Sometimes.

Sometimes life just feels hard. You feel lonely, you feel tired. It's hard to add the "fun" into another day of getting up, going to work, walking the dog, working, coming home, making dinner, walking the dog again, and then going to bed and starting it all over again. I feel like I've read several blogs lately with the same slightly sad lament: how do you make it wonderful? How do you make that life that feels worth living, rather than one that's just biding time until the next thing comes along?

It seems like this sort of sentiment always comes along at the peak or end of a season. Mid-summer, winter's dragging end. There's no real reason, except that maybe it feels like something is coming to an end (again), and you don't have a lot to say for it.

Tonight I made homemade tortillas. Silly how easy it was (Masa flour, water, salt. Mix into a soft dough. Roll into balls. Smoosh with a heavy pan into flat rounds. Cook on the cast iron skillet until they look like tortillas.). Little things like that help. It's something new, something different, it's an escape.

Sometimes I get tired of being responsible. Of going to all the things that we're supposed to. Of showing up on-time ready to get some shit done. I want to just flake out a little. Not turn up where we said we were going to. Go to bed way too late and sleep through my alarm. Have a glass of wine and a stack of cookies for dinner.

Is that what it means to be a grown-up? Our responsibilities are pretty small comparatively. No mortgage, no kids. We could survive on far less than we do. We're tucking a little into the bank every paycheck in hopes that some day we'll have a little more than we do now.

But there's an itch. Maybe it's wanderlust, maybe it's a selfish squirm.

How good would it feel to just load up the car, roll down the windows, and drive off into the mountains? Doesn't matter where. In fact, better that there isn't a plan, I think. Might end up somewhere more interesting.

In my imagination, it would be nice.

The non-deliberate art of self-fashioning

You'll have to forgive me a little self-centered indulgence on this one....

I was cleaning out an old purse a week or two ago, making my transition into an autumn full of rich colors, wool, leather, and the like, and I found a list. To be honest, I'm surprised that I even opened it: A little secret of mine? I've never been good at cleaning out the old shopping lists, spare change, and other miscellany prior to putting a purse back in the closet.

As it turns out, I'm glad that I didn't clean it out when I put the purse away (you saw THAT coming, didn't you?). I probably would have crumpled it up and thrown it away. Or, tucked it into a journal and promptly forgotten about it. As it stands, I HAD forgotten about it, and was more than a little curious to read through a scribbled "goals" list for 2010.

I don't think it was a resolutions list, rather, more of a "things it'd be nice to do more of and be better about in the year to come."

What was surprising about this list, was, despite the fact that I hadn't seen it in nearly a year (I'm sure I wrote it sometime in January), I'd somehow managed to accomplish a surprising number of the bullet points I'd set out for myself. Not just the small, "to-do" caliber items, but the bigger, more profound ones, too.

#1: Change last name. Though not every document in my arsenal has my married name on it, the important ones now do. And they were all changed (uh, barely) prior to our first anniversary. Bank account? Check. Driver's license? Check. Passport? Uuuur.....

#2: Improve bread baking skills. I'm getting there. I made this killer dill bread over the weekend, and despite the fact that it was a dreaded yeasted bread, it turned out beautiful. It rose (twice!), it was flavorful, and it baked up with a golden crust. Yum.

#3: Learn to cross country ski. I still have a month and a half. Cut me some slack.

#4: Write more letters. Fail.

#5: Be more diligent about getting out and about going to the YMCA. Check. Done. Better. Baby steps.

#6: Read more books. Done. Big improvement over last year, though not quite where I'd like to be.

#7: Drink more tea. Frivolous, but delicious. And DONE.

#8: Improve my work situation. Passed this test with flying colors.

#9: Join a community activity. I think I can say that accomplishing this has made a significant difference in my life.

So great. A to-do list. Killer for you that you were able to meet your silly little goals.


Except for the fact that I wrote these down on a whim, and then never managed to look at them once since then. I was a little floored by the proportion of these that I was able to accomplish, even though I wasn't actively checking them off. I didn't have the list posted, reminding me of what I was supposed to get done. I didn't have a mantra that I read to myself every morning in the mirror. I wrote down a list, promptly forgot about it, and lost it in the bottom of a purse in my closet.

I wrote my senior thesis in college about self-fashioning in Hamlet (ambitious? me?). One of the points I really latched on to was that once a character shared an idea or a proposition with someone else, that ambition became, somehow, a little more real. By saying it aloud, it transitioned from the realm of pure, ephemeral idea, into something more likely, more accountable.

Is the fact that I did pretty well on this to-do list just luck? Would I have accomplished those points anyhow? They ARE pretty frivolous (I know). I like to think that because I put them out there - wrote them down - made them a little more concrete in both my mind, and the broader "universe" that I somehow made them a little more "real."

What happens when Charlie goes out of town.

Charlie has been in Challis, Idaho for the past week (or so). And I have been so productive.

Of course, I miss him. The cat is a mediocre cuddling substitute what with the claws, the raspy tongue, and the tendency to gnaw on your hand when it's time for breakfast (Charlie only possesses two of the three qualities listed above).

So. SO. What have I been up to?

Sharpening kniiiiiivvvveeeeesss.... (but more on that later).

Taking a few pictures, for starters. I've been giving the camera a little rest this spring and summer. I'm not totally sure why, but the inspiration switch has been off. That's not to say that the joy is gone, or there there isn't good subject matter - but I've been trying to live a little more within my own life rather than outside it looking in. Hopefully the hiatus will be over soon and I'll be back to it. You know how those things go.

Anyhow, all that said, I got a few pretty pictures over the weekend of the sunflower that I sprouted in our back yard. It's far taller than my head, and catches the evening light in the way only a sunflower can.

I also picked us up a compost bin (sparing you any pictures I may have taken of THAT - we'll save those for the loamy brown earth phase that comes later). See, when Charlie leaves town, Ariel's flower child roots start to show. I'm still shaving my legs, but I may be eating things like quinoa and bulgur, roasting beets, sauteing polenta, and liberally loading everything up with chevre from our local co-op. And composting. And making zucchini bread (a big hit at work). And kicking off a couple small-scale sewing projects.

More on all of those later.

Best of all, a package arrived in the mail from my mom today. Enclosed, with just a short "love-you!" note was a book and another present. I'm thrilled about the book (here we go with the flower child again): it's about preserving! Yay! (Did I mention that I haven't used a blow dryer since Charlie left, either? See? As if you needed proof about me. Admit it. You knew it all along.)

But.

The other present.

A knife sharpener.

I know this is a really domestic thing to get excited over, but slicing a perfect wedge out of a peach with a newly-sharpened knife? I felt like a real badass. I may have to sleep with one under my pillow just to show how tough I am (uh, a knife, not a peach) (don't worry, Sue, I won't - that would be a little too weird).

I do wish we were having thunderstorms tonight, because I really wanted to tell people at work that I spent the evening SHARPENING MY KNIVES IN A THUNDERSTORM.

That'd earn me some respect. Or something?