Interchange: weekend number three.

I originally wrote this on the date I assigned to the post, though I am posting it weeks later and backdating it. Just to clear up any possible confusion.

I’m sitting in the corner of Mama’s Royal Cafe in Oakland wishing I had more carefully observed Yelp’s information because there’s no wifi here. Which means I can’t stay as long as I like in the tall white room with yellow light, white walls and dark mint green wood trim. The black and red linoleum tiles turn the space into a checkerboard, but maybe that’s me. 

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Sitting here, alone at this table I’m contemplating my next move. I don’t mean for the morning wifi hunt (I’ve already decided on that), I mean Life Things. 

Of course I mean Life Things. I’ve been hunting my next move for years. And I do keep hunting. Doing. Moving. And I feel as if I’m approaching something. On my bad days it’s a wall. I’m stuck at this wall that just seems to difficult to deconstruct. Or to climb over. On my good days it’s a precipice — a cliff for jump off of? Or an ocean to dive into. 

This weekend at Interchange we studied improvisational techniques in counseling. One activity found me eyes closed in front of witness and moving my body in whatever way I felt it tell me. In my stillness I sensed a lot of signals and followed those impulses. One such impulse was to glide through deep water, not as a human. I don’t intend to become a mermaid anytime soon but this sense of freedom was fascinating. Not that mermaids or stingrays are all the way free — they’re still stuck in the water. And I wanted for a moment to comment that at least there’s no resistance in the water. 

But that’s wrong. Water is nothing BUT resistance. But it’s the resistance and the creature in the resistance that makes powerful, underwater gliding happen. 

So here’s to me uncovering my smooth surfaces, activating my powerful navigation and developing my muscle memory. And gliding. 

Help Wanted

I need help. 

No wait, I don’t need help. I just want it. I want it a lot.

I want someone to be home with my kids in the afternoons between when school lets out and when their dad picks them up or I get home. That person, ideally, would prepare them a healthy enough snack and maybe they came an hour early to fold all my clean laundry. Scratch that…they’d need two hours. My kids would eat less crackers directly from the box and more fruit. All three of them would sit at the kitchen table and complete homework so evenings would be mostly free to be a family. 

And maybe this helper of me would also want to grocery shop once or twice a week. Maybe they’d even want to start and or make dinner once or twice a week.

Maybe they are also a masseuse. Or a therapist. A massaging therapist! 

Who brings me flowers and wine. Who wants to pet my hair when the day is rough. Who is shaped like a hug and wants to drink coffee on the porch with me in the mornings. 

What I want is a mom or a wife or a nanny or a husband or a boyfriend or I don’t even know what. 

But it doesn’t matter.

Because help isn’t coming and I’m in this alone. 

I’m drowning and I don’t know what to do. I’ve had so very much help in my life. Not the aforementioned wants, but help I’ve had. I’m so grateful for every atta girl when I’ve chosen a new risk and lept. I’m thankful for every butt in every chair of my house concerts or my Rotary club or my restaurants (Not that those last two are actually mine. But they’re mine enough.) I’m thrilled my community rallied to pay my school tuition and thrilled I have friends all over Oklahoma City and the country loving me with their well wishes.

But. (and isn’t there always one?)

I come home and at least 1/2 of the time, it’s just me. And everything is right where I left it. 100% of the time I come home something desperately needs my attention. A book or a laundry pile or a dog that needs a walk because I rescued a dog a year ago even though we have no yard and ohmygodI’mfuckingoverwalkingthisdog. Waiting on me are unstarted and unfinished art projects and home improvement projects and my tenants need a new lease and I haven’t booked my January show and for the love of christ, please don’t pitch me your band this week, please. I have instruments I haven’t learned and songs I haven’t sung and muffins I haven’t baked because Tanner loves muffins and now I’m a horrible, muffin depriving mother. On top of the terrible mother who absolutely can’t inspire her daughter to study Spanish and what if she fails and what if I have to hire a tutor and where will this tutoring take place because my schedule is stacked and my coparent pretty much avoids me at all costs and the only good ideas are his ideas but I haven’t really seen any Spanish ideas out of him yet and it’s been months and…..I need help.

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