To have the ear and Have the stomach

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.
Zora Neale Hurston

As you all know by now, i have returned to Illinois. I have returned, as if in a dream.
The incredible force it took to get here, that is all foreign to me, so i feel transported here, though indeed I brought myself here in a rented car.

And i bet you thought i would be happy. I bet you expect posts with picutres of my new life with a matching smile, and I may do that with our Halloween photos.

But right now what i know for sure is why i left Illinois in the First Place my dearests!
It was asking the most ridiculous questions. The most scary questions, questions ranging from the practical... how to pay for a baby while in school?. . .to the existential: what in the world am i going to do with my degree?

I opted out of that quiz. I strongly suspected that i was headed nowhere and courting poverty.
Moving back means i suspect otherwise now.

Oh to refuse to ask the questions, to live in San Antonio and play at a life with the most convenient answers, was absolute torture, the most exquisite pain at times.
Oh to move back, to listen to the questions, to ask them, to open myself to some other answer not yet written for me to read, not yet written by my own hand. . .
is not cake in the afternoon, darlings.

I am trying to create a life for myself and i am not creative in that sense... so accustomed to being a passenger, so pleased to let myself be overpowered have i always been that now, now the task of creaing my own way seems severe... severe!
i am now so easily frustrated.

Precious

A moment fully realized is the rare commodity. Am I the only one who wants to know? To peer into the fabric of the second that the words are uttered, the ones you hold to your heart like a talisman against the little deaths that bite at everything precious in a day. What is this symbiosis? Blood and breath fight meaningless and monotony. These are our struggles- to strengthen our pulses, to enlarge our lungs.

His eyes have a ring of mossy green inside a caramel tinged brown and they are more to me than anything has ever been. He sleeps upstairs and my world is balanced in that bed, so fragile am I now: I am no stronger than a three year old’s frame.

How could I not be religious? Be spiritual? When I know that the best parts of myself are walking around outside of me now and are designed to be my remains when I am gone from this earth. when I am in the earth still I’ll walk the earth.

The feet I wash with chocolate shampoo sometimes will carry my heart into the future.

So I pray.

We make tacos together the three of us, then we watch Scrubs.

Sponsibilities

i am in suddenly so responsible. no, scratch that. I am suddenly exceedingly aware of all my responsibilities and...
not that good at meeting them, though i am trying.
i Am Trying.
And still this job is kicking my butt. so much stuff to do and all of it multi-tasking and detail-oriented. MURDER!
it is killing me.


In other news, we have moved into a townhome. Really nice. it has a really nice layout! I have three levels. the first is a two-car garage and a room for Chris to play music in, the second and main floor is wooden througout- the kitchen, breakfast nook, dining room and living room. The upstairs is nicely carpeted, has a HUGE master bedroom and two other smaller rooms... one for Judah and one for my office.
fun.
and the boxes Are Everywhere.

the stress has been sky-high lately.

Moving Again

not away from Chicago! but we are hoping to secure a new little nest in the next week or so.

We met a realtor at a townhome this morning and it was a really good layout for us, near to an excellent elementary school, near to our friends.

There were, as to be expected, some minor details about the home that were less desirable to me. I am hoping that we could, should we get the place, change out the lighting.

Toward that end, we spent some two hours getting dazed and, yes, confused! at Ikea. I actually felt dizzed by the frenzy.

I have been hemmed in by traditionalist taste all my life and i have no idea how to be creative with fashion or home decor with any degree of self- confidence. Still, i think this part should be fun, so i am trying to get over my need for "correctness" in decorating myself or my place.

I've spent some time looking at funky wallpaper and cushions and i am thinking i will start there.
oh, and I think we are getting an ORANGE! couch.

if anyone out there has any good reasons why i should not be joined to an orange couch, please speak up.

Triumphalism

i haven't been blogging much lately-
part of it is that i have been busier than ever before
part of it is that i have been happier lately and i don't blog happiness as easily as melancholy and
part of it is, was. . .

embarrassment and fear.

