Author: Deborah

nothing more to do

~ Deborah ~ 2 Comments

I asked my husband, Anthony, if our kids could have extra screen time today: “Is 6 p.m. OK? I’d like to write a post.”

“Sure,” Anthony said, before returning to playing his video game.

Having gotten that okay to write a post, I suddenly found that … nothing I wanted to write could possibly fit into so small a time.

I decided not to write. Instead, I made my sons whipped cream; for such a simple treat, they rejoice every single time I make it (?!?!).

But when I was done, I realized I had a veritable ocean of minutes left between then and end of tonight’s-new-screentime-end. So: I decided to read blogs, for the first time in many days.

As luck would have it, the top couple of posts in my feeds described the 22nd of every month as “Pepper Day.” So I decided, knowing these posters but not much about Pepper Day: Why not?

Why not spend a dozen minutes simply stating exactly where I am right now?

Where I am:

The month since my sons began school has been harder than I could possibly explain. I thought last Spring’s willy-nilly, on-the-fly virtual instruction would have prepared me for more structured Fall virtual classes, but, wow, was I wrong.

This became clear when, one day a couple of weeks ago, I found myself struggling to explain to my older son how to answer a math problem. I was so damn tired, I literally couldn’t access the memory to understand–let alone explain–something that has been bone-deep knowledge for me since I was my son’s age.

After a lifetime of telling myself I Can Do Anything, Always, Period,

I went to my car and sobbed for several minutes before, knowing I could not possibly keep going as-was, I wondered what I could change and–still deep into bouts of sobbing–contacted my work team to say I could not sustain working eight hours daily right now … at least not without hurting myself and my family.

Fantastic news: They understood! All pretty much instantly replied that I ought take care of myself, and my family, so that …

I wondered: How did this not occur to me sooner?

How did it not occur to me to tap out?

Why, apart from ever-loud societal expectations (including those non-verbally communicated to me oft by my own intellectually-believed-otherwise mom) that women should work themselves to the bone and then dig even deeper into the bone, had it not occurred to me to just say: “I cannot sustain this in these circumstances”?!

Regardless of what held me back before that tear-filled moment,

I’m glad those sobs brought me clarity:

I cannot sustain this.

So, not yet two weeks into my new-er normal, I am so relieved to have confronted the fact I could not continue as-was.

While I can’t speak for next week, or next month, it seems quite probable, now, that I could continue as-is for some time–

with “as-is” being a combination of time, encouragement, and support,
as well as the bliss of having having made a few moments, every day,
to stare at the ceiling
with nothing more,
then,
to do.

even so, or: “shoes”

~ Deborah ~ Leave a comment

This time last year, my husband introduced me to the 2006 music video “Shoes.”

When the video began playing, I couldn’t imagine why Anthony shared it. WTF was it, even?

By the end of the video, though, I was laughing. Hard. I couldn’t remember laughing that hard, or feeling so very-not-serious about anything, for years.

My kids and I ended up watching dozens of videos by the video’s maker, Kelly Liam Kyle Sullivan. Our favorites were “Muffins” and “Kelly’s Hollywood Meeting.”

When my late October birthday came around, my husband bought me two gifts: a Kelly shirt emblazoned with BETCH (Being En Total Control of Herself, natch), and another with the proprietor of Cunningham Muffins at her very wildest, muffin-loving best. Continue reading “even so, or: “shoes”” →

worth more

~ Deborah ~ 1 Comment

As my mom often told it, she was ten or eleven years when she first began losing her religion.

It wasn’t that Mom was faithless; she was, indeed, built to believe, as evidenced by her lifelong search for a place to express her deeply felt faith.

It was, rather, that she didn’t—couldn’t possibly—believe a woman’s sole path to heaven was being called there by her husband. That she could envision believing herself worthy of welcome in every single room of buildings of worship, instead of being prohibited from entering many for her audacity to not be born a man.

By the time she could talk about all this with me, I was myself ten or eleven to her thirty-ish years of age.

