Leap

So here's the thing about being a mom and also a human being and about to turn 50. I started counting how many people I had been with. I spend more time thinking about the things I've done. I play farm every day, brushing the sheep and trying to keep the effing squirrels from eating my eggs and beheading my chicks. (they eat the heads, wtf? go get some nuts like a regular squirrel!) Then there's Europe and my kids want to go, they want to go on a plane anywhere, they want to see things. The money thing is terrible. The house is good. There's a pool. There's enough space. The kids are all huge and sprawling, like Dolly Parton's boobs. There's land mass there. They want to do things. I want moments of quiet, because I am still a writer. I need to take things in and figure out where they go, and feel the things. I'm doing allright, because I have a black dog right here with her head on my lap and a fan blowing and all the children still asleep. But I'm missing people. I'm missing the Dresden room, and the scripts that never got made. It's not the money, it's the stories. I want to tell these stories. They're funny, and they mean something. It's so confusing, all the things coming at us. Life frail, people impossible. Food shopping constantly. Old husband. What am I going to do with that? I can handle the care, how does it all not make you numb? And I am a pretty terrible wife. I just don't enjoy the having to be seen all the time. That is difficult. I was better, as everyone is, at faking all that for short periods of time and escaping unscathed. And then I worry that I'm only here to make the other person's life good, forget about my life. But wait, isn't this my life? On the good side, I do get to ride in the early morning while everyone sleeps. I get to see the dog walk along, and I get to hear and feel the horse and the nature. This is solace. Maybe life is so much balancing, at least for a writer or a feeler. You have to balance the act of life with the hugeness of life underneath. Sort it all out. Find what it's telling you. Try and translate it for others. This feels like what I'm supposed to be doing. Aside from calling old boyfriends and girlfriends and wanting to feel love, and understanding who I am. This ball of wires and flowers with past present and future. The present is so loud. It's so big. Caring for children and ancient grandfather. It is meaningful, and like a deep hidden pool in a watery cave. But no one is really in there with you. You're in there. That's something, I guess. It's crowded with voices around me, and this keeps me full. And living in LA, a land of all voices, all people, I have no shortage of people. But still I can only hear one person at a time. I'm listening, all the time. So this is keeping me full and then overfull and then run away to feel peace and then lonely. And then soda is good, because it means nothing and it's cold, and it's just for me. I think this place I'm in is maybe a great place. It's just scary because it is a place to launch off from - like any place in life. This is your diving board. It's even all stacked with good things. Stop staring at all the good and enjoy being bewildered. This is how it is. Leap. Tell the stories.