taxes and crocuses.
in Funny Stuff, Thoughts and Feelings
as border, broken trust, Don, Kentucky, kid, kind, little flower, modern dance class, monster, nap time, pennsylvania, spilled milk, time, willow tree, Wisconsin, world
First I need to say that I am not altogether sure what it is one does with their bum in a modern dance class, but whatever it is, it causes it to hurt like the dickens the next day. So now you know.
Oh, and I also need to say that it’s easy to forget.
Especially when the world feels like the kind of three year old who is constantly grabbing at you when you are pretty sure it is nap time. Because, really, darling–you don’t have to be sleeping, but you do have to be quiet.
And you know, they need one more sip of water and can you check and see what keeps tapping on the window? Cause, sure, it’s been that old willow tree each one of the past fifteen times you checked, but maybe this time you’ll look and it’ll be a monster. Finally. And though it’ll be scary, you wonder if the kid will be a little bit happy that he’s actually right. Right before he screams, that is.
But there’s no kid and there’s no monster. What we do have is a world that grabs at you with things like taxes. And how they must be filed. And there are mounds and mounds of sheets you hand the accountant and he asks you why it is that you set such a large stack of papers before him while all you can say is, I don’t know. Because you’ve never, not once, done this by yourself.
But carpe diem and I’m a big girl now and what the heck, why don’t we throw in one more cliche as I remind myself not to cry over spilled milk?
Save the tears for things like broken trust and lies, I guess.
But in a world that is grabbing at you with all that, it’s easy to forget all this.
Brave little flower.
Peeking out first among the leaves that cover the ground like so many patches on a quilt.
‘She is clothed in fine linen and purple,’ just like that lady everybody talks about from the Bible. The one who never sleeps late and is worth far more than rubies and goes and talks with her husband’s friends about current events like she wrote the script for CNN and most definitely knows a thing or two about geography. I mean, she could at least tell you that, though people mention Pennsyltucky LIKE IT’S REAL (ahem), Pennsylvania and Kentucky do not, in fact, border each other.
Like, at all.
Which is what I learned after asking my friends where, exactly, it is that they border each other.
But anyway, the taxes got my attention today.
But so did that purple flower.
And I’m glad I live in a world full of both, you know?
And most of the time I feel more in the mood for purple crocuses, I’ll be honest. But I am also in the mood for some kind of tax refund, can I get an AMEN? Cause Wisconsin owes me $23 and well, let’s just say that I know where Wisconsin lives.
Okay, so I don’t know exactly where Wisconsin lives because, remember? Not so good at geography. Led astray by the mention of Pennsyltucky and all that. But I do know someone who does know where Wisconsin lives, so it betta be ready to cough up those benjamins, is all I can say.
And in case you forgot once again (which is so easy to do in this world, I know), here is the crocus.
Don’t forget to tell her that you like her racing stripes.
The ones on her leaves, silly.
yellow underwear (yes, I just said underwear. scandalous.)
in Funny Stuff, I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as brother jason, Canada, easter musical, Esther, extreme tiredness, Haiti, Jason, Joe, Kentucky, pair, pennsylvania, skin, small comforts, tonight, underwear, underwear drawer, world
I have so much homework to do right now.
And some of it is spelled T-A-X-E-S.
And some of it is spelled D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
And some of it is even spelled E-S-T-H-E-R. Um, lest you think that Esther is some chick that I need to do, let me explain. I am referring to the rest of the music I need to write to go along with the script that my brother Jason has written for the church Easter musical.
But I took a bath tonight and it’s like all my energy went with the water once I unstopped the drain. Seriously, I was so tired that I didn’t even bother putting lotion on before hopping right into bed. And I’ve got the kind of dry skin that is at such a deficit that even a whole bottle of lotion would leave me still not quite as soft and silky as the average Joe. And there’s Joe with his nice and smooth skin and hardly even caring that it is, anyway; and here’s me with my skin that was only soft once in my whole life and that was the time that I almost died in bikram yoga, it was so hot and humid in there–and tell me, is this fair?
But then there are the small comforts that seem to leap out at you. Especially when you are tired. You know, finding a pair of clean and matching socks without even scouring your room for them.
And then there’s tonight when I reached into my underwear drawer and right there, sitting pretty at the top of the pile, was one of my absolute favorite pair to wear. Yellow and soft and huh, I wonder if this is TMI…oh well, it’s not like I’m saying it’s a thong or anything like that.
But despite that rush of extreme tiredness that about knocked me over, I smiled. And felt just a little bit happier. And I wonder how it is in a world where such horrifying things have recently happened to me, effectively causing me to stop caring about most things, that I am now reduced to feeling happier because of some underwear. Or maybe it’s not reduced, maybe it’s that I am feeling a little better. And able to appreciate some details again–which is so different from just not caring.
Cause seriously, I had stopped caring. I’m sorry, but it’s true. When that horrid earthquake devastated Haiti it was hard to drum up a lot of feeling at all. I guess I was so busy taking inventory of my own self, wondering if there were any survivors deep inside, listening for some sounds of life, that I just couldn’t bring myself to think much about whatever was happening on the other side of the world. And don’t quote me on that–the other side of the world, I mean–I am admittedly bad at geography.
Haiti might very well be somewhere in Canada.
Okay, so I’m not that bad at geography. But pretty bad. Just today a dear friend and I were laughing about how, when we were growing up as some of the coolest home schoolers around, the subject of geography was covered by a silly little game called geosafari. I guess our moms just thought that fifteen minutes of that every few days oughtta do it. And if the fact that I recently asked a friend if Kentucky borders Pennsylvania doesn’t prove that little theory flat out wrong, I’m not sure what does. In my defense, however, I had heard someone say the word Pennsyltucky and so concluded that must mean that those two states touch at some point.
Oh, but they don’t. Just to be clear.
And yes, heart wrenching things have gone on and are continuing to go on, but there it is: a pair of underwear makes me happy. Or at least happier. And I don’t know quite what that says about the world and I don’t know quite what that says about me, but well, I’m grateful to be wearing one of my favorite pair of underwear.
I guess I’ll leave it at that tonight.