We took a leap of faith in moving here, with no cars and only one job. on the outside, and even sometimes from the inside, that made me look/feel crazy at times. Who does that? Who moves with three year old without a place to live or transportation?

A desperate person can sometimes seem crazy- or be crazy.

I think i was a little crazy!

But i don't think the craziness was in the moving, but in the staying so damn long against myself, my own needs and wants.

Our lives were out of control, because we had given up control to someone not at all fit to make any decisions for us! That is what we did, in essence, by allowing ourselves- myself- to be manipulated so extensively.

Mayhem ensued.

Emotionally, psychologically, maritally...financially. All out of control.
I was bereft of any power over my own life because i had given it to someone else a long time ago and i didn't know how to get it back, how to appropriate it for myself.

So i did all i could, i moved. With no job or car, with nothing except enough money to last a little while.
Crazy move, but the only one i could live with.


So i haven't blogged about the transition because i wasn't sure what would become of us and i was embarrassed by it all, the irresponsibility!

At the same time i was praying for the opportunity to take responsibility and authority over my own life, i was feeling my most irresponsible and resource-less.

But i thought you should know,
now that I know, now that i know how the Universe has answered that
Crazy Leap of Faith:

We both got cars, great cars from carmax!

My job is what i asked for and expected and i am grateful for it!

Chris got the job we needed to make it here, in Chicago- a major promotion-- doubled his salary!

We feel great about our crazy decision. Sometimes a person has to get a little desperate to make a necessary chage- rock bottom or what you will.

Thank you for your patience and for the hand-holding.

more to come.

Change

They say it is inevitable and that it is "good", they do. I have been Change's protege and her help-maiden, her slave and her beneficiary, it seems.

I have been dropping dead, passing out at around ten nearly every night. I multi-task all day long and by ten o'clock i am done-in. I am completely off the mark with my weight too, and have been irregular in ways i never am... pleasant! and if that doesn't convince you i am in over my head, then consider the fact that i had my first ever case of ... was it vertigo? i just felt, for the better part of more than three hours, that i had been on some crazy carnival ride.

It is kind of getting to me.

Still, there is good in Chicago for me. I earn more, which is nice right now and we are looking at property and getting used to ourselves in a different zip code. Judah seems to be doing really well, seems to like his pre-school, seems to laugh harder and more often now. Either that or i notice it more fully now and either way, or both- i feel sturdier because of it. I take heart in Judah's belly laughter.

We are with friends (different ones than intially) who are taking such an amazing attitude about our presence and really welcoming Judah into their fold. (Liz's link is Online Therapy-she has some too cute posts about our too cute kids being too cute together). Their open door has been the difference-making factor in our being able to take root here at all. We're going to try to stay by them wherever we move.


Chris has an important meeting tomorrow at two so if you pray, please do so for him.

I am gearing up for fall in terms of FASHION!! i am really looking forward to shopping Simply Vera at Kohl's this fall. In other news, i've got an awkwardish haircut and ten extra pounds dampening my excitement. ah, ambivalence.

Mavis Beacon

it is late and i am tired and i cannot see the keys on the board and i am a horrible typist. It seems to be one of those things that everyone else gets and i do not, like i was absent that day and i missed the crucial typing lesson. I am finding out, at this moment, that i am better than i thought and still very bad indeed.

We are staying with friends in a very small space in a suburb of Chicago. I feel i am a burden, a leech and that is a horrid unpleasant feeling.

The further i get into my life here, the more unfamiliar the territory of emotions gets for me. I am sometimes happy, sometimes unreasonably tired, sometimes energetic and other times i get caught in a off-color mood. Change is hard i think, and we have had nothing of stability for what feels like forever now. I try not to expect my feelings to be all sameness and reliability, but that would be so nice right now.

i am behind on everybody else's life, i miss you girls.