that's mrs. mediocrity to you

It mocks me, this list, taunting and teasing, growing exponentially while I sleep.

Much of this list I wrote myself, although there are things on it not added by me, things like a house that needs painting, a faucet that needs fixing, a dog that needs a bath.

Others things are self-imposed, opening an etsy shop for my images, making jewelry for two shows in November, losing ten pounds, cleaning up my garden. All projects I chose to start, all now inscribed on my list of things to do.

And I’ve had this crazy cold for over a week now, it has not kept me in bed, but rather half-functioning, feeling like my head is underwater, making me cranky and sleepy all day long, and I think it’s feeding on my words.

I sit here in my studio while outside the sun is shining, just outside my window the monkshood are blooming, one of my favorite flowers mainly because they bloom in autumn, but also because they are purple, the truest most beautiful purple. Just now they are surrounded by pink and white anemones, all backed by the golden tones of an autumn hydrangea.

I feel like this photo, just now. A bit hazy and out of focus, a riot of thoughts and ideas, with quite a few things that need weeding out.

There is too much to do, always, and I wonder if it is me, if I am too much a workaholic, too much the over-achiever. It doesn’t feel that way, it feels like it’s all necessary, this scrambling to make a living as an artist, this life I love that I lead.

For there is beauty in my life, there are flowers and love and many blessings. There is joy and passion, art and writing, and all this living, full and round and bursting at the seams.

And there is this list that mocks me.

But it is just a list, a flimsy piece of paper filled with words of my own design. It threatens to overwhelm me, this list, beat me down with its jabbering demands. Some days its wins, a little.

Other days, it cowers in the corner.

Because it knows, this list, that when all is said and done,

it might very well be bigger than me,

but I can still take it.

This past weekend, in the Adirondacks, this is what I saw when I woke up every morning.

I slept with the window open, all three nights, even though it was chilly and even though on the first night, apparently I stole all the covers and my husband was freezing.

But I couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help wanting to hear the wind whispering through the trees. Couldn’t help wanting to smell the scent of trees and forest and the nearby lake. Couldn’t help wishing that I was sleeping right out there, under the trees and the stars.

The stars that were visible, so visible, up there away from city lights and pollution, the Milky Way clear as day. Well, okay not clear as day, but very clearly swirling its way across the universe.

The air smells different there, clean and crisp. At home, where I live, it is the country and the air here is very fresh and clean, but, still, you can smell the difference, there in the mountains.

I lay there each night, after everyone else was asleep, lay there for hours actually, because I couldn’t sleep, and looked out this same window, in the dark, thinking and listening.

I used to be afraid of windows at night. When I was a very young teenager I saw a movie about witches and there was a scene involving a window at night that took me years to get over. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. For years, afterwards, well before dark I made sure that every blind and curtain was closed.

Silly me.

Look what I missed.

lights out, time for sleep, sitting here
in the dark
in the quiet

the only sound the baseball game
still playing in the bedroom as my husband sleeps
there is always a game on somewhere in the house
i don’t mind, it has become the background music of my life

sometimes i turn baseball on when i am here alone
just because it feels normal, soothing

it is late, very late, i should be asleep

but i sit here
fingers itching to write
not sure what they want to say, these fingers

but i let them talk anyway

i wish i could sit here in the dark, in the night, in the quiet

not so tired, and listen to the night
or that game or just the sound of my own breath

i wish it was that night, but instead it is a night
when i am too exhausted to go to bed

another time i will sit here

in the dark
in the quiet
in the night

i will listen

I try not to worry, really I do. It seems like a colossal waste of time.

But sometimes, it all comes creeping in on me…the little niggling fears, the stress, the doubts, the thunder.

And then I am there, in the Land of Worry, and just like Oz, I can’t find my way out. The what-ifs become strong possibilities, the might-nevers become probabilities. It keeps me up at night, if I let it. And I try not to let it, but there are moments of weakness, we all have them, and then I am there, eyes open, wondering, pondering, wasting good sleep.

I worry about my health and money and my husband and my kids and my parents and my future and my past and what I ate for dinner (potato chips, so?) and my knees and my garden and that thing I said to so and so for which they will never forgive me…

I never meant to be a worry wart. And most of the time, I’m not.
I look on the bright side, I strive to be happy, to let things go, to know, in my heart, that the only person whose behavior I can really control is my own.

And yet, here I am. Both my sons smoke cigarettes. I worry. My parents are getting older, I worry. Things are slow with my graphics business. I worry. I’m feeling nauseous a lot lately. I worry. My husband seems distant. I worry. My basements floods. I worry. What if I’m really just wasting my time? I worry. You probably
don’t want to hear about this. I worry.

Each worry works its way into my mind and takes up residence, even though I have made it perfectly clear that no invitation was extended. I ask them to leave, and they smile, saying, “Yes, perhaps tomorrow.” I beg, I plead, “I need sleep,” I say, and they pat me on the head, “There, there.”

