How Goes Your Rose Garden?

By Sheilah

I spent a fortune on my MFA. Then I got a job unrelated to it, though it helped get the job. The job put quite a halt to my writing. I find that reading and editing for 8 hours a night stops me up in the off hours. That’s the story I’ve been telling myself anyway.

I like to make excuses.

I like to not take responsibility.

I am basically lazy.

I don’t know much about perseverance.

I like to blame others and “forces beyond my control,” etc. and so on.

I have a long list of “etc.”

My etceteras have etceteras, and some of them have miscellany and i.e., ad nauseums and ad infinitums.

My to-dos have other tenses.

Glad I got the truth out of the way.

The truth is also this: I am very responsible. I enjoy working; I go to work everyday, never lay out, give my best. I do the housework, too. I get things done. And I do that for so long, you know, just living right, that I get tired. Then I want to know, where’s mine? Didn’t you promise me a rose garden? I don’t know who I’m asking, probably God. I fail to see my garden variety human being-ness, that I already have mine and then some. I have the rewards of work, of a job well done, mothering, partnership, living life.

But at times, sometimes for extended periods of time, things shift inside and I get ungrateful, tired, wanting more. Discouraged. Disappointed. This-is-itness? strikes. At times like these I have to stop short and see what’s up—I don’t have a babysitter so we never go out. The schedule is a fresh hell every week between my works shifts and Dave’s travels. I haven’t taken a night out with friends in months. I’m not exercising, not praying enough, not getting artistic stimulation. I realize I’m not enjoying anything, just getting things done. 

Or I spend hours cleaning out a closet that's been stuffed full for 6 years instead of writing, which brings on about 6 more projects, which then .... Hmmm. 

A whine is a terrible thing to waste. Time for a getaway beginning with a two-hour forage for nothing today. I just let myself go out for no reason at all, turned over rocks, got a $5 coffee, bummed. It was quite enjoyable. Now I have to keep doing such at regular intervals. Duh. It might fill the well to keep the real writing flowing, the stuff that fills my cup to overflowing. Cheers to an artistic well kept full. My rose garden may flourish  again.

'Tis the Season of the Witch....

Well, summer break has officially started and I have decided that this summer deserves a nickname all its own. Therefore welcome to the Season of the Witch (with many apologies to Donovan for his cool song does deserve better). See I will be imposing rules and chores, explaining responsibility, and requiring duties at a rapid pace and I'm NOT talking about me here. I have two teenagers, one of whom will be deemed old enough to drive by the end of the summer. So somebody explain to me why he's not old enough to drive the weed eater?

Now please don't think that I haven't been doing this all along. They've always had "age appropriate" chores. But I do find myself pushing more and more their way and noticing that I seem to (according to them...but who really trusts what a teenager has to say about work or pleasure) make them do more than some of their peers. Well, too bad for my kids, I say. There simply is no reason that kids who are taller and stronger than me should sit inside in that glorious invention called air conditioning, while I tackle the horror that is our yard. Same thing for the household chores. I'm not raising royalty here.

I just finished reading a Sookie Stackhouse book, "Dead in the Family",  (the book series that True Blood was created from). In this particular one, Alexei, the Russian Tsarevich who was brutally murdered in 1918, had been turned into a vampire. He was a pretty bad vampire and part of the reasoning is that he had been so pampered in real life that he had a very hard time understanding an inability to do what he wants when he wants it. Which sounds chillingly like my teenagers. So in the interest of the future world order...or maybe just so any future in-laws won't constantly be blaming me...'tis the Season of the Witch. Now they better go pick up my broom and start using it...

Listless and Free

My latest column talked about the sabbatical my chronic list-making took ("The Surprising Sabbatical of My Lists"). The new routine of no-routine in summer caught me with my list down, and I reveled in it. The gift of a gift card also had its way with me, so my normal grocery list got thrown out the window. Along with my son out of school for summer, I also started a job that required I be gone half the time, which took up so much mental space that I forgot to list make (although I probably needed it more). Things were left undone, but I didn’t mind. Freedom from the list, listless, we enjoyed our free time.

Did summer stymie your to-do lists, or did they change in nature?

What was on your beach reading list? Really.

If you went from SAHM to working Mom, did your lists change?

Or, alternately, if you went from working Mom to SAHM, did they change?

What was on your summer vacation list?

Do your children make lists?

What in the world of Target would be on your list if you received a gift card?

On a completely random note, what do you think of the new ruling that 4-year-olds can now be sued, the little criminals?