personal

Days of Normal Parts

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The days were full of normal parts. Eat, sleep, school, work. Activities we all shared. Each house sheltering a family going through it’s normal day. Mothers at home fixing dinner, fathers greeted at the door with a gin and tonic while they took off their overcoat, loosened their tie, and set their hat carefully on the shelf in the coat closet. Imagine Mad Men. This was our life. Our life of normal parts. So foreign and sexist to today’s ethos of family.

Some days were magical. The snow would fall in mounds and school would be cancelled. We’d run home, grab our mittens, and jump and dance and slide and build and throw and tumble for hours. Our mothers would call us in for cinnamon toast and hot chocolate. We’d warm our hands, fill our bellies, and head back out into the magic.

Some days were frightening. Watching television when special announcements came on the air. A president dead. My grandmother screaming as she put her hand to her mouth, dropping her cigarette onto the carpet. From my view on the floor with my toys, I could see the muddled video of a handsome couple waving from a convertible, and then everything blurry and confused. At the same time, I watched Grandma’s cigarette smolder, and hoped we weren’t going to burn up in a housefire. Innocence watching the news.

The days could continue to be frightening. This time a Civil Rights leader. My mother screaming as she stood to her feet from the couch and looked ready to run away. But there was nowhere to go. She screamed, “No! Oh, no! Not him! Not him, too!” I realized this somehow connected to the dead president, but I wasn’t sure how. I learned the word assassination that day.

We became young adults and wanted to escape this small town life. The conversations were always the same. The gossip. The keeping-up-with-the-neighbors. This town was so boring. There was nothing to do. We wanted excitement. We wanted lights and noise and movement.

We became older adults and wanted to return again. After we went out to see the excitement and the lights and the noise, we dreamed about those quieter times. The leisurely afternoons, Saturday morning cartoons. We longed for the world of our youth. The world of those days of normal parts.

Pilgrimage

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Making a pilgrimage in our minds can be one of life’s great journeys. Why do we go on pilgrimage? To find ourselves. To find answers. To find a deeper understanding of the foundation of our life. What is the foundation beneath the foundation? Where better to find those things than within ourselves? Identify your life’s essential journeys, even if the circumstances have been bitter.

Being mindful of the now. Being here in the difficulties of our adult body. Finding the essence of beautify within our soul. Feel which streams have flowed beneath your feet. Be aware of the roads your feet have walked. Notice how you’ve been weathered by what comes into your life. Like stones in the river, you’re made smooth, or the stone cracks and shows its beautiful interior or rings and swirls.

Where have you walked? On our journeys we go away and come back. We walk through joy and celebration. Radical peace and revolutionary upset. Abandonment. Imprisonment. Misery. Enclosure. Shelter. Beauty. Wildness. It’s been said in Ireland there’s a pub at the end of every path. Have you looked for the pub? That warm place to spend some time and recuperate before taking the journey back home again?

When life begins to feel small, find a horizon and gaze into the distance. This brings us into healthy conversation with a reality that can feel as if it’s closing in but is actually wide and open as the sky. What horizons are there in your life? When we seek calm and beauty, we watch sunrises and sunsets. We dedicate ourselves at the beginning of the day, and then remember the day’s journey at the end. We choose these times for horizon gazing just as the landscape is drenched with perfect light. These times are calm and glorious. Celebratory and reflective. Both grieving and rejoicing. Like life, our hearts brimming and then overflowing

Look for the conversation beneath the conversation. Listen for the invisible. The unspoken. Find the hidden underbelly of the epochs of your life, the very core of your personal pilgrimage.

The life you’ve lived is astonishing. The life you’ve lived has shaped you. The life you will live as you journey down future paths and stop in future pubs is in conversation with all that’s gone before.

the fabric of my soul

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inside the fabric of my feelings
in the warp and weave of my existence
you wove yourself into my life and
more than my heart broke that day

you took more than my hopes and dreams
you took more than life itself
as I doubled in agony the tears poured
drowning in the blood-tinged grief

my heart rendered into pieces
unfixable, surrounded in death and pain
did you rejoice in the torment you brought?
were you aware of the devastation?

