Saturday, September 10, 2016

Let It Be/The Screen Door Slams



Fucking super hero despite what he says but I love him anyway.

I'm just in the worst mood and I'm tired of being sick and goddammit, I am not going outside to work again until it cools down. I'm just sick of this heat and I'm sick of feeling like I'm failing at life.
I went out and did a little chick-coop clean-up and then picked up a few cartloads of branches, slowly, slowly, and the sweat poured off of me and I had to stop frequently and come in and drink water in front of the fan and then I just said fuck the branches, let them lie, I can't do this, and I went and laid down on my bed and finished reading a book and it was so sad but with some hope at the end and I tried to sleep for a little while, to at least drift down to that place like drug-land where everything is floaty and okay, okay, okay, but it didn't really work out that way and I just felt mean and mad and achey and like someone had put lead slugs in my eyeballs, screwed them in like we put those dimes in our little cards, collecting for the March of Dimes back when we were kids.

Failing at life, flailing at life, maybe I'm just about to break on through to the other side, as Jim Morrison said, oh wait. That didn't work out so well for him although I suppose that strictly speaking, he did break on through to the other side, as we all will, eventually.

Wow! Hope you didn't come by here to get cheered up tonight!

And I must admit that in a crazy silly bit of synchronicity there is a male cardinal at the feeder right now who is chanting CHEER, CHEER, CHEER, CHEER! or something very like that, with another male answering back from a nearby tree. His call is two syllables and unintelligible to me and for all I know, it's a mockingbird, not another cardinal at all.
I actually know less about wild birds than I do about human beings although this whole Trump thing makes me doubt that too.

I'm so scared. Are you?

Well, let us keep doing our best and when we've picked up all the branches we can, stop and go in the house and let them fall where they may, just like the chips, like the dice, like even the roses which are blooming their late-summer blooms, I saw the first stalk of a hurricane lily coming up today (you're late, bitch!) and the Confederate roses are budding up too. I think of Bruce Springsteen who has a new book coming out soon and he talks about his depression in it, he's suffered too, and if he can, who can't? and I think how he's currently doing concerts that last four hours plus some seconds and I want to say, BRUCE! STOP IT! YOU'RE SIXTY-SIX YEARS OLD AND YOU'RE MAKING THE REST OF US LOOK SO BAD AND BESIDES THAT, THE ONLY THING I WANT TO DO FOR FOUR HOURS IN A ROW IS TO SLEEP, okay? okay? okay?

God, I need a shower.

Tomorrow's Sunday. I can't wait.





23 comments:

  1. I just wrote a very clever and funny post that involved both Bruce and Keith and you and jam and toast - and then I hit "sign out"...what the fuck??

    Anyway, Love You xoox

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    1. I wish I could have read it, Liv. Oh well. It's still somewhere, floating around the ether and I appreciate it.

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  2. Great post. I hope your Sunday gives you lots of rest and peace.

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    1. It did. My Sunday has been pretty quietly amazing.

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  3. Sunday sermon day or is that your rest day or your pancake day or all rolled into one. Either way I look forward to it and you. Jo Jo the one you don't wanna see

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    1. Oh, hush up, Joanne. It's not that I don't want to see you and you know it. It's just...me. And you know me.
      No pancakes today but we did have biscuits and grits. So all was well.

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  4. Here in solidarity. I hope tomorrow is cooler and easier. The branches can wait. Take care of you first. Get all the way well first. And I know the failing at life feeling well but we're the only one judging ourselves, and so harshly too. Honestly from where I stand you are succeeding richly at life. I'll hold that truth for you till you can take it back into your own heart. You're awesome and wonderful. What's that quote? Love your sadness. It will pass. May it pass soon, love.

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    1. Thank you, dear Angella. It's such a funny quilt, this thing we create which is our own life. Isn't it? I do love and adore you. And appreciate you with all of my heart.

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  5. No rush though. It takes the time it takes to walk through it and out the other side so I don't mean to sound glib as if it'll be all better in no time. I'm here always. Loving you.

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    1. We all should be, for god's sake. We should be terrified.

