Just a Bill

I have a post that is sitting in 'drafts'. It's waiting to be published, like so many others, biding its time. But this post keeps popping up from my sub-conscience. It tries to get my attention again and again. It keeps reminding me of itself in conversations I have with friends. In conversations with family. In conversations with myself. Mostly in conversations with myself. But it has to wait, along with the others, because I am staunchly opposed to posting it right now.

And I have live-out-loud boys, a thoughtful-if-tromping husband who stretches my thoughts to the larger world, a house which drives me to distraction, and a Welsh puppy who noses my elbow and licks my toes.

So .. not yet, shouty post. I am adamant. Despite the fact that it is the reason I have not posted these many months. I am adamant. You will become an actual post one day. Until then, I leave you with this:

Today's conundrum: Am I waiting in vain for that vendor to call-back?

Future conundrum: Will the local NBC all-weather, all-the-time channel ever change its music?

Thanks for perusing; see you again soon.  tIOx

'Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more'

Had mortality not taken hold, Shakespeare would have been 448 today. What he gave the world in the 52 years he lived was an enduring gift of eloquence and wit. What follows are some of my favorite lines from his plays:

'The quality of mercy is not strain'd.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
upon the place beneath.
It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.'
Merchant of Venice

'Love is not love
when it is mingled with regards that stand
aloof from the entire point.'
King Lear

'Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane Hill
shall come against him.'
Macbeth

'When our actions do not,
our fears do make us traitors.'
Macbeth

Feste: 'What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild-fowl?
Malvolio: 'That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.'
Twelfth Night


'If we shadows have offended,
think but this, and all is mended,
that you have but slumber'd here
while there visions did appear.'
Midsummer Night's Dream
_____________________________________________________


I could go on. We all could, I'm sure.
I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks.

Happy birthday, Mr Shakespeare.
(Click through the above link to see more good wishes for the Bard.)

Liszt and Lisitsa

Again, not me. But I have done 'La Campanella'. This performance of 'El Contrabandista' by Lisitsa is inspiring - and as near to perfection as I can imagine.

Reminiscing

While this video is not of me, it has me reminiscing. I think back to the days when this piece consumed my hours at the piano. Good days. Long hours. A happy piece and, below, an exciting performance.

Enjoy.   tIO x



Video via Youtube; property of pianist Natalie Erlich.

Hearing

It's not every day that you sit down with your child and hear yourself coming back to you. Not your words of praise or admonishment. Not your 'catch phrases', humorous anecdotes, or words of wisdom. Not those typical queries and exchanges of travelling through a lifetime. This is something different.

Usually you hear tales of woe and wonder as seen through their eyes. You hear about how life isn't fair. You hear about how they don't get to do things 'everyone else' gets to do. You hear pleadings and ploys, and frustrations and facts. And laughter.

But then. Then you hear them say something that they've brought up from the deep dark. Something that they approach you with hesitantly, not wishing to cause offense. Something they are very serious about. They search your face for pre-approval. And you hear those words that you once thought but didn't dare utter. From thoughts so remote, from a soul on a quest.

And you sit. Stunned. Because you realise two things:
1. Possibly he's mentioned it because he came from you and it's embedded somewhere deep in his genes.
2. He said it. You never did, but he did. Just now. To you.

And you think perhaps you're doing something right after all.


Today's conundrum: When double-checking fails, is triple-checking warranted the next time? And if triple-checking fails, then what?
Future conundrum: Who will buy this wonderful morning?


Thanks for perusing this blog. See you again soon.  tIO x

We Are Not Alone

I've come to realise just what a unique position I was in.

My husband travelled for his job, leaving every week before the sun rose on Monday morning and returning usually after midnight on Friday. For nine years, I was 'home alone' for four days each week, and then on Fridays from 7am-7pm while he was in the office. I was alone on birthdays - but thankfully not on birth days. I was alone on holidays. I was alone on anniversaries. And, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary - including my own upbringing, for most of those nine years I thought everyone lived like this.

I thought everyone was vigilant and wakeful at night. Everyone with children, at least. I thought everyone was scheduled and structured and spent their time always on, always busy, unable to relax. I thought everyone kept calm and carried on.

And I knew lots of people had it worse than I did. So I didn't complain. Not overtly. Outgoing introverts seek other outlets.

I busied myself, as you do, with the goings-on of my children. With the forced friendships of 'Mommy-and-Me' classes at the pool. With the friends who hadn't abandoned us when we left the city for the suburbs. With overseeing the maintenance of a first house. With scheduling visits and roadtrips and long walks and meals. And in all of this scheduling, I lost myself. Literally. I lost the ability to see clearly the situation I lived in. The incessant busyness of cleaning and decluttering and surfing the web, and sourcing and researching and volunteering built a wall between my life and 'the rest of the world.'

And so I became a bystander. Where once I had carried giant balloons in festival parades for the World Cup, I was now carrying Red Robin balloons tethered to Vera Bradley bags. Where I once had hopped a plane to Seattle 'just because', I was now drinking 'Pete's Blend' on a bench surrounded by prairie grass. Gloriously, I had turned my life into a role I longed to play but with a script I couldn't read. And I seemed, like a voyeur, to be watching it all happen from the cheap seats.

