Sitting with Siddhartha...waiting

I used too much oil to clean my wooden desk today. It didn't even need it, just precautionary habit. But now, it's slimly and too slippery. Even my keyboard has a difficult time gripping the cherry surface. I have felt like this all day: unable to gain traction in my life. Students' papers trumpet to me from the living room, and all I can do it drift. A hazy mind, unable to navigate into a harbor and tie down.

What am I doing? Am I mimicking my mother for a sense of security, or is this something I really want? I love the intermitted jewels my job drops: the daily humor, the energy, the depletion thereof, the struggles, the epiphanies. But I am worn; a product of a "work as hard to not work" mentality prevalent in my generation. I constantly fight: pen in one hand, alibi in the other. Does God ever become so exhausted? Does a mother? Does my cousin, Martin, and his husband, Shawn? Does anyone who fights endlessly?

A dear friend of mine today talked about opening my own business. She taunted my inner workings. "Make your time your own...Open up your life...Give your writing the deserved time." It was delectably enticing. I licked my lips; but I did not bite. I do not have the self-discipline to run the show myself. I run a tight ship, but that's only because I am not the owner. I'm not even the investor, I'm just the captain in a fleet of many.

For now.

Soft Quiet

The soft hiss of our office air purifier is lulling me to sleep. Like the tranquility of 3pm sunlight in late June, the cool breeze on a porch swing, a book of Wordsworth.

I have no motivation to gear up for 8th period. My squirrelly kids will try to drain me today, and I will let them. They will come in expecting me to be a cooling salve for adolescent drama. But today, I focus on me. Today, I will run. I will read. I will write. I will pick up my exhausted puppy, and we will ride home together with the windows open to feel the fresh afternoon air cleanse our day. He will rest his tired head on the window sill, squinting at the fading sunlight, sleeping to the soft rock of the car and the constant breeze. We will ride home in peaceful silence, knowing the day's labor is behind us.