And don’t even get me started on the big things, the things that you can worry yourself sick about, the government, the environment, health care, retirement, natural disasters, Lindsay Lohan. (Okay, just kidding about that one.) I can’t even go there, to the big worry room, because I just know I will never get out.

Oh hello, Mr. Worry. Won’t you come and sit on my lap for a bit?
I’m going to give you a little hug and maybe even a kiss.

And then I’m going to squash you like a bug.

Oops, sorry. That was downright mean.

I’ll have to worry about that, later.

Forty-seven is a strange age, not exactly old, but not really young, either. And of course, that is why it’s called middle age.

But with this age, this middleness, come revelations, realizations, determination.

Life speeds up as you get older, but your body slows down.

I want to run more and more and more, but am able to do so less and less and less. I want to stay up very late to finish a book, but my eyes start to droop around midnight. I want to spring clean my house all in one day and have energy left over for dinner. I want to stay outside playing until it grows dark and someone calls me in.
I want more. More time.

I don’t want to reinvent the wheel, I just want a newer bicycle. One without any rust or scars or missing spokes. One that lets you pedal backwards when you want to, in case you missed something. I want to understand life before it’s too late, while I still have time to enjoy it. I want to appreciate, while I still have the strength to pedal.

I have wobbled and wiggled for 47 years, trying to maintain my balance. Now I think I am ready to pare things down, remove that extra set of wheels, pick up speed. I want to fly down a hill with the wind in my hair, or coast past my house with my hands waving high in the sky.

I want to let go. Of things, emotions, barriers, clutter. All that clumsy baggage that keeps me from gliding along, bumps and potholes that make for a very rough ride. I want the life that I have and the life that I want to become the very same thing. I want to ride into the sunset, keep going all night, and circle the sun at dawn. I want to race time with one eye on the prize.

I have no illusions, I know I will fall. Plenty of times.

But that’s okay, I plan to get right back up.

Unless, of course, I break a hip.

And then I’m going to cry like a baby.

You can’t write about silence because it doesn’t exist. It pretends to exist, we talk about it, we yearn for it, we aspire to it, but life is never truly silent. There is always something making sound, your heart beating, your lungs breathing, there is always a whisper of life, somewhere.

My mind is never quiet. I have never been able to meditate, to completely clear my thoughts, there is always some phrase or idea that raises its hand and waves for my attention. I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing, although sometimes I do wish that they would all just sit down and read for a while. Or take a little nap.

But mostly I like that my mind moves in circles, thoughts flowing in and out and around, and then back again, sometimes when I least expect them. I like that a line for a poem can just appear, on a page that my brain has already printed. I like that words are perpetual, always there, my constant companions.

Yes, peace and quiet sound really nice, I wish for both fairly often, but in truth I would probably get bored.

I like to stay up, alone, when everyone else is sleeping, I like the way the house sounds when my husband and son are here and asleep, it is a different sound than when I am home by myself. Even though I can’t really hear anything, I can sense their presence within the quiet. Perhaps it is the peace of their sleep that I feel, palpable evidence of their dreams.

Sound travels further at night, and our dreams entwine themselves around what we hear and tell us the story of that noise, this whisper. They (the proverbial they) say that dreams don’t really play out as stories, that they are just flashes in our brains, synapses, individual thoughts or images that our mind strings together later, and then adds meaning. I’m not sure I believe that.

I think dreams are stories that need to be told.

Poems are emotions that struggle to exist.

Words and images are the conduits.

Silence can exist, in a vacuum. But I am not there.

is that my cup is full, it is overflowing, and I keep pouring new things in. Life is short but the days are long, sometimes too long, and I find myself wishing them away, wishing for this one, or that one, to be over.

My days are consumed with holes and surprises, moments of passion, fits of anger, tears of joy, and a whole lot of busywork in between. Life is filled with life and I live it to the hilt, not wanting to miss a single thing and why should I, why would I, when there is so much to experience?

It makes me think of that Emperor, Joseph II who supposedly told Mozart his music had “too many notes.” Of course, he was so very wrong, Mozart used exactly the right amount of notes, his music comes as close to perfection as is possible, but this life, my life, seems filled with too many notes, too many choices, there is always something else and something else and something else.

I’m not saying it’s all bad, in many ways choices are good, way better than not having enough. These days we can work where we choose, marry or not as we choose, and pick from the entire pond of fish if we want to. We can eat any fruit or vegetable we want at any time of year because it is always available, we can buy anything we want at any hour of the day because the internet makes it possible, we can exchange thoughts and ideas with people on the other side of the globe, at any time, if we so desire. It makes my mind spin.

But are we frozen in place by all these choices? Have you ever been behind someone who couldn’t decide on a flavor of ice cream and stood there forever and ever? Do you ever find yourself buying much more than you need because you can’t decide between this one or that one? Do you ever have a day when you have so much to do, but get nothing accomplished because you walk in circles?

