LATE SEPTEMBER SNOW

October 1, 2013

Here I am late AGAIN with my monthly Doodle. Just pretend this is the last day of September so my obsessive soul doesn’t have to beat itself up for not sitting down to do this earlier. But actually I haven’t had much time for sitting down to do much of anything this month. And that is the main holy humongous surprise this phase of life has showered down upon me. I thought by now I would be regularly enjoying the sunrise (well, it would probably be a sunset for night-owl me) while sipping some chai tea (or my latest obsession, caramel frappe) and relaxing with a book or maybe writing one. I would be delving into deep thoughts and learning all kinds of new things and maybe actually sleeping once in awhile.

That is not how it is going, at least not yet. I seem to be busier and more scattered than I ever was with three girls at home attending public school and hopping all over town between church and after-school activities. With one married and a mommy, living two hours away, one going to college in Nashville and one in the process of moving to Chicago, my brain feels stretched out of shape from living in four places at once, (yes, I do live in my own life every now and then) while my body feels exhausted from the silly brain running around between those four different places. I should have exercised more when I was young!

You should just hear the whirring going on up there. It’s like a blustery winter storm piling snow drifts in various sections of my brain, which my husband could name for you, but we won’t even ask him because that whole spiel would last way too long. He loves to name all the minute parts of the body. Anyway, I’m hoping once this move happens with the middle daughter maybe I can settle down just a bit, although I won’t be really at peace until she finds employment, successfully navigates the train system to said employment and everywhere else she needs to be, makes some friends, doesn’t blow up the kitchen with the gas stove, doesn’t get frozen stiff in the Chicago winter or accosted by crazy people while walking to the train stops, and reports back to me that she is happy and enjoying her life there. Then I will be able to concentrate on sending her the occasional box of goodies, like I should and will be doing for the daughter in college as soon as I have a moment to put one together.

I have not managed to send a single birthday card out on time this entire year. Well, maybe one or two. I can’t remember. The days fly by so swiftly that I barely experience them while they are in the present, much less remember them after they have passed. Something has to give here, because I would like to relish my days, not relinquish them to constant hyperactive brain cells! Wasn’t it just last month that I wrote about the freeing peace of praying for God to show me the one essential thing I should do each day? Well, that was August. September was a whirlwind of many essentials and October is going to be even more so, but maybe somewhere in the fury I can learn to seek out a peaceful moment each day. Does anyone else have this problem?

Maybe I need to cut the three bungee cords I have attached to my apron these days. That’s easier said than done, but my daughters are not coming back to live in the shelter of our home just because I have stretchy heart strings glued to them. They would probably appreciate hearing the Snip! Snip! of some scissors right about now. Actually I need some of that stuff that removes sticky glue residue, because I have done a lot of snipping over these past several years but my little bungee cords tend to reattach whenever a daughter walks by, either physically or metaphorically in the silly brain.

I have plenty of other things to think about in the midst of all this emotional mother mess. There’s the new construction project about to begin at our house. Now that we have raised three daughters in a cramped little house we have decided to add a two car garage and a sunroom, so we will have more empty space to wander around in. We will, however, also have a lot more space in which daughters and their families can come back to visit us. Yes! Why we decided to do this at the same time we’re making trips back and forth to Chicago I do not know. We’re just brilliant at planning stress makers, I guess.

I am also putting together my first book of poetry that should be out for public consumption in the next few weeks! If you like traditional poems about nature and spirituality, this may be the one for you. If you like weird poems about all kinds of things, the next one may be what your soul craves. Or maybe the next one. I also plan to put out a couple of volumes of past Doodles at some point in the future. So once I get the apron cords taken care of who knows what kind of inspirations may flood the world while I gaze out from the sunroom during a snowstorm outside instead of inside my head!