Sometimes the fact that my life is held together by the most tenuous of threads weighs on me like a double layer of those x-ray-proof vests.
Today it was the podiatrist running and hour late and my mom forgetting to leave the door open for the babysitter that weighed me down; last week, it was the freezing rain and my accidental abscondsion of Dan’s car keys. In between there was a little of Shef’s ear pain and a pile of vanishing photocopies.
It’s days like this that Elizabeth Bishop echoes in my head: “Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.” None of those small things spell disaster.
“I don’t know how you do it,” a colleague of mine said last week, referring to my myriad identities and obligations.
“Oh,” I said, feeling a little uncomfortable, “the truth is I don’t, really.”
That truth was especially heavy today.
You amaze me all the time. Really.
ReplyDeleteI can barely take care of myself and you take care of your whole family while working and going to school. Hmmm. French girl book says something on this - it is anti-multi-task. What would happen if we all decided to stop multi-tasking?
ReplyDeletei really like that bishop line.
ReplyDeletethe hour badly spent.
that describes my dissertation work this morning to a tee.
see you tomorrow. yay.
thanks for the kind words, friends.
ReplyDeletei am feeling better except for the onset of a headcold. i plan to stop to get drugs and big fat latte on the way to work today. :)