Winter and the Future Moon
Sunday gratefuls: Ruth’s mint candy. Her delight in staying with us. The snow storm that could. All the delivery people in the mountains. Rest time from working out. Being easier with myself. The clear, cold sky.
Ruth. Our favorite granddaughter. Our only granddaughter. She stayed Friday night after a day of skiing with her Dad. She slept with Rigel and Murdoch since the guest room now belongs to them. But, they were willing to share.
It snowed yesterday. An unpredicted round which exceeded six inches. A frequent poster on Pinecam.com, Weather Geek, lives on nearby Conifer Mountain. He says we’ve had 55 inches this season, before yesterday’s snow. Say 61 inches now. 5 feet, 1 inch. Deep enough to bury Kate. That’s since October.
Being easier. Over the past year plus I’ve been pushing, pushing, pushing. Do this. Get that done. Keep doing this. And that. And that. Don’t let up. Keep moving. Realized I’d put myself in an impossible situation.
Even though they’ve reduced in the last month or two, doing the activities of care giving put me in a peculiar tension. I viewed all the domestic activities as necessary, good in themselves, but as barriers to creative work, work I did for me. The tension between caregiving and writing, caregiving and painting, caregiving and reading made me devalue the domestic, not resenting it, but feeling pulled between the needs of my Self and the needs of our home. When I talked about this with Kate, she said yes, the housewife’s dilemma.
Though it came rather late, my solution was to be easier on myself. To let up on the pedal. Immediately things got better. It was enough, this cooking. This workout. This grocery pick-up. The tiredness was ok, not something I needed to shoulder past, but an indication that it was time to rest.
I’d robbed myself of the satisfaction in cooking, shopping, running errands, and in the creative work by feeling always pulled between them. This is life now. Kate and the dogs and the house. They come first. The rest is bonus, important, but secondary.
