It is March 2nd and we lay under a foot of new snow. The night temps. are once again plummeting into the single digits. After a week of teaser temperatures, near 50 one day, it seems like the hard freeze of January has returned. I feel a sense of despair slipping into my daily life. There is a weariness. I long to sleep in which is uncharacteristic for me. Life is planned around storms. It seems even keeping a simple schedule is impossible. Restless...I am so restless.
I live in the most wonderful democracy in the world. I treasure my freedoms, but tonight I am so weighed down by the "paperchase" and the efforts to move ahead here. Papers for taxes, insurance, school registration for my daughter, documentation for school districts. Each completed pile seems to be replaced by yet another new pile. Daily junk mail in the mailbox, phone solicitations, junk e-mail from acquaintances. The falling apart car, appliances, house...life seems more untidy and cluttered than ever until I want to scream. As I pile things for a summer yard sale there seems always more to add to the pile. I wish it would disappear on its own somedays. The economy has nothing cheerful to offer.
As I sit in the dark burning lavender incense and listening to Nadaka, I miss feeling the earth under bare feet. I huddle close to the fireplace with a shot of tequila and lime, but still shiver. The snow now reaches my livingroom windows. I cannot hear the birds or feel the wind behind windows barred from the cold darkness. I am edgy tonight. I feel fatigued from trying to sell myself as a "teaching package" for a job. I am a human. I happen to love teaching and working with children, but I have to be HQT because of NCLB and my school needs to make AYP. I feel like alphabet soup tonight. Maybe I am destined to be an expatriate. I love my country, but it is not loving me back. I need to move forward out of this holding pattern.
As I pore over yet another mission statement for a school, I sigh. Tomorrow I will go to the gym and run on a treadmill like a lab rat to keep from going insane in this arctic freeze. I will volunteer to help someone else again. I will care for my family. I will reflect on my blessings and still beneath the surface I will be disturbed like an earthquake undersea. Tomorrow...
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I can almost smell the lavendar. And oh how I do miss the earth under bare feet, and even moreso, the earth in my eager-to-garden hands. The sun feels so good today... like I'm soaking in hope.
ReplyDeleteGlad to have your comment on the by the way blog. Let me know if you ever come up with your 6 word memoir...
Peace, Kari