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  7. NyQuil! It's the cure-all, I'm tellin' ya! It comes with a handy dose cup that I promptly throw away and chug from the bottle. 10% alcohol, but it's medicinal. You have a snotty nose, you're run down, you poop out at parties (see what I did there?).... You need NyQuil. And if you get the cherry flavor....it's so tasty, too!

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    1. Catrina- amazingly, last night I found some NyQuil cough syrup that I'd forgotten I had and took it and I slept so well. So very, very well. And it WAS tasty, as it was the cherry flavor as you recommend.

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  8. the best thing about bad days is that they do pass. but seriously, why on earth do you think you are failing at life? you're still living aren't you? still loving everything within your reach. how is that failing?

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    1. Ah, Ellen. Sometimes it just feels like failing. I suppose my chemistry makes it so.

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  9. I was so sad to read of Bruce's struggles. Maybe his four hour concerts are his escape. He certainly seems fit as... fuck... but I've had the same thought too.

    I'm twenty years behind you Mary, and I have the same feelings of failure at life. However - what they come down to at this stage is not beig able to provide for myself or my kids, and the panic that goes with that. Sure, I freak out about not being good at everything, and about being an awful, cowardly human being and what I'm doing to my kids.

    The thing is, your kids are great. And you're there for them and helping them whenever they need you. You keep your home running well, and you nourish whoever wants nourishing. You support and love your husband to the very best of your ability. You support and love your children and grandchildren so beautifully.
    You receive and entertain us all here with such a huge heart.

    I'm so sorry your books never made it to fame and fortune, they should have, I think, given the calibre of the writing of yours that I've read - but you're not exactly alone in that.

    Apart from that - you're in your sixties. It's good enough. The Leonards and Bruces are two in millions. We weren't bored to be Leonards or Bruces. The very driven are driven for a reason. It's ok to relax and retire from feeling the pressure now. Or keep writing til something incredible suddenly presents itself. But ... it is far less likely to do that while you're beating yourself with the big stick.

    I know it's not rational, the beating, the failure-feeling, but nor is it productive. I think it's habit, and it just keeps us in the gutter.

    I'm not sure what to do about it, but I really want to have let it go by the time my children are self-sufficient (assuming that hapens). Because, fuck it. Fuck it. What's the point?

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    1. Oh god, this is a really long comment. *sorry*

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    2. But Jo, it's a really GOOD comment. Listen to her, Mary!

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    3. Amusing brain fart thing where I type the opposite of what I mean - I did *not* mean I worry about not being good at everything - I certainly don't worry about that, I worry about not being good at *anything*.

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    4. Oh, Jo, never apologize for the length of a comment. This is SUPPOSED to be a conversation. And as such...
      I know. I know. As do you. And I know that we all do the best we can and yet, still most of us feel that we are not all we could be (join the Army!, just DO it!) and instead of doing something about that, I tend (as many of us do, I know) to take the easier path which is to beat myself up.
      Yet, we stumble on. And what beautiful sound tracks we have been given to remind us that our struggles are not in vain, that we are all human and woven together in this life! Thank god for the Bruce's and the Leonard's. And for this community here without which I do not know what I would do.

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  10. You keep it 100% Real in the trenches of Life and I Love that about your Posts as I cannot always relate to those where the balloon never lands. *smiles* Hope you're feeling better soon, sending Healing Positive Energy your way since not feeling 100% sucks and as I'm aging I'm realizing perhaps I'll have to come to terms with the less than 100% feeling Well thing, but I'm defiant, like Bruce, dammit... I feel too Youthful in Spirit to have limitations yet! *winks* Blessings from the Arizona Desert... Dawn... The Bohemian

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  11. I love that image of the coins being screwed into the card for the March of Dimes, even if it's not very pleasant (as it relates to your eyes). Is it possible to fail at life? I'm not sure it is. Life is just life, and it unfolds, and we all do our best with it. Don't you think? It honestly doesn't seem to me like a matter of success or failure.

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  12. My shoes got very wet when hiking in the early morning and so I have them now outside drying.

    That is what this sun is good for, evaporating Mississippi dew. It is NOT good for humans of our kind.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.