I remember the day I first thought: "I did this to survive." It was five months after my younger son was born and I was planning the daily 'afternoon outing'. Recalling both the freedom of my own youth and the memories of long days spent in offices with windows that wouldn't open, I wanted my children to spend as much time outdoors as possible regardless the weather. As I was planning where to go on that bitterly cold day, my best friend phoned to cancel her plans to join us. Her oldest was sick the day before and it was travelling through the family at breakneck speed. I made plans with her to get food and drink on her table that night when she said something that threw me: "I keep thinking that I just have to make it until 6pm and then he'll be home and I can relax."

I have no idea how many times she'd uttered this phrase previously. A dozen times? Perhaps a hundred times. But it was like reading a verse or hearing a song that you've heard so many times before and only now really understanding what it means. She only had hours to wait until she could relax. She only had hours. I had days. It was just Tuesday, after all. I had days. Days before I felt like I might be able to relax. Days, actually just a precious 48 hours, that would be chewed up and spit out and then Monday would come again. And then I would have more days. And I realised that not everyone lived like this.

I went through the afternoon focused on getting the meal prepared for her. I piled the children in the station wagon and drove the 30 minutes to her house. After setting the table, getting the oven prepped, and cleaning up what messes I could, I made the reverse trip with both the rush hour traffic and the realization that I was in a new place emotionally closing in on me. Later that night, when the boys had been lovingly sanitized from our trip into that familiar but infected home, I sat on my sofa in front of 'Location, Location, Location' on the DVR and sobbed.

I didn't answer the phone when my husband called that night. I listened to the voice mail he'd left with a numbness spreading through me. I remember ringing him back, cognizant of the distance in both my heart and my voice. I remember thinking how unfair I was being. How removed. How cold. He told me I was. And I remember thinking "I did this to survive. I did it to survive being alone and what it feels like to be alone. I am alone and I don't want to be. You made me be alone."

We are made to be in relationships. We are not made to be alone. That we have to or that we believe that it's OK if we are is a lie. No one earns points for being alone in a world that is full of harmonies and dissonances and complements and contrasts.

Two years ago, I asked to not be alone anymore. He said, "I never meant for you to feel alone. Because you never seemed like you were."



Today's conundrum:
If we pay to have something installed 'within 48 hours', are weekends included in that 48-hour window?

Future conundrum:
Do fish really gotta swim and birds really gotta fly?

Thanks for perusing the blog. Speak again soon.   tIO x

Something Has to be Said

I've been fighting with Gossip for awhile now. We are not on speaking terms at the moment - and for good reason. It's maligned my friends and family, torn groups of once happy people apart, and fanned the flames of individual insecurities creating firestorms and leaving swathes of destruction in its path.


Gossip says it serves a purpose, that it can actually be 'productive' and 'helpful.' I say 'balderdash.' But then, Gossip does tend to talk a lot of nonsense. Often we don't notice just what nonsense it is until it's too late. And when we do, by then it's moved on to a new topic and we're left feeling lost and perturbed and a little bit scared. We chase after it then (which is what it expects), trying to catch up and get back to where we were in the conversation, back to whatever we've lost in the translation. But Gossip loves to keep us guessing. That's how it works. Will it come back to us - either to include us or to make us the center of its attention? After all of this bait-and-switch hither-and-yon will-you-or-won't-you, I've grown tired of Gossip. I asked it to leave.


It just doesn't take the hint though, does it? It won't go away politely when asked, and has a terrible habit of showing up at just the wrong time. Sometimes it lulls you into a false sense of security, believing that it's not too bad and that hanging around for the occasional perk-me-up is fine really. Sometimes it simply changes clothes in an attempt to disguise itself as something else less innocuous. Or worse - important.


Then there are the times when you think you've out-run it and banished it altogether. That it's taken up shop in other circles - ones that you don't move in or care about or touch. But then you hear something about someone that you used to know or know someone who knows that someone, and, just like that, Gossip is back.


Now what? Do you stand farther out on the sidelines this time, back turned defiantly, determined to let Gossip walk right past? To not say a word and ignore the unbearable lightness and laughter beaming happily from Gossip? Do you wait to see what will happen? To whom it will happen? What Gossip will wear when it does happen? If it has on that Tom Ford lipstick you love?


The sidelines might feel safer, but you can never go too far to get away from Gossip. My advice: do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly. And keep up the fight. Gossip gets tired just like the rest of us.




Today's conundrum:
Have we been able to sufficiently prove that every snowflake is unique? That no two are alike?

Future conundrum:
With all of the leaks and 'makings-of', will the SuperBowl Ferris be a hit? Or will VW reign supreme again this year?


Thanks for stopping by blogger on a snowy evening. See you again soon.
tIO x

All Keyed Up

Via Contentedly >> From Bottega Veneta to Topshop, a key edit:

1.  Ebano Intrecciato Nappa Key Ring $190 - bottegaveneta.com
2.  Kim Seybert Greek Key Napkin $30 - barneys.com
3. Dune flat heel shoes £40 - houseoffraser.co.uk
4. ASOS metal jewelry $15 - asos.com
5. Tassel jewelry $75 - reissonline.com
6. Key No.2 Cross Stitch Kit £25 - liberty.co.uk
7. Isabel de Pedro printed top £115 - julesb.co.uk
8. FRIENDLY HUNTING square scarve €349 - veryeickhoff.com
9. Dogeared 14k jewelry $58 - neimanmarcus.com
10. TopShop round frame sunglasses £16 - topshop.com