Psychologists say children and things built to stand the test of time (like buildings) function best with structure.
Alas I am not a building, but once was a child. A trace of childhood that clings to me is rebelling against structure. Today I’m vowing to be my own parent and impose discipline on my blog life.
Here it is.
Music Mondays.
We can do it Wednesdays! An outlet for my zeal (or pushiness) in encouraging fitness and healthy lifestyle. A spot for me to share all tidbits I see and think, “Hey, that’s helpful, I need to share that info.” All friends I constantly pester to run marathons or sign up for triathlons will be elated I have another modus operandi for my fervor.
The children would not get out of bed. No one wanted to eat breakfast. They were dressing slower than then line at the DMV.
My sink was full of dirty dishes from night before. The washer full of clean ones. One minute before the drop dead time to leave for school, I realize I haven’t packed my daughter’s lunch. (I know some of you have your second grader trained to fix own lunch box. I’m not that evolved.)
But unlike yesterday, when the same tardy drama was unfolding, I didn’t stand at the kitchen sink on the verge of tears and screams, “WHY ISN”T ANYONE LISTENING TO Me? Don’t you care if you are LATE???”
No. Of course, no one cared except me. And so I stopped caring about being late. This one time, this one morning.
It dawned on me. You aren’t going to pull this off.
No use screaming. An erie peace settled over me. I calmly spent 20 minutes looking for shoes. Calmly made the lunch. Calmly fixed my children something to eat in the car… Very weird. Who was this woman, at peace in utter chaos even when realizing that her car was going to pull up very late a vacant Primary School drop off…
She acquiesed. This stranger in my skin. I let the morning madness — gooooo.
We got out to the car – after time tardy bell had clanged. I realized my daughter had left two biscuits with honey I fixed her siting on the back of the sofa by back door. Calmly, I mentioned this to her. Calmly, I watched her get out of the car taking her sweet, merry time going into the house to retrived her breakfast.
WOW. I like this gal. Pulling out of the driveway awash in tardiness and lateness.. I hit the CD.
And, “1, 2, 3
Turn it up..” And I turned it up…Getting lost in the music..
Sometimes you just have to dive into lateness and just swim or float — but don’t fail or struggle. I’m not perfect. We’re not perfect.
Sometimes best just to accept that and accept the pure goodness of a perfect D-C+9-G chord progression.
Turn it up, get lost in a riff, forget perfect and Have great day!!
When the groundhog sees his shadow, the silly little thing is scared and runs back underground. Which for us, means six more weeks of winter.
Things looked pretty cloudy this morning. YEA!
The one day of the year I pray for cloudy weather…
Madison, doesn’t have a town groundhog, so I struck an agreement with the little chipmunk, Leticia, who lives out outside my window.
She was going to let me know if she saw her shadow this morning.
Well, Leticia stayed up a little too late last night watching the end of the Super Bowl (which did get very exciting), but she was as good as her word and her word was….
No shadow! Warm weather not too far away! God bless her little teensy rodent heart!
Yes, it was rather cloudy this morning, hard to see any shadows.
But honestly, with the way things are in the world today, there are a lot of shadows lurking out there. The shadow of reported layoffs, slow housing markets, pay cuts. Lots of gloom and doom speculation.
Today – when something appears on the horizon, something that makes you want to run down and your burrow and hide, ask yourself. Is this just a shadow?
If you choose to retreat back into your burrow, do so because you just need a little more sleep, not because you fear something that might never happen.
Today — step out of the shadows and into the light. Now I must run and go bring a tiny cup of coffee to Leticia my dear chipmunk friend. For here in Madison the sun has just come out – and we’ve got to start planning our spring garden.
My car. My life. It was one of those mornings.
