Cabin Notes: get on with it

May mischief make the day.

No links this week because I didn’t read or watch anything except my child’s face. God, parenting really just sucks the air out of your life sometimes. If you’re not a caregiver, please, take the next few minutes to just go do whatever you want. Woods was riddled with problems this week: constipation which led to withholding which led to poop terror, six day fever which led to a bronchial virus which led to a gum infection which made his mouth ache and bleed, which meant he didn’t eat anything but breastmilk. And we treated much of these untreatable problems with a TV show called Helper Cars, which Woods now talks about in his sleep and asks for immediately when he wakes up. We missed a week and a half of daycare. We couldn’t even play with him outside because we got smoked in. We accomplished nothing aside from keeping him alive. And I am now 10,000 words behind on my big summer project.

So, rumble grumble, etc., what’s to be done?

Get on with it.

How?

By watering. By vacuuming. By smearing toothpaste on teeth. By burying my face in a cat. By cleaning. By wondering where something should go and then just tossing it into the donation bin. By writing 500 words instead of 5000. By rolling your shoulders back. By rubbing your face in your hands and laughing. By hiding the TV in the closet and telling Woods it’s out of town, getting repaired. Chocolate. Smoothies. Closing my eyes when it started to rain. Playing Carnival of the Animals on the big speakers.

And then, thunder.

Thunder while listing to Aquarium, and the world is enchanted again. The rains crash into the metal roof, rivering into the gray water catches. The dog settles in against my right thigh, a cat to my left. And if I close my eyes, I can find a door and walk right through it to a place of moss and mischief, a tiny world of endless delight, with someone moving giant furniture across the floor above. In that world, I can still find myself.

I have been asking, worn and weary, who does Woods need me to be? Not today, not in the moment, but who does he need his mom to be? Because at the end of that sentence is also who I need to be for myself: mischevous, strange, formidable, and curious.

Occasionally, Woods will do something that he is not sure if he is allowed to do, and his face will wander to mine to see what I think. Eyes a bit wide, mouth a bit open, he’ll study my face. He’ll find it still, blank, and when we make eye contact, I just for just a moment in that wonder. And then, he’ll see the sparkle tilt my eyes, stretch my grin, and load my eyebrows with delight, and then he’ll make the same face back.

There we are, two Cheshire cats in a forest, together.

The Spread - this is such a fun reading, so I hope you stick with it.

So, I asked the deck this week, how can I bring more play into my life? And I pulled the exact same cards I did last week: Sun Reversed, Four of Swords Reversed. I lamented my poor shuffling, spread out the deck, messed up the cards, and pulled again. I got the Sun Reversed, and I was like, well surely it must be saying something to me, so I kept that card, pulled again from the middle of the deck, and still got the Four of Swords Reversed.

Then, because I found this annoying, I changed the question: how can I bring more play into my readers’ lives?

And I pulled THE SAME FUCKING CARDS.

Then I yelled at the deck, shuffled, and got Justice and The Chariot. I couldn’t remember what The Chariot meant, so I googled it. Before the results could appear, lightning struck what seemed to be THE HOUSE and the internet went out.

Hah!