Rules: Or How I Keep Them (And Try to Keep My Heart Not-Broken)

As a rule, I don't have many rules to live by- fewer even to live and die by:

-Try really hard not to hurt anyone in any way (I regularly fail at this one, but it is a rule, nevertheless).

-Don't cast for hearts or for harm (the caveat there, as always, is no casting for hearts or for harm unless it is my own heart for which I am casting or my own self that I am harming). 

-And never ever plan anything for more than six moths in total- or six months in advance.  I know- or think- I have mentioned this before.  

I don't plan in advance because planning disappoints me.  Always.  Plans fall through.  Or if they don't, they certainly become something else.  Something… not. 

Plans are not to be made by the likes of me.  When I make plans they come with expectations (my 12 letter dirty word).  Inevitably- they come with expectations: I expect to have things go as planned; I expect to have made good, right decisions; I expect to have known- to know- myself.  At least well enough to make whatever plans or decisions I need or have to make. And then… 

Nope. 

Because it's me (me) and I seem doomed to a life of… 

I seem to set (or have set) a pattern for myself: make the choices you need to make.  Do the things that need doing.  But beyond that, other than that, don't put thought into anything- because thought, and plans, brutalize the soul.  Thought and plans break this heart. 

My park season this year ends on October 31st (the Witch's New Year, of course).  By November 2nd, I have no idea where I will be.  Maybe I will stay here- Henry and I will learn what New England, in her winter glory, really feels like.  Or maybe back to the warmth of my parent's home in North Carolina.  Or maybe I will hightail it wherever the wind takes the pup and I.  

Maybe, maybe, maybe… 

But, and this is key, maybes are a part of the rules; my Golden Rule.  'Maybe' is so much more free than 'definitely', 'maybe' is the wiggle room of the soul- especially of this soul.

The rules- the rules are for me, for myself.  It is how I work, or rather, how I try so hard to work: if you make a plan- make it for yourself, Kiddo.  If anyone else hops on… the more the merrier.  But please please, Kiddo, build your world and your walls around you.

Please at least do that.

Until Next Time… 

Illimitable Chaos

I stole my title from Virginia Woolf.  But that's only just a little significant.  The more significant is it's meaning.

Illimitable Chaos. It pretty often seems like the perfect definition of my life.  And on this day of celebration for parenthood, it seems even more perfect, even more poignant.  Especially after calling my  beloved father this morning and, after wishing him the Happiest of Father's Day, having him inform me that the State of North Carolina wants to… blah blah blah- basically, one more sticky situation out of which I have get myself.  By myself.

And that led to me thinking about a) how much my father and mother are just the tickets in this looney life of mine and b) how very many things I do and have done over time with the solitude of independence and under the auspices of… Kate.*

In a few months, I will reach that weird ticking-clock moment of assumed badness that every lucky soul reaches at some point… 30. And at thirty (again, assuming I make it and things as they are now have not changed much) I will be single and childless.  I will be the wander-lusty parent to a dog who is great company when he's not trying to chew some part of my life apart.  I will be the chaotic wild-child who prefers chance to choice and who seems to make all of the wrong choices when forced to.  I will be the anorexic, struggling to get well.  I will be the sister and daughter, the witch and the friend.

I will be the one who people look at, sigh and shake their heads because I am a hopeless cause- a whirlwind of illimitable chaos.  The questions will get more and more difficult to answer- until those same people just stop asking them:

"Don't you want to [insert some appropriate life path here]?"

"But don't you want to [see above]?"

"Do you even have a biological clock?"

The answers… the answer… The jokes won't cut it after a while.  "Don't you want to get married?" "Haha.. I'd love to, but don't know anyone who could put up with me for long enough to accomplish that task"… Not going to fly anymore.  "Don't you want to have kids?" (see above, again, for a similar answer).   "Do you even have a biological clock?" …

Well Hell, people, I should be dead by now anyway, at least two times over.  So whatever biological clock I do or do not have has either been broken or overridden.  I have cheated it enough times.  So it's either not ticking at all or ticking merrily away just like everyone else's.  And I'm okay with that.  And at thirty I will be okay with that, still.

My chaos is mine.  And I made it that way purposefully.

But on days like today, I am reminded of how truly singular that purpose is, that chaos is.  Because at thirty, and at this time next year there is still a very good chance that I will only ever be saying Happy Mother's Day to my own mother and Happy Father's Day to my own father.  That my longstanding relationship with chaos will still be very much intact and active.

Here's to growing up and getting it.

And until next time, Happy Father's Day to all you Fathers.  Happy Mother's Day (late) to all you Mothers.



*Don't get me wrong.  I fought tooth and nail for that independence.  I love it and I love what I am, in my own way.

Breath Held

Immediately before something big happens, it often feels like the universe is holding its breath.

In the initial inhale, there is silence: the silence of early anticipation; the silence of fear.  It is the silence of suspicion.  That a storm brews on the wind; that the coming fight will be the last.

Then comes the actual holding- the actual anticipation- the actual fear.  The holding is when the storm comes to fruition and the sparring partner walks through the door, takes his or her shoes off, and comes to the mat.  Events are becoming ready.

And when the breath is held too long, the universe begins to quake- it seizes, trembles and shakes to it's core.  And shakes you to your core.

And that is even before the exhale, the eruption- when the universal breath releases and all hell breaks loose.  And whatever big event has started culminates in creation and destruction and destruction and creation.

My universe just inhaled.

And what is getting ready to happen?

I have no idea.  Not a clue.  Could be any number of things.

I know what the universe feels like- but I will be damned if I can read it's mind.  I know that some things have grown slower, quieter, more careful.  I know that time seems more circular- things that have been are becoming again.

Things what were not meant to be are falling away- drifting detritus.

Until next time, We shall see…