Connected

I feel most here, in Illinois, when i am at home, cleaning. I feel more connected with my space when i am cleaning it. Probably because I have to notice it, bit by bit. I can be so wrapped up in the atmosphere of my mind that i miss the material details.

I keep thinking i would do better here if i worked four days instead of five... but i don't think it's financially realistic-- at this point anyway- we aren't even sure what IS realistic as we are just getting a solid idea of what our every month responsibilities will be.

WE have been eating at home more than I ever have before and- wow!- it is so much cheaper to eat at home. No wonder i ran out of money before the end of the month- seriously, I have eaten out enough times to last me a life time. no, really, THAT MANY TIMES.

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Judah and i spent the whole day at the mall--
we went for a costume. I know, it is last-minute, but i have issues with money. I can't spend it until... damn, it is the last latest minute and I MUST purchase-- a case of need, or it is under fifteen dollars. The best situation is a combination of the two. I know, i am weird.


So i went to a couple of stores with no real luck- then i went to the Children's Place and (more proof that the Universe is on my side) I found the Cutest little Dragon Costume EVER! for $4.99!
I don't even need to tell you how cute Judah looks in it...he fills it out great. I'll post pictures, k?
I am not sure if it's good or bad but even Judah listed the getting of the costume for "five bucks" as a highlight of our day. Is that too soon to teach bargain-hunting? what about plain ol' cheapness?

Did i tell you that Chris is working overnight and that i admire him for it? That he does an Incredible job about not pitying his lot too much?

Did i tell you that I am not cut out for the job i have? That i am not naturally detail-oriented and that i am in fact quite flighty about such things?
I knew that going into this position and i feel pangs of insecurity whenever i make dumb mistakes ( about three times a week!)

i was hoping to develop these skills...

today i watched a lot of TV.
Some Gilmore Girls...Rory Gilmore is my fashion muse, by the way.
Some Six Feet Under Season Five...damn great writing.
Some Five Days...damn you HBO with your premium prime time line-up.


Some resolutions:
tell my dad what he can do to make it up to me and Chris.
Develop Real Live Budget-- we've been rounding and guesstimating thus far.
Hold proper staff meeting.
Invest in ways to get music flowing throughout the house...I need music.
Take Chris out to show him how much i appreciate him.

Forgetting

if you want a fresh start, if you need one, i think you have to prepared to forget the past for a little while.

I feel so different from how i felt in San Antonio. I have been pondering the themes of proactivity vs. passivity. It sometimes becomes a mantra of Becoming Creative, Living Creatively.

I am enthused about this new chapter and its themes.
There is great continuity for me between what I have been before and what i am now becoming-- if i think about deconstruction as a precursor to construction-- winter becoming spring, the flow of life and ofcourse, death.

True that the dead of winter can sometimes feel final, can threaten forever with its chill.
But i am sowing now, is spring when you sow seed?
I am creating my own life! How fun! What a gift to find myself with the resources to define the moment, and God help me to seize it.

In the past week, i sense i have forgotten. There are steps i am taking, and in the taking i know that I could not have done the things i am now doing before. I remember that i could not, but i don't remember, really, the feeling of not being able to. And how invigorating to know feel myself able to. . .

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.