Ahab's Wife came into my life in 2002. It held everything I loved about a book-romance, passion, a bit of academia, wistful settings. More than anything I longed to be Una having Captain Ahab crushing me to him with his passionate obsession. I wanted to walk in intellectual circles and live on Nantucket and discuss astronomy with Maria Mitchell. I was drawn in, a little obsessed, and knew that was the life for me.
Now my grip on reality is strong enough to realize I couldn't be a fictional character living out life in the 19th century on Nantucket. But suddenly I was interested in Astronomy enough to take classes in college and convince myself I had the brainpower to study it, at least temporarily. I couldn't have a whaling sea captain fall in love with me, but I could light a kerosine lantern at night and fumble through pages of Moby Dick in bed.
I never made it through Moby Dick. I haven't read Ahab's Wife in years. I am not an astronomer. I am not a great conversationalist. I haven't had any of the things I though I could conjure up with hope back in 2002.
But it is November-such a romantic month.
“November is usually such a disagreeable month...as if the year had suddenly found out that she was growing old and could do nothing but weep and fret over it. This year is growing old gracefully...just like a stately old lady who knows she can be charming even with gray hair and wrinkles. We've had lovely days and delicious twilights.” ~L.M. Montgomery
I always feel a little more like the real me in November. So I am snuggled up in bed, my fake fireplace heater blowing warmth into my room, soft pjs, and wooly socks cradling my body. This is the sort of day when I can be the me I should be. When I can imagine my days are spent climbing over rocky shores as grey, storm-driven waves crash upon themselves at my feet. I am Anne scrambling home to her house of dreams. I am Una of lofty thought and wise words. I long to be free of musts and have-to tonight.
I am worn out. My legs toned up so much from all the walking last week, but I am having difficulty keeping it up. It is just so unnatural to walk in Springfield. I like walking with a purpose to get somewhere. But doing so in Springfield is just weird. I would have to cross Campbell street to go to Walmart and there is very little else to go near here. Yes, I could walk the neighborhood or go to the nature center, but that isn't walking with a purpose to me. That's just boring (occasionally it's fine, but every day?).
I feel a little sluggish and guilty for not Ubering last night and this morning. Yes, my brain is tired and needs a little retreat, but I feel the need to pay for all my extravagant spending (extravagant by lower middle class standards that I probably am on one income), and just don't want to. My car is about 3 months overdue for an oil change and I am struggling with 1) allocating the money and 2) dealing with the upsell pressures from the oil change shop.
I have been a little moody-and I hate that. I hate the even keel of not being moody, too. I like it when I feel just on the edge of depth and sensitivity, but not to the point of depression and darker thoughts. It's a tightrope to feel enough to infer meaning, but not so much it seems hopeless. I don't have a lot to look forward to now that my little weekend trip is over, so I need to plan something to add a little anticipation and excitement to my world.
I am a little bored with Christmas. I am trying to eat less sweets, so there is no baking anticipation, and I never am good at anything anyway. I don't mean that as negatively as it sounds, I just struggle in the practical skills department. What I would like to do? Maybe plan a themed Christmas that other people do the hands-on practical labor and skills. But that's not going to happen, and I don't have the funds anyway. I feel like social media push push pushes overdoing everything. I am so burned out with bucket lists and forced excitement. It is starting to make everything feel like a must do and not very authentic anymore. Everything is starting to feel...fake and forced. I am losing belief in everything. And maybe that is okay. Because maybe on the other side is something more meaningful and authentic-I don't know. But right now, it feels like a lot of forced cheer with no real magic in it.
I am not going to achieve the life I wanted and it still burns a little. I thought about going back to school for writing-I need to work on my writing skills, but most writing programs require submission of writing samples and I have kept nothing from college. And I don't even know that any of it was good enough anyway. Some bright middle schoolers write as well as I do. Wanting to do something isn't talent. I want to tumble like Simone Biles, but it isn't going to happen. I know this is a me problem. This is a direction and focus problem, and yet...maybe all this sense of purpose and direction and focus is MADE UP. Maybe we are just primates eeking out an existence and reading way too much into everything. I know this is where people choose to cling to faith, but the majority of the faithful are hateful and blind to their own faults, just as I am to mine (Well, I am selfish, hide my feelings behind untruths, share too much and yet am not open enough, am a little boring, crave stimulation and security simultaneously, can be very hard to please-sometimes deliberately so, I brag too much and have too little to show for it, and my pride is off the rooftops, lazy, and lack of vision---there's a few of my faults). Anyway, whatever. Things that are good about me? I don't know. It's so much harder to tally goodness, isn't it, because we yearn to fix our faults, but our good things (there is a word I can't find-which worries me-my brain worries me in the past few years) seems so common place. My ex used to tell me not everyone thinks and cares like I do, and I don't know if that was a compliment or an insult, especially when I know how petty I can be.
