I’ve been struggling with writer’s block lately. I’ve only been posting about sewing and reading because those things are easy to write about. How did I make this thing? I can tell you. What did I think of this book? I’ll let you know.
The other things on my mind are much harder to articulate.
Sunday passed with news of the two newest mass shootings, one of which appeared to racially motivated. (I say appeared because I have not gone back down the rabbit hole of news articles related to the shootings since I read two initial NPR articles).
I felt like I couldn’t just post as usual the next day, but what could I say or do? I wanted to load my kids in our truck and drive down to Washington, D.C. I wanted us sit as close to the White House lawn as they would let us and remain in silent protest until someone DID something.
My third read by Richard Rohr was Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. It came to me at around the same time as Rowing Upstream, by Mary Pipher, and as they both dealt with aging, I wanted to combine them into one post.
What did they have to offer?
I wanted to make one more Strata top in cotton, and my girls were asking when I was going to make them something.
For years, I sewed exclusively for the kids, or else for our house (quilts, pillow shams, curtains, etc.) so it’s no wonder they were confused when I spent an entire month and a half sewing for myself.
Trying to find a socially acceptable way to discharge negative emotions has been a lifelong quest for me.
As a high schooler, after watching the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society, I would regularly yawp out in nature when things got to be too much.
Since then, I’ve discovered swimming, live music, and waterfalls. All of those things are weather- and location-dependent, or “subject to availability.”
Sometimes I can let it all out in a meditation. I can’t plan an outcome for a meditation and expect success. That isn’t how it works for me. Often, when I’m at my most stressed, I’m also at my lowest functioning, and it’s really hard to be clear-headed about my options for de-escalation.
Have you been there?
Between the Chaplain, myself, and One’s bio dad, we are one 400 level course short of 9 college degrees (and One is the reason I didn’t finish that course), including three Masters and an assortment of undergraduate degrees.
I always figured my kids would go to college. Both the Chaplain and I are readers and we both place a high value on education.
But for One, the shoe never really fit.