I lost track of the hours days months years
one empty day weighing as much as another
the days were long the nights were longer

on those days when I gave up on life
were you pleased to have such an effect?
did you feel even the smallest regret?

as my heart kidneys organs failed
did you know you held the power of life?
did you know you held the power of death?

you don’t hold that power now
now I can count the days again
there may be joy missing
but there’s no longer torment

there may still be empty spaces
but there are new loves and joys
I gave you the power of life and death
but I have now taken that power back

I will never again give someone
the power to destroy me
even if you still rejoice in my pain
I refuse to let your joy torment me

I will always miss the you I used to know
the truest love and deepest friend
but I will never miss the you who you’ve become
the you who attempted to murder
the very fabric of my soul

Grandma’s pancakes

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My grandmother cooked pancakes
on a large round griddle

with a spatula that had come through
many meals before

so many hours I spent at her side
begging to flip the pancakes

a large brown ceramic bowl
cold to the touch

stiff peaks of beaten egg whites
folded in carefully

Grandma’s secret weapon
against boring breakfasts

a glimpse into days gone by
only the womenfolk cooked breakfast

only the menfolk got away with
not cooking or cleaning up

these were the years before this budding feminist
shouted it’s not fair to whoever would hear

It Felt Like Confusion

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He looked like a teacher or someone’s uncle, the man who tried to molest me in the movie theater. They didn’t talk us through scenarios back then of how to respond to creepy old men sitting next to you and slipping their hand into your chair. I felt afraid, and tried to crawl as far away as I could, climbing halfway into the lap of my best friend on the other side. I finally grabbed her hand and whispered, “Come with me, NOW!” I was horrified and frightened and at a loss for how to respond. Tell an adult. Find an employee. Run. Why didn’t I think of any of those responses? I was frozen. I wasn’t even sure what he wanted. A grown man. I was twelve.

They looked like men who would be friends with our dads, the men who tried to pick us up like we were virgin prostitutes. But we were too young to grasp what was happening. Our mothers hadn’t told us not to sit on the grassy corner of a street to talk and giggle. They never told us that men prowled our quiet suburban streets looking for girls like us. Exchange of money for an exchange of innocence. “How much?” they’d ask and we’d respond with, “How much for what?” We didn’t comprehend the adult game these men were playing. They could’ve been our dads. Two girls braiding daisy chains and enjoying the sunshine on a grassy corner on a quiet residential street. We were naive and so close to danger. Grown men. I was thirteen.

He looked like any other preteen boy, gangly and handsome in a little boy way, the boy who grabbed my breasts every day at school. But I was made to feel guilty for developing early. “Girls with big breasts are easy. They’re asking for it,” the boys whispered to each other. I wasn’t the only one being molested every day in the crowded Junior High hallways between classes. Other girls had breasts, too. We told the school officials, they told us he’s a good boy. A good student. They told us we should be ashamed for enticing nice boys. One woman called my friend a slut. We told our mothers. They told us boys will be boys and to stay away from them if we didn’t like it. Like it? We learned to hold our notebooks clutched protectively to our chests. We learned to wear baggy t-shirts that didn’t show our budding figures. We learned that no one would back us up if we sought help. A teenage boy. I was fourteen.