Anyway, this post is a drag, isn't it? Thanks for being my internet therapist couch!
I need to get my house in order. Can the brain be in order when the environment is disorderly? I don't think so. I ordered some cleaning supplies, so I am excited for that. The boys really do destroy things faster than I can keep them up. I know some day they will be gone, so I try to accept that, but I always did yearn for a beautiful home. I need to not get new pets when these are gone. Pets are smelly and destructive. But I do like them and baby pets are so hard to reject. But I have two cats and two dogs and that is more than enough. Shatner doesn't have a lot more time. He is now 13. He may have a couple more years left. I need to have the strength not to replace him, though. I need to think long term.
Welp, all the deep thoughts I imagined sharing with you are not happening, because I am hyperaware that I need to brush my teeth and it is bugging me. Why can't coffee leave a good taste in the mouth?
Do I need a comma between big and bad? I am unsure. I remember my writing classes and my trusted Chicago Manual of Style, but I was always so annoyed with the nitpicking of the rules. It was one of the reasons I couldn't mesh well with the English students. Like, I mean, I wanna do it correctly, however, I don't want to HAVE to do it correctly, you know? I want to just do it effortlessly.
My trip is over now and it's time to process (which I do through writing and preferably sharing with others-it's my thang!). Let's break it down.
Friday
I woke up in the morning feeling like-no wait-nevermind. I felt tired. It was about 2:00 a.m. when my alarm went off. I got dressed, brushed my teeth, had a quick cup of less than stellar coffee, and then at 2:30 or so left to get Taryn. I awoke Liam to come down and lock the door and left the key for them to lock up later. We went to the airport. As it turned out, the gates to the gates don't even open until four a.m. so we definitely could have slept another hour. We flew to Dallas/Ft. Worth and then on to LaGuardia. Initially, I had considered using Ubers to ride to and from the airport, but that's a lot of money, so I decided just to park in long-term parking in Springfield, and then take public transportation to Manhattan. It was fine. We got on an M70 bus which was free from LaGuardia to get to the subway station and then got on the train google maps told us to get on. It was going in the wrong direction, so we had to ride to the end where it turned around, but that was fine. So we left Queens and went into Manhattan. Really with a smart phone nothing is hard anymore. We walked around a bit, until it was check in time for the hotel. The hotel room was small, but good. Very clean. The worst part was the coffee maker didn't work, which made mornings a wee bit foggier than normal, and there wasnt't an iron. I am sure they could have gotten me an iron to use, if needed, but I decided a few wrinkles didn't matter.
After that we relaxed until it was time to go to the show. The show wasn't far (is anything?), but we wanted to leave by 6. I had heard the actors came about about 15 or 20 minutes before the show and you could take pics/videos then. We headed out and it was so crowded. We stayed in Times Square area and I felt like we were in the center of the world. Everyone was relaxed, probably mostly tourists, and the atmosphere was happy and fun and ALIVE. We got to the theatre a little before 6:30. After going in, we went downstairs into a basement lobby where people were hanging out and there was a table set up encouraging the youth vote. I bought an adult beverage-the Capulet-which was crazy expensive at $38 dollars and tasted like tropical punch with some vodka or something thrown in. It was like something you'd get a college party in a well, basement. But hey, I got a plastic souvenir cup, so there is that!
Then we headed to our seats. Our seats were really fantastic. We were in the front row, although the theatre was intimate enough that any seat would have been fine. There was some floor seating around the corners, but I was happy where we were. So this is where the evening got a little bumpy. I took a couple pics of the supporting characters as they came out, as did many other people. The instagram rumor was that it was okay before the show started. Obviously I was waiting on the main stars to come out to snap some pics. I wanted Kit Conner in my own phone, damn it! I would take some of Rachel, too, to avoid being creepy of course, gotta hide the crush at my age, but still. Anyhoo, some lady walked directly up to me and told me no pictures and videos. Okay, that's fine. I had only taken two pictures anyway. Now was I disappointed I wouldn't be capturing Kit in my own phone? Absolutely. Was I, as a teacher, going to take a pic anyway, No way. I am one of those people who do not get away with things. So I nodded and said, " Oh, okay." Unfortunately, my phone was upright in my lap and my camera was on, and I was embarrassed and fumbly and didn't notice. She immediately cracked down on that, and said she knew I was planning to wait for her to leave to film more and it would be very bad she had to ask me to leave. I was mortified. I might have done that when I was 10, I would NEVER have done that now.
