April, you are a lot but I love ya
I am a capable human being. I am a grown-up and I make grown-up decisions and I can be held responsible for my actions.
That’s what I try to tell myself as I go through this life kinda just well winging rather a lot of it. Sometimes people ask me to make a choice particularly as it pertains to my teacup human, and I look around like “Why you asking me where did mom go? Hold up there cowboy it’s me? I’m mom?”. Whoops did it again forgot I’m not just 13 going on 30 (plus a few extra years) I actually have made decisions with consequences of my own volition that impact my daily life and the childhood of someone external to me. It’s a lot to reckon with.
If you havn’t heard, which how have you not since it’s all I talk about…
she chuckles to herself in obnoxious runner speak
…I am running a marathon in a week. Why did I do this? Is it too late to back out now considering I’ve been so braggadocious about my (stupid stupid) superior lifestyle choice? Alas and alack, we have come to the point of no return and I would just like to thank past me for putting present me in this position. I am looking forward to having this be behind me so I can have my brain and some of my time back. I am about to enter le taper week which is not for the faint of heart and the toughest mental part of training for me anyway. Next time I write to you I shall be on the other side of this wild ride and may or may not have my ‘Runner’ identity badge revoked, we shall see. What’s a commitment you have made to yourself in the past that came back to bite you in the fabulous bottom at a later date in some way but ultimately you kinda loved? I do enjoy this here being human and trying out different ways of leaning into my total…personhood in a mind-body-spirit sort of way.
Reads
Tove Jansson is an author I have found a lot of comfort in this past year as I (re)discovered the simple beauty and striking relevance of the Moomins to our current ‘dumpster fire’ world. On the one hand it is interesting to think that generations prior to ours had their own global fractures and immense suffering and needed gentle wisdom to make it through. This is not to minimise the deep hardship we have now but to perhaps provide a comfort to know that suffering is historically human and as much as it hurts, we the people endure. It also strikes me that art, often in a childlike context, can instruct us in the manner of living well and with gratitude and awakeness to what our short lives can mean. Jansson is often described as positing a ”universal duality” that speaks to both the dark and light we weather throughout our years. The Summer Book (1972) is a short tale of a curmudgeonly grandmother nearing the end of her life while living alongside her spirited young granddaughter on a Finnish island through the summer season. It address life, death, joy and grief. All those lovely both/and concepts. Recently it was made into a film starring Glenn Close (I’m swooning) and I am really excited for this film to be viewable somewhere somehow eventually here in America. I highly recommend reading this book, it is enthralling.
The Summer Book film – trailer and interview with the director Charlie McDowell.
Bants
A few months ago I had to take on a part-time job to bring home some more of that most elusive, essential little divil-money. My family, like the rest of the world, have bills and are trying to remain afloat in spite of being tossed along by this shitstorm of an economy. I am working as a greeter type person at a restaurant that employs a type of hybrid full-service kiosk type situation. The amount of resistance I am assaulted with by frustrated and deeply consternated (constipated??) civilians is baffling. Not a single shift goes by where I don’t receive a verbal barrage of complaint and vitriol at something as simple as ordering on a digital menu. The legitimacy of their disgruntledness notwithstanding, the manner in which they conduct themselves and treat me and other staff is laughingly toddler-like. Many of us can agree that we have witnessed in recent years, increasingly negatively skewed interpersonal interactions with most humans across many social situations. People are harsher, more selfish, angrier, lonelier the list goes on and on. This shocking behaviour I see nightly is one that points to a highly problematic cultural shift. We have become intolerant of our own unknowing. Also, we have become so interior that people outside of our direct community circle cease to be relevantly viewed as valuable. This graphic below was shared with me in an email and it put language to exactly what I have been seeing. It also helped me to reflect on my own internal reckoning with frustration in my parenting journey.
I want to try be humbled in being a beginner, I hope the art of humility doesn’t become lost to our world.
Eats
I have made some very good, very affordable meals lately and that instills gladness in me. One dish I made which knocked the silly socks off my toddler and husband was this incredibly easy sausage and tortellini soup. I did not partake but it smelled rumble tummy inducing to me and I do not even eat meat.
CREAMY TORTELLINI SOUP WITH CHICKEN SAUSAGE
For slight modifications, I omitted the kale because I hate buying it for just one dish it’s always just too much for a leafy green do you know what I mean? It didn’t need it anyway. I also made it with the Better Than Bouillon veggie stock because that’s the only one I ever have at home and I used sweet Italian chicken sausage links and just squeezed them out of the skin and chopped them up. You could easily do regular pork sausage too. Also I nearly doubled the tortellini because I dropped the whole package in. You could easily substitute gnocchi here.
I shall leave you all with this sentiment.