Tag Archives: put on your own airbag first

we are almost always something else outside the day job

Sticker graffiti of an old-style typewriter, out of which emerges a piece of paper on which are typed the words,

Good morning, good morning.  It’s cold cold cold here. I’m in a sweatshirt and scarf and almost ready to turn the space heater on. July 14, and it’s in the 50s. Welcome to sunny California. Today I’m missing those humid midwest summers, sticky and hot, cicadas throbbing in the trees, sweaty glass of iced tea in hand, standing in front of the fan trying to cool off. (Let it get hot here, though, and I’ll start complaining about that…)

Ok, so it’s Friday. I hide the candle behind the computer because it’s too bright for my tired, early morning eyes. During the sun salutation this morning I held the plank for a minute, and it was all I could do not to just lower myself down to the floor, fold my arms under my head, and go back to sleep.

Is today when I could write about the day job?

Fit on the basket, make a new hope, a new home. Nurture what the morning calls, the dancing birds, the playful dose, the thing that wants to dive into nowhere, the thing that says yes. I look around inside for the thing that wants to be free, or wants to be caged, depending on which way you look. I have the heart open, I have the world on a string.  This is the backhand dance.

A little more than a month ago, I signed on as a program coordinator at a small local private college. Taking a day job again means a regular paycheck, sure. It also means structure and focus, means that I have to reschedule my heart.

Continue reading

Radical self care as upheaval (part 1) – revealing what’s falling apart, what’s falling open

(In this series of posts about radical self care and/through major life change, I am finally taking some time to find the words for what I’ve been dealing with over the last month, since the birth of my nephew. I am thinking about how and why we choose to survive, how much effort is involved, how and why we choose to take care of ourselves, and how to allow ourselves to walk with all that life throws at us with even a modicum of grace and celebration.)

Good morning, beautiful writers. It’s a thick sheet of wet outside my window today. How is the atmosphere percolating where you are? What has the morning brought you so far on this day?

This morning I am all ache and storm. I am exhaustion that has taken root behind my bones and deep inside my eyes. I am thick with all I’m not accomplishing right now, full of how my scattered attentions are disappointing everyone. I cannot do enough. I am not enough for anything that needs me right now. I run from appointment to appointment, keeping my face a mask of Yes, Everything’s Fine — How Can I Help You? A mask of showing up. A mask hiding this question: When will it be time for me to rest? When will it be time for me to fall apart?

Continue reading