So here I am, trying to look agreeable and cool, feeling all the eyes on me, and just not really happy. I planted a contented smile on my lips trying to look cool, and put my phone in my purse. Then over the next 15 minutes watched a dozen other people taking photos and selfies and noone saying anything to them. Like really, did she just not like my face or something? To get over the embarrassment because I was determined to enjoy myself, I started sipping my adult beverage more quickly. This was my downfall however. about 45 minutes into the show, I HAD to pee, so badly. And it was in the middle of the balcony scene. I waited until Kit slipped away momentarily, because I figured that would interrupt the scene the least, and went to the bathroom (which was down another long flight to a second basement). Of course, then I and several other small-bladdered females had to wait in the lobby until intermission. I left right before the iconic pull-up kiss, too. I had already seen it a dozen times on instagram, but still.
But I survived. I really loved the supporting characters; a couple were quite fantastic. Rachel is cute as a button and brave, and Kit is very fine looking, although his youth was very apparent, I totally felt like a creeper, and just seeing his young face helped quell the crush. I was determined not to be star-struck like I was I went to see Counting Crows and was too embarrassed to look at Adam Duwitz, and I didn't want to be a creeper and just stare at Kit like I desired. So I made a decision to only look at the person talking. I know, I know, I have issues. Almost everyone is there to see Kit or Rachel, so it doesn't matter. But alas, I do hide my feelings quite often, and I was determined to do so now as well. The unfortunate side effect is I remember almost nothing about Kit from the play. I don't remember facial expressions or anything. I gazed so easily upon the others but I just didn't glance at his handsome face enough. Oh well. My impression of the play was that it was fine. Nothing stood out too much, but I was not moved to tears and as someone who cries easily during movies and plays, that was odd. Perhaps if I had seen Mercutio slain I would have felt more, but I was in the lobby awaiting intermission at that time. We didn't stick around for autographs because why? After that we headed back toward the hotel. It was so nice just to be out in the world with the sea of people around us.
Was New York dirtier than I remembered? Absolutely. As we walked we were met with intermittent odors of garbage and sulfur, weed and delicious food smells. All of these could be within 20 feet of each other and it was absolutely wonderful. Were there homeless? Yes, but Springfield has homeless, too, so that wasn't anything new.
Saturday
We awoke on Saturday morning which is when I discovered my coffee maker was not working. We had tickets for the American Museum of Natural History, which for some reason I thought was at nine, but it turned out to be ten a.m. We took a subway ride closer to Central park (only $2.90 to ride the subway), and then got out, found the park. At some point, I realized my mistake with the time we were going, so we decided to walk around a little more. Central Park was in the midst of autumn glory and a marathon was ending around the edge of the park, so the blue-skied crisp morning was greeted with occasional cheers as someone passed the finish line. The skyline against the park horizon was absolutely lovely. We have all seen Central Park as depicted in movies and this did not disappoint. Everything felt so familiar and comfortable. I could almost swear I saw Ansel Elgort in the park, but obviously I pretended not to notice. There were a few more people who looked like I had seen them before, but they weren't big enough that their names jump out to me, over the course of the weekend.
The museum was lovely, but that was more for Taryn. My interests are pretty solidly around space and earth science. Taryn was especially interested in the minerals and gemstones so we spent time looking at the shinies. I am probably more of an art museum person. I want to contemplate the person who created the thing and wonder about their motivations. Following the museum we headed back to the hotel to put our bags down and rest a bit. Taryn got some very spicy falafel over rice from a street vender and I am on generic Ozempic, so I don't get very hungry. I did slowly nurse a turkey wrap over the course of the day. We hopped a subway to head to the Harry Potter store further downtown, realized we were going the wrong way and fixed that and got to the store. It was so fun. The Harry Potter store was done SO well. I wish I had been able to save more money so I could have had the full experience, but just being there was a lot of fun. After the store, we stopped at le pain quotidien for a cup of coffee and then wandered around 5th avenue looking at touristy gift shops until our reservation time for the Empire State Building. It was so interesting to look at the 5th avenue apartments from the outside and then google their rent costs. They were outrageous of course. Some people were stepping out into private cars waiting for them and just looked like money was oozing out of their pores. Of course, tourists and students were everywhere.
