this definition i find so completely comforting indeed comforting? or is it the definition you’ll find in the DSM under some cruel mental disorder?

i find waiting for your responses both agonizing and hopeful.

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?

not writing

Posted on by sheri

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writing my one paragraph tonight in order to say i’m not writing. i’m not. there is simply no way. i am tired. i am empty. there is nothing to say. and i can’t string together thoughts right now. need to find me some inspiration stat. tried poetry. tried reading some of my faves. looking at photos. but nothing is pushing forth the writing. maybe if i left my house once in awhile… haha.

got any ideas, friends? i’m stuck.

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)