5:30 Teacher husband's alarm goes off. Too early. Can't get back to sleep. Enjoy listening to the birds. It is amazing how many bird songs can be heard right before dawn.
7:30 Wave good-bye to those going off to school. Take a few moments to read and reflect on greater truths. Get dressed. Drink coffee. Walk the dog.
8:09 Have figured out this is the last possible time to leave for work without being late. Better to leave earlier in case there is a train or an accident blocking the road, but usually can't force myself to do so.
8:30 Walk through the red door into the preschool where I started working back in 2001, when the boys were 3, 6 and 9. Go about my duties in exactly the same way every day like an obsessive compulsive person. This way I don't have to think. I just do. I have other things on my mind, like words that are organizing themselves into a poem or a prayer, or art I am in the process of creating.
8:50-1:15 Play with babies while sitting on the floor in bare feet. Rock back and forth in a rocking chair, garnering strength for the rest of my day. Talk with my teaching partner, another mother of three, about everything going on in our lives. Chat with other teachers and parents. Drink more coffee.
1:35 Arrive home. Take out dog. Take a short nap if possible. Make it possible. Coffee.
2:30 Decide whether to do dishes, laundry, cooking, go running or work on art. This is problematic because there is usually only time to accomplish one of these goals. If I choose to run, then what is for dinner? If I choose to cook, who is going to run the dog? The dishwasher has been broken since December 1, 2011 some time in the early afternoon. The washing machine seems to be heading toward the same appliance demise, as its random beeping seems to indicate. What IS for dinner? I have no idea.
From this point on there is a complex choreography of transportation and events rivaling the greatest productions of our time. Practices, games, classes and meetings are all scheduled and like clockwork each person gets to each event more or less on time. Uniforms, taking precedence over regular laundry, are at the ready. Food in various forms is available for whomever, whenever, even if it is not to everyone's liking. A hope to have us seated around the table together again someday lingers.
Of course in the midst of this dizzying array of endless opportunity lies my unfinished and often unrealized life as a writer and an artist. How long does it take me to make a bed bunny? I am sometimes asked. That depends, I want to say, on how many people, places and things need to happen involving me and the minivan on any given day. And besides, it isn't like I time myself. Sewing has its own rhythm providing soothing relief from too much hurriedness. How can I increase my productivity and my income for my business? I was asked recently. Ah . . . live alone?!
Suggestions are sometimes made to me about letting others "help" with creating my art. Not sure how that would work. Translating my vision into something someone wants to purchase is difficult enough for me to do, but I'm not sure how I would communicate my artistic thought process to someone else who would then duplicate what I am doing. Perhaps I flatter myself but I would like to think that what I am creating is one-of-a-kind art and not easily mass produced flea market fare. Sure there is money to be made getting out a glue gun and following some downloadable pattern, but I make my own patterns. In fact, I have created everything I sell, sometimes from dreams and visions I have actually had. I like to cook the same way--often making up a recipe as I go. It takes longer but the result is worth waiting for. And there is so much more joy in the process.
The interesting part about these conversations involving my creativity is that they usually end in one of two ways. I am either cast in the role of an idealistic purist choosing a life of abject poverty in the futile hope of saving the world by reaching the hearts of people, not yet recognizing that this is a ridiculous waste of time and why in the world am I not pursuing a REAL job; or, I am made to feel like I have been blessed with unique gifts that I can choose to share with those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, knowing that ultimately I will receive provision because there are greater forces at work in my life.
Hmm. I wonder which one of these thoughts will motivate me to be creative today.
7:30 Wave good-bye to those going off to school. Take a few moments to read and reflect on greater truths. Get dressed. Drink coffee. Walk the dog.
8:09 Have figured out this is the last possible time to leave for work without being late. Better to leave earlier in case there is a train or an accident blocking the road, but usually can't force myself to do so.
8:30 Walk through the red door into the preschool where I started working back in 2001, when the boys were 3, 6 and 9. Go about my duties in exactly the same way every day like an obsessive compulsive person. This way I don't have to think. I just do. I have other things on my mind, like words that are organizing themselves into a poem or a prayer, or art I am in the process of creating.
8:50-1:15 Play with babies while sitting on the floor in bare feet. Rock back and forth in a rocking chair, garnering strength for the rest of my day. Talk with my teaching partner, another mother of three, about everything going on in our lives. Chat with other teachers and parents. Drink more coffee.
1:35 Arrive home. Take out dog. Take a short nap if possible. Make it possible. Coffee.
2:30 Decide whether to do dishes, laundry, cooking, go running or work on art. This is problematic because there is usually only time to accomplish one of these goals. If I choose to run, then what is for dinner? If I choose to cook, who is going to run the dog? The dishwasher has been broken since December 1, 2011 some time in the early afternoon. The washing machine seems to be heading toward the same appliance demise, as its random beeping seems to indicate. What IS for dinner? I have no idea.
From this point on there is a complex choreography of transportation and events rivaling the greatest productions of our time. Practices, games, classes and meetings are all scheduled and like clockwork each person gets to each event more or less on time. Uniforms, taking precedence over regular laundry, are at the ready. Food in various forms is available for whomever, whenever, even if it is not to everyone's liking. A hope to have us seated around the table together again someday lingers.
Of course in the midst of this dizzying array of endless opportunity lies my unfinished and often unrealized life as a writer and an artist. How long does it take me to make a bed bunny? I am sometimes asked. That depends, I want to say, on how many people, places and things need to happen involving me and the minivan on any given day. And besides, it isn't like I time myself. Sewing has its own rhythm providing soothing relief from too much hurriedness. How can I increase my productivity and my income for my business? I was asked recently. Ah . . . live alone?!
Suggestions are sometimes made to me about letting others "help" with creating my art. Not sure how that would work. Translating my vision into something someone wants to purchase is difficult enough for me to do, but I'm not sure how I would communicate my artistic thought process to someone else who would then duplicate what I am doing. Perhaps I flatter myself but I would like to think that what I am creating is one-of-a-kind art and not easily mass produced flea market fare. Sure there is money to be made getting out a glue gun and following some downloadable pattern, but I make my own patterns. In fact, I have created everything I sell, sometimes from dreams and visions I have actually had. I like to cook the same way--often making up a recipe as I go. It takes longer but the result is worth waiting for. And there is so much more joy in the process.
The interesting part about these conversations involving my creativity is that they usually end in one of two ways. I am either cast in the role of an idealistic purist choosing a life of abject poverty in the futile hope of saving the world by reaching the hearts of people, not yet recognizing that this is a ridiculous waste of time and why in the world am I not pursuing a REAL job; or, I am made to feel like I have been blessed with unique gifts that I can choose to share with those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, knowing that ultimately I will receive provision because there are greater forces at work in my life.
Hmm. I wonder which one of these thoughts will motivate me to be creative today.
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