The Empire State Building was well done. It was sleek and elegant and everyone was cheerful and excited to be there. I was exceptionally happy we went at night. The lights of the city stretched out 360 degrees away from us promising excitement and life whichever way we turned. And yet, when I stepped out on the balcony, the brisk cold wind made me feel as if I had been transferred into some other, surreal place. Inky black beauty bejeweled with lights of ruby and topaz lay all around us, and the city sirens, the constant city sirens, were faint and otherworldly. It was truly lovely.
After that we decided to walk back to the hotel to drop off our things and freshen up. Then Taryn had reservations at La Masseria where she treated me to a wonderful Italian dinner. The atmosphere was festive, the languages were intermingled and the Italians were looking very Italian. Even the Cabernet was superb, not a twinge of sour or too sweet, just mellow, warm red goodness.
Sunday
Although we had to awake at 5, the clocks fell back so we got a good seven hours of sleep or so. We popped up, tucked everything into our backpacks, and headed for the subway. I really love the subway system. It is easy and convenient and you can go wherever it will take you for only $2.90 a trip. I wish we had such amazing public transportation around here. We went into Queens and then promptly missed our bus to the airport as we tried to get our bearings after we emerged from the subway tunnel. Thankfully, we had chatted with some young women who also were on the way to the airport as they looked for bus stop, too. The temperature was in the 30's and they decided to just call a Lyft and allowed us to share it with them. And that was that!
We walked over 5 miles on both Friday and Saturday and let me tell you the muscles in my hips are screaming. I wish I always had opportunities like that (walking with a purpose in a city that kept pedestrians in mind).
I am so grateful for my amazing family who helped with my boys and for the opportunity to go. Will I be paying for years for this trip? Maybe, but life is short and experiences are what it is all about.
I refound the YouTube channel, Little Poet. I always enjoyed it and then switched to a different channel for myself because the kids follow way too many channels and never sat down to go through the hundreds on the old channel to find hers. So, it was good to find.
It was a nice day. I worked the whole morning, charged my phone, and worked another hour. Then the boys and I had a good time, and we tried very hard to watch a show, but Alec was flying too high from the sugar and then, sadly, Gabe had a bit of 12-year-old boy craziness, and something rather dreadful happened. I don't want to talk about it. I am just ... hoping he gets through this phase quickly. It brings me back to less happier times. One of the hard things of living with someone who is bipolar was dealing with their anger. The breaking of the things. I remember on the last week before I decided it was time to separate again, when I had already been warning him, I could not take much more, when he told me I was so lucky to have him, that my coworker was what a man wanted, that I was just a four (which again, may be true, most people are 4s and 5s, but the intent was to hurt, and I felt completely unloved, when he threw a broom and broke my cookie jar, and later that week a photo frame, and I realized that if I didn't get away, every little thing I cherished would be broken. Every wall would be marred. It was just too much to take. And then this boy, with his hot temper, brings it all back, and I have to step back and try to decipher what is happening. Liam had flashes of anger at 12 (he threw a baseball at the windshield once, cracking it) and he got past it. But this is so hard to go through. And then this sweet boy will cuddle up to me and say sorry, and I just-- wish he would learn to go outside and push through the energy and learn it quickly.
I am enjoying a glass of wine, but it is making me feel a little ill already. That's a little sad. I want to feel that drunken loosening of just letting go. I guess it isn't a good idea with the kids here, and I just have the one glass anyway. But you know that numb headiness where romance, chatting with the pets, and the world dimming around you overtakes you? I long for that. Of course it is more fun with other people, and memories of parties and get togethers of the past reminds of the joys of chatting with the girls and flirting with the boys and how much I do enjoy relaxing with a group of safe people. It's been so very long since I had people. But I have learned to really enjoy myself, and that's a nice thing, too.