Are we getting out of tune with our own survival, with the rhythm of life that our bodies want to follow even if technology makes it unnecessary? We exercise at scheduled hours if we exercise at all, we buy more things than we have room for in our homes, we eat food that is bad for us because it is there, everywhere we look.

We keep expanding our own tiny universe, one item, one idea, at a time, until we can no longer see the big picture. All these smaller things, these superfluous notes, block our vision. All we see are these choices, the ones we pick, as well as the ones we do not.

I keep trying to find balance, but I flounder in the chaos, one day thinking I thrive on it, discovering the next I most assuredly do not.

I want my life to be a symphony filled with exactly the right number of notes. Not one too few or one too many. I look past all the choices, filter the detritus of technology and convenience and materialism that fills my line of sight, trying to find my perfect pitch. I want to be a melody, not a cacophony.

But the long and the short of it

is that I’m having a really hard time

coming up with the bridge.

There are simply too many notes.

Lately I have been feeling completely overwhelmed by overwhelm. I cannot get caught up, I will never be caught up, my to-do list gets longer but it never gets shorter, I hear it yelling at me even when I’m not looking. There is always more and more and more.

I know this, and I keep saying yes. I keep trying to fit it all in, to do all the things that I want to do in addition to the things that I have to do, and then I keep changing the rules. It feels like a cycle I can’t break out of, a circle I am enclosed in, a cage I can only sing complaints from.

If I know why the caged bird sings, why can’t I just let her out?

I want to open the door with my own two hands, I want to sing the tune that I wrote myself, I want to be the one who built the cage.

Oh wait, I am. I did.

This is my life, I made it step by step and minute by minute, all those choices, all those detours, all those maps that weren’t maps, they were mazes that took me someplace else, this place that is jungle and desert and sometimes, ocean, and I say that because I can’t swim.

I built my life, I am responsible. I know that. Sometimes I want to run away, start from scratch, do it right, take the correct path instead of the one I thought was better, the one that was less traveled, because now I know why it was less traveled, don’t I?

I am whining, I am sorry, I know, I should not, I should look for the silver lining. And I will, tomorrow. Or maybe even in five minutes, these clouds will clear and I will see, I will remember that life isn’t all that bad, this is, after all, just overwhelm. It could be under, under anything and that would be worse because over is always better, right? Too much is better than not enough.

No, wait, less is more. I forgot that, too, more or less.

Okay I am done with my rant, with my rave, with my long-winded empirical whine.

I’m going to go eat some chocolate.

And by the way, when it comes to chocolate,

I don’t care what anyone says,

less is never more.

Shadows that move, across the floor, up a wall, out the door. Creeping silently through life when they think no one is looking. Patterns that whisper, songs that recall, lines that pop in your head from a poem you learned at eleven.

I am stuck in a pattern of rinse and repeat. I walk in circles, accomplish nothing, bite my nails, pull my hair, open my mouth in a silent scream.

There is nothing there.

Of course, there is something there. But it is not what I want, not what I need, or not what I think it should be. No matter what it is,
it is none of these things. Nothing can assuage me. I look to the shadows, deeper, trying to discern what lies there, beneath the surface, this unrest, this revelation that refuses to reveal.

There is nothing there.

I run through a forest at night in my sleep and wish for someplace sunny. When the sun rises, I hide beneath the covers, wanting only the comfort of darkness. I am cold. I am hot. I am never just right. Not comfortable, not complacent, not appeased.

There is always something missing. The key is misplaced, stuck in a jar in the back of some cupboard long ago, owner gone but not forgotten, no longer here, no longer able to open this memory, that possibility. Perspective. A door that stays closed, sealed shut, forgotten in the shadows.

I think of a dream I had, years ago, now. After a friend ended his life. A dream I have never forgotten. He stood there, in this dream, at the top of the hill near the house I grew up in, the house my parents live in, still. His hair was long, wild, his clothes, dirty.
He smiled.

I am okay, he said. Just that.

I am okay.

It was a gift, that dream, a moment when the shadows receded to let a light shine through, a light that no one, no one was watching for.

When he did it, took that gun and said goodbye, we were shocked. Shocked, but not surprised. Of course, we said, he was not fit for this world. No, we said, this world was not fit for him. There was no place for him, here. No sanctuary. It made sense in the way that things that can never make sense, will.

I think of him, sometimes. When I see a shadow on a wall that lets the light shine through. A light that no one, no one is watching for.

And yes.

I am okay.

though it would be
if i could offer
you, accept

but instead

it sits here, in my lap
licking wounds
no one asked for

and you,
you turn away
muttering, a whisper

crazy half grin

i never hear
what you say
never ask twice

if i do

there is no answer
just silence that hangs
the air between us

ripe

the way change
rips through your face
just a thought

unspoken