Untethered

 I just finished reading Real Estate by Deborah Levy. I am quite enamored with her writing. There are two main themes in the book. Sort of. She is never limited by a theme. She is about to turn sixty. Her two daughters are adults One is about to leave for college. She has made a living writing for some time but not enough to buy a house. She has begun to long for a house. She sees an egg-shaped fireplace and it becomes a central descriptor for what she wants. The fireplace and a pomegranate tree in the yard. 

She is also preoccupied with writing a female character in a different way. She is (sort of) pondering sexism. When people are talking to her about things she doesn't really want to talk about she is thinking about her writing. 

I remember when I would be thinking about something I was writing. Sitting on a bus. Trying to watch television. Making dinner. And the writing would be rattling in my brain. I'm sort of there now. Now that I can type with both hands. 

I'm also nervous about having lost the ability to focus. My thinking has been untethered for so long.  

Family Soup

Today would have been the mommie's 96th birthday. Tomorrow was her husband's birthday. I don't remember how old he was. They had a joke about her being a day older than him. In fact, he was a year older than she was. As if any of that mattered. My psychological soup is stirred up. 

I've been remembering a time when I danced with my dad. My bio dad. I was so uncomfortable in his arms. He wasn't the molester in my life. He was absence. I may as well have been dancing with a total stranger. I might have been more comfortable in the arms of a stranger. I've aways known his absence and K's invasion created a physical tension that may never go away. Although it doesn't bother me as much. 

I get tired of the same old soup. But I have been getting deeper insights lately. Which is as calming as I imagined it would be. 

I no longer need to find a card with a frog on it for her and a card with no emotion for him. Maybe I never did. 

Typing

It feels really good to type with both hands. I've been pecking at my phone for too long. I couldn't wait to open the laptop this morning. Right now I have the TV on and a TikTok playing on my phone. Probably need to settle down. I used to think about what I was going to post. Now I think about my TikTok of the day. 

Doing a TikTok is similar to writing in the sense that you have an amount of time and if what you're saying doesn't fit you need to edit. I redo posts multiple times. But writing is more sentient for me.

I do feel like it will take awhile before doing my blog has any rythm or depth. Writing always happens in my head before I get to a screen. Even in email. The blog will become part of my inner chatter. 

For today I was just happy to be doing it. I opened the laptop and realized I didn't know what to write. HA! 

Chag Sameach.

Happy Good Friday,

Ramadan Mubarak. 

I'm back.

 A year ago, I wrote a post about my knees not being comfortable at my desk. I do most things on my phone, or iPad. Not conducive for writing. So....I bought a laptop! I can sit in a more comfortable chair and tap away. We'll see if it makes the difference I think it will. Since I fell last year my life has lost form. I can't get to the pool. I do very limited yoga. I sleep too much but not well. For awhile my doctor thought it was just left over concussion issues and things would clear up but I'm starting to think I need to push. And I feel like I can make writing be a way to focus. We'll see.

TicTok has become the thing that gives me a daily outlet I really enjoy it there. I've been on it for a year. 

Writing is a muscle and all my muscles are weak. But I'm going to keep trying. 

Eight Years In

In a world full of uncertainty, you can count on me posting on June 16th. This is the day I moved into my nest. I've always been restless and sometimes I feel that way here. But more and more I feel settled. For the first time in my life. The first pictures are pictures from the first day. Before the movers and after. The next two are after some settling in.  I need to do one for how it looks now. 

The library shelves are filling up but there is still room behind the chairs. My inner dialogue when I'm thinking about what books to put behind a chair is probably amusing. And tortured. 

I'll get a picture of how it looks now. 

I will. 

                                              

                      

Knees

 One of the reasons I don't write is knee pain. Yeah. Weird huh? I'm only comfortable in my recliner with a pillow under my knees. If I sit in my desk chair too long my knees start to ache and then lock up. It's a drag. 

I had big fun with the poem fragment project in April and wanted to write about it but ... the knees said no. In terms of identity markers Atwood and Vuong are very different.  Race, gender, sexual identity, nationality, on and on. Yet, somehow, the fragments seem to respond to each other. 

I'm doing some physical therapy soon so maybe it'll help. 

Sigh. 

National Poetry Month

It's gonna be April in a minute. I'm going to do my fragment posting on Twitter. I had a plan, which involved purchasing books. Heh. And then I noticed that I had two newish poetry books that I hadn't spent much time with and decide to use them. 

I bought Night Sky With Exit Wounds after I read On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. All his lines are beautiful. I also bought Margret Atwood's newest poetry-Dearly. I bought it because it's ... her. I think they might be interesting people to go back and forth with. 

I'll post on Twitter and copy to Facebook. 

This is just me spending time with poetry.