Work is hard. I am struggling with deciding if regular education with all the kids is the right place for me. I really struggle with crowd control. I don't know. I want to make the best choice for everyone. I like the faster pace and I like the deeper lessons, but I am just not sure if I am not really just a hindrance and disservice to the students. And all the goofiness we are expected to do. So much silliness. And I do miss reading and writing with the kids. I don't like the way the district is tightening everything. They say they are making it more equitable, but they are ripping the individuality and beautiful artistry out of the process of teaching. On top of that, we hear that other countries students think our lessons are a joke, and it makes me wonder what is really going on. But then I remember I am not independently wealthy, so I don't really have a choice to do things differently, so why bother thinking about it?
Anyway, I didn't get an online job, so I must work work work all the time, and tomorrow is no exception, so, I'll say good night.
I was a child of the 70s. This doesn't mean too very much to me as I was still quite a young child during the 70s. Sometimes when I filled with a nostalgic longing for a simpler time, I will look for a used women's magazine or book from these times, and imagine living a life of domestic simplicity in the past. But mostly, I don't remember much. Living in St. Louis, I have memories of baseball games, cigarettes everywhere, moonies on street corners, and long summer days that stretched into nights playing on grass, making mud pies, and dealing with the issues that come from living in a neighborhood with other children. I was earnest, temperamental, talked too much, and loved to play school or house or ride my bike like the wind.
Once my mom made me a snood. A snood, according to her, was a crocheted square or something that covered my hair once it was put up in a bun. I wasn't too keen on it, but my mom insisted it was stylish and made me wear it to school one day.
My instincts regarding the true stylishness of the snood were on point as the other children teased me about the silly thing in my hair. "It's a snood," I told them, pointy little chin held high. Unfortunately, my explanation was not quite enough for the children of Rose Acres Elementary, and the teasing continued.
Later, I confessed the story to my mom, and explained that no matter what they didn't get to see me cry. I have vague recollections of my primary teachers having pianos in the classroom. I am not sure WHY I remember this-I can only assume primary teachers at the time did play some simple melodies perhaps. It makes sense. It didn't all used to be early cramming for reading skills and tests. I slid my little body behind the piano until they tears passed and then, thin lips pressed into a smile, corners forced up, I emerged. No they wouldn't see me cry.
I am still her. Forty-six years later and I still feel like that girl hiding behind the piano. I come out, lips pulled up, and tell myself it will be fine. It will be good. Noone will know the shame I feel at being so otherly. So unwelcome and somehow clearly wrong.
The only saving grace is 46 years later I am much too busy to dwell too much. I will wipe the tear away and tell myself it is a sign. A sign I must belong somewhere else. A sign I need to move on and keep looking. And I am tired. But I keep my bag packed and close by, and my fingers and toes are starting to itch.
Maybe elsewhere is where I belong. I belong where snoods are okay and noone makes us wear what we don't want to wear anyway, and hearts are open, invitations flow freely, and irreverent comments are seen for what they truly are-anxiety. A place where the silliness and seriousness are embraced.
Yesterday, a hesitant person shared information with me. A story as old as time, of decades-old pain remembered differently by two people. As they were speaking, my head was screaming why are you telling me this? Was it to ease their own pain and get some understanding, or to prevent me from hearing it from another source? Regardless, the knapsack was placed down and I have to decide how much to pull out and carry along with me. At the time, I sent a fervent prayer up for wisdom-wisdom to speak wisely about something I am not a party in and which is destined to bring pain-beyond that which has already occurred.
We are not others. Our soul is distinct and our journey is ours alone. However, people join us for parts of our journey. They walk in step with us for a time, come and go perhaps, or even just flash by quickly, with a knowing smile and a quick wink. I believe we know each other in the beyond-but the ties are different there.
In our animal bodies however, tribalism runs deep. Familial ties have meaning that perhaps they do not have in the afterlife. Tribalism run deep in me. I will defend my own.
But the question is, what is my own? Is it humanity, my sex, motherhood, my birth family, my children. Is it teachers? Coffee drinkers, book readers?
This is a situation where either one person is lying or one person is remembering wrong. And you know what? I will never know.
And so I gaze at the bundle and I wonder, how can I best mitigate this pain? I cannot turn my back on someone who hasn't hurt me, someone whose lonely life is destined to become lonelier, and yet, I do this with a sigh, knowing my values are being stretched, tested, perhaps. I do not have answers. Just this knot of sadness sitting there waiting for me to decide. So I reach into the bag and pull out a coat to carry. I will give warmth to this lonely person, I will provide a bit of shelter to a quieting life force. But my heart will always burn for the pain of another, and a light will shine for them there.
