Slowing Down

So have any of you done The Artist's Way?  This is my second try at it.    Today I hit week four -- the week of  Reading Deprivation.  Yeah, you are supposed to go one week without reading anything. 

Today was the first day of no reading and I have to say I was a little freaked out by it.  I kept wanting to wander in and mess around on the internet.  My son was excited because he figured it would mean I would play with him more.  Silly boy.  

OK.  I actually did play with him more.

I also pulled out the first quilt top I started when I started quilting three years ago and finally basted it.  Finally.  I also did a lot of sitting around doing nothing, which was nice.  I took a bunch of little 15 minute naps.  

I slowed down.  

I slowed down and I was a little more aware of my constant anxiety and I tried to let go of it a little.  

Maybe that is what it's about.  Slowing down, giving yourself permission to breath, be still, wonder, think, imagine.  

I did a lot of stuff around the house as well, in fact I had most of the chorish things done by 11:00 a.m. -- and usually I'm still struggling with them late in the afternoon because I've stuck so much in between working on them.

I don't know, this reading deprivation seems like it might be a little bit like hitting the reset button.  I think I might like it -- at least for a week.

Come next Saturday though?  Pretty sure I'll be doing some reading.

My First Time

I must have been about 12 or 13.   I hopped on my bike and rode down to the Woolworth's on Main Street.   I had been saving my money to buy one of those K-Tel compilation albums.  I'd had my eye on it for awhile.  The one song I wanted the album for?  Rock With You by Michael Jackson.

It was my first album.  Remember having to pick up the needle and setting it down in just the right spot to get to the next song?  After awhile you would never miss.

Pretty soon my album collection grew, and included David Cassidy and Leif Garrett  (you know you loved them too) and I forgot about that first album and that song I bought it for.

Even though I was one of those crazy chicks in high school with all four walls of her bedroom plastered in Michael Jackson posters, a drawer full of the magazines and books, who wore out two Thriller cassette tapes (I still have the third one somewhere) this is the memory I keep coming back to  -- me on my bike, riding down main street in a small town in Minnesota, walking into Woolworth's, picking up that album, my heart racing just a little as I paid for it.     

a poem and unemployment update

I am officially downgrading my husband's chances of unemployment from 99% to 91%.  This is incredibly optimistic of me.  But what the hell. It's Thursday and I'm making mojitos tonight. Go me. 

There is some negotiating going on but because we are OK living off of my income I am comfortable with him not taking a cut in pay (50 percent cut is what they first offered him) and telling them to go jump in the lake.  

I realize we are much luckier than many people in this economy.  Like the guy I heard on NPR the other day who said his family would be OK if they did blah blah blah and stopped buying paper towels.  I'm still buying paper towels so things are not so bad.

OK, here's the poem from today's The Writer's Almanac:

Horses At Midnight Without A Moon

by Jack Gilbert

Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.
Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
But there's music in us. Hope is pushed down
but the angel flies up again taking us with her.
The summer mornings begin inch by inch
while we sleep, and walk with us later
as long-legged beauty through
the dirty streets. It is no surprise
that danger and suffering surround us.
What astonishes is the singing.
We know the horses are there in the dark
meadow because we can smell them,
can hear them breathing.
Our spirit persists like a man struggling
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun. 

"Horses At Midnight Without A Moon" by Jack Gilbert, from Refusing Heaven. © Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. 

Ten Things Tuesday -- The Unemployed Edition

Looks like The Man will be unemployed July 1 (we are 99 % sure).  

Ten things I am not looking forward to during his undetermined time of unemployment:

1.  Less money.

2.  Being the only one with a paying job.

3.  Him in the same house as me 24/7.

4.  Watching major home repairs not being done while he looks for work on-line while watching MSNBC/CNBC/The History Channel and (god help me) the Military Channel.

5.  Constantly asking him to make major home repairs instead of spending hours on-line while watching MSNBC/CNBC/The History Channel and (god help me) the Military Channel.  Oh, and looking for the job.

6.  Slowly watching his soul leak all over the house while he doesn't find work (can you tell I've been through this before).

7.   Delegating (on a daily basis) chores around the house -- like making the bed, doing the laundry.

8.  Finally giving up and just making the bed and doing the laundry myself.

9.  Finally really giving up and definitely not making the bed and barely doing the laundry myself.

10.  Drinking copious amounts of vodka to forget reasons 1 - 9 . Oh, wait I LIKE this one.