She’d left her religion an eternity ago, by my reckoning, and it had been—naturally, for things that have happened eternities ago!—a clean break. Continue reading “worth more” →

(now) uncommon magic

~ Deborah ~ 1 Comment

This morning, my sixth grader, my first grader, my husband, our dog, and I all gathered together on our futon. This uncommon magic lasted for almost ten whole minutes.

To capture a fragment of the moment, I took pictures of my first grader and our fourteen-year-old dog together. The picture captured only a small part of that heart-filled moment, from the outside.

From inside the moment, though? It captured everything–most important of all, what might be some of the very, very last moments my older son is willing to snuggle.

You don’t need to see those moments for me to be able to see and feel in them all their heartbreak, and wonder,

and joy.

 

 

unexpected abundance

~ Deborah ~ Leave a comment

In my last post, I wrote about growing seeds, both literal and figurative.

As for the literal seeds, I wanted to report back for any other SoCal parents wondering how to keep their wee ones engaged in this physical world. Some of my family’s newly planted seeds are faring much, much better than others here in south Los Angeles County!

Within two weeks, we’ve witnessed growth as follows: Continue reading “unexpected abundance” →

to reach for the sun

~ Deborah ~ 3 Comments

A few weeks ago, my six-year-old and I planted seeds in paper cups.

We stuck the paper cups outside and committed to watering them. Daily, ish.

With such a vague “commitment,” we watered them every few days. In the intense heat of August in SoCal, the seeds failed not only to thrive, but to show even the merest hints of growth.

Last weekend, my six-year-old and I planted new seeds in paper cups.

We planted green bean, watermelon, and tomato seeds. We committed to watering these each and every evening. Continue reading “to reach for the sun” →

to show up

~ Deborah ~ 1 Comment

Today was my sons’ second day of (online) school this Fall.

Anxieties have run high among the adults in my home the last week or so: “What?! We just got the hang of COVID summer. How are we supposed to adapt to school now, when Summer just started … it did just start, didn’t it? Wait, is it still 2020?”

The first two days went pretty well, actually. I was able to collapse the chaos of virtual school-plus-work into a spreadsheet, and then … reality actually conformed itself, more or less, to that spreadsheet!

(That seldom happens, so I take time to savor it when it does.)

The best part of day two involved a summer assignment my older son finished a little late: “As a family, talk about an event in the news and how it relates to your faith.” Continue reading “to show up” →

to vote and

~ Deborah ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday afternoon, my sister shared with me a video that gave me words. In doing so, it took a load off both mind and heart.

Before I tell you about the video, I must first tell you about the load …
about which it will, I’ll caution you, likely be unpleasant to read.

— the load —

I’d begun the morning reflecting how completely I abhor the private corporation that is the Democrats—not those who vote Democrat, no, but the Democratic machine itself. By this I mean those with the power to draft its platforms;
those who routinely take actions that benefit people with massive power while further depriving the economically powerless any prospect for structural dignity;
those who call themselves the good guys while epsteining as a way of life.

As I’ve been clear about here, I grew up in deep poverty. That poverty paved the way for predation; as members of the vast U.S. underclass, my siblings and I were preyed upon by numerous predators. As I wrote in one post on my old blog, “The poor mom who cannot afford to feed her children cannot possibly afford an attorney,” a fact on which predators gleefully act.

Coupling my childhood learning with ample book learning the last four years, I am crystal clear on the many ways that machine has long acted to increase the suffering of those already suffering most. Continue reading “to vote and” →

to become learned

~ Deborah ~ 1 Comment

One of the formative experiences of my life—testifying, as a child, feet away from a home-wrecking pedophile—taught me a great many things. The most important thing it taught me was:

You’ll only be believed if you behave, and speak, exactly right.

—

Four years ago, I realized I could state what I believed, but that I’d never be believed without cold, hard facts.

Maybe, I contemplated, I’d be believable with them?

I started reading. I read more than a hundred books annually to learn not only the cold, hard facts, but also to learn their contexts: the very specific histories in which they were birthed.

Continue reading “to become learned” →