Imagine

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imagine the thing
you love most
imagine it gone
vanished
nothing

imagine someone takes
every meaningful moment
of your life
every warm memory
every loving conversation
takes a hammer
to each delicate bit
smashes them like glass animals
shattered into slivers
that cut and bleed
you attempt to repair
and fail
you attempt again
and fail

imagine your life
as feathers tied together
with a silk cord
someone cuts the cord
the feathers float away
catching them is pointless
but you try anyway
and fail

imagine rage
imagine heartache
imagine dying
of a broken heart

why are you still crying?
you can’t find the words
you are ragged
you are dead
you are without hope
you are alone
where do you start
to stop
the crying?
how do you start
to stop
the tears?
how do you find
a reason
or purpose
for starting?

imagine yesterday
is shattered glass

imagine today
you are walking barefoot
through the shards
imagine tomorrow
there is no sun

(from Grief Song: An experience of loss)

Childhood Fears: The basement

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you know what sounds good right now my grandfather
asked from the red recliner by the front window

a nice big bowl of ice cream from the deep freeze
what do you think Squirt want to go down to the freezer

Squirt was me and I was having nothing to do
with going down into the haunted basement

there be monsters a sign should read above the door
or beware of the portal to Hell or doorway to death

the first three steep steps had no handrail
so it seemed like stepping off into the abyss

uncarpeted glossy wood slippery to child sized shoes
no traction no handhold a sudden fall an instant death

I don’t want ice cream but my grandparents
insisted I conquer my fear of the basement

staring down into the chasm I could almost see the monsters
starring back at me from dark empty shelves

my grandfather’s power tools could be nightmares come to life
the deep freeze grumbled threateningly from the darkest corner

I could tell where the witch hid which corners the ghosts crouched
I knew what lived underneath the workbench

going to the basement for ice cream meant a battle
with my deepest fears fear of falling of slipping of dying

fear of dark corners and empty shelves of mythical monsters
and cunning beasts all waiting for my small self to wander in

all waiting for grandpa to want ice cream grandpa I said
can you come with me he just chuckled you’ll be all right

the monsters and creatures and witches may not have been real
but the fears and the deep terror in my heart were

one more night I faced the monsters alone and wished someone
would hold my hand and show me gently the way to safety

Chores. Ugh, who wants to do chores?

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When I feel badly about myself and about life, I tend to let things around me fall apart. Especially housekeeping. My house hasn’t been “company-ready” in several years due to events that kept me feeling badly about myself and about life. I’ve been feeling much better lately, though. Hope, joy, sunshine. I think the clouds finally parted.

This past month, I’ve spent my free time digging my way out of my mess. It wasn’t hoarder-level mess, but it was a mess none-the-less. When I realized I wasn’t even willing to let one of my best friends into my house anymore, I knew I had to get a handle on it.

I tried pulling out my old Chore Lists, but it was just too overwhelming to only be doing a little each day. I needed to do a lot each day to dig myself out. So I spent my free time in April working on my house. Sorting, cleaning, asking if things bring me joy, and I can finally see the light.

On Friday, I pulled out a Chore List to see if I was now at the point where I could work with this particular technique that has worked well for me in the past. I did Friday’s chores. And after all the heavy duty chores I’ve been doing lately, just doing a small list of daily chores felt like nothing. But it made a big difference. It’s amazing how even just a gentle reminder to make your bed can give you a feeling of accomplishment when you actually follow through.

If you just need some help keeping up on the dailyness of housework, you might want to take a look at my Chore Lists (they’re printable and free by click here). I just print out a copy of the current week’s List, hang it on the fridge, and mark things off as I accomplish them. When my kids still lived at home, we would work on the Chore Lists as a family, and everyone could easily see what had been done, and what still needed doing.

It’s so nice to feel like I can have people over again without feeling ashamed of my house (which made me feel ashamed of myself which just contributed to the whole vicious shame cycle). I hope by keeping up on the Chore Lists, I can keep the downhill slide (housewise) from happening again. We’ll see.

I don’t keep up on it much anymore, but my homemaking blog, I’m Not Susie Homemaker, is a Nag Free Zone if you’re looking for some kind, friendly thoughts on digging out of the dailyness of chores and housework.  Like it or not, housework’s gotta be done at some point.  Take it from me, procrastination just makes it worse. Boy, oh boy, do I know that one from personal experience.

Join me? I don’t think I’m the only person who struggles with this.

~Debi

https://notsusiehomemakerblog.wordpress.com/weekly-chore-lists/