whining

I am dancing as fast as I can.

/ wvfurandroot / Leave a comment
Photo by Ahmad Odeh on Unsplash

Wayne Dyer said, “When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.

I’m dancing as fast as I can.  The tempo may kill me. My feet lift and fall, lift and fall, heel, toe, do si do, step two three and twirl. 

I’m dancing as fast as I can, don’t ask me to juggle.  Now is not the time.  Dip, sway, do the hustle, all fifty-seven steps.  I can’t stop, the music still plays and plays and plays…like an organ grinder with a monkey I dance.

Perhaps I should seek coins from those watching.

I’m dancing as fast as I can, skirt belling and swirling and tangling between my legs.  I stumble now and again, but I’m dancing as fast as I can.

No time for chores, for downtime, for respite, I am dancing as fast as I can,  The cha cha, the foxtrot, a stately waltz all without a partner. Alone.

Nietzche said, “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

I can hear the music.  Can they?  Am I insane?

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Back in my day: a rant in which Connie wraps her shawl tightly around her shoulders and expounds on the good ol’ days

/ wvfurandroot / 5 Comments

Hoo Boy!  I’m getting old.  I’m losing hope for humanity in a number of respects, but one that just drives me up the wall and I can’t quite articulate why is the current refusal to dress up for anything.  Does that make me shallow?  Maybe. 

But in my day, we brought jeans to the forefront, but we didn’t wear them everywhere.  It just wasn’t done.  And there was a period of time when one was expected to iron their jeans so they had sharp creases down the front and back. 

Clubs and discos often, usually, had a dress code:  no jeans.  We didn’t wear jeans to church.  We certainly didn’t wear them to work.  My first demonstration was for the right to wear jeans to school.  Yes.  To school 

And when we did start wearing them to clubs and restaurants, we did so with heels, full makeup and the advent of the very expensive, very trendy Designer Jeans. 

And now?  Now, I can’t believe what people leave their houses wearing – me included.   

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The Winter of My Content

/ wvfurandroot / Leave a comment

march snow 034The past four days have been an adventure.  Between Wednesday night and Thursday, I found 10 inches of snow outside The Barn.  With great glee, I celebrated the announcement that a certain community college was closed both Thursday and Friday.  At my place of employment, this means we are also closed and I don’t have to burn vacation days due to heavy snow.  It doesn’t take a lot of snow to trap me on the hill and nearly a foot was way overkill.

We had eight inches of snow over the President’s Day weekend.  I ended up with a full week off of work.  It was a lovely respite, but I did nothing but sleep, eat, read and watch Downton Abbey.

I had big plans for these four days off, but as John Lennon said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans.”  I seem to be in major nesting mode – I want The Barn to look as wonderful as I think it is, so a thorough cleaning was in order.  I also was looking forward to cooking.  After not cooking for most of the past ten years, I’m suddenly interested in it again.

march snow 003Day 1 of my four-day weekend, Thursday, I did some triage cleaning (Chez Barn was/is a Superfund Site) and finally finished putting all the Christmas stuff away.  Yes, yes.  I know, March, but, hell, it was July one year. I’m ahead of schedule!  It was so nice having my living room back that I wallowed in that room and admired the gorgeous snow and sunshine out my window.  It was very Dr. Zhivago-ish.  I also made the starter dough for a new sticky bun recipe.  I’m on a quest for the perfect sticky bun.  The potato soup I made for dinner was spectacular!  I could win a soup contest, my potato soup is just that good.

Friday morning, I woke up with a head of steam to clean and bake.  I turned the starter dough into finished dough and had it set to rise when the power went out at 9 a.m.  I trundled my butt-that-doesn’t-need-even-a-single-sticky-bun-much-less-a-dozen down to my folks’ house to see if they had power.

march snow 057They didn’t.  But they had a fireplace and the hearth proved a perfect spot to make old-fashioned percolator coffee.  After visiting with them for awhile, I took the big camera out for a photo shoot of Ma Nature’s glorious handiwork.  I tromped around Onafork and took some stellar photos, some mediocre, and some just bad.  (See the gallery below.)

When I returned, I called Appalachian Power and reported the outage.  I was told it would be repaired at 10 p.m. Sunday.  SUNDAY!  I was miffed.  One cannot clean and bake in a cold, dark house with no electricity.  I mean, really, it already looks like I clean in the dark.

potato soupBy the afternoon, The Barn was getting cold – 55F, to be exact.  I trundled back down to my folks’ after defrosting the windows of my car and cleaning off the snow.  I wanted to be ready in the event of an emergency.

We all sat around drinking coffee, laughing about how we were out of wood and having to burn old software manuals, and eating the leftover potato soup I made on Thursday.

Software manuals put out a great deal of heat.  We were comfortable and told stories.  Eventually, I went back home to sleep.  I have a heavy down comforter on my bed as well as a heavy bedspread.  I was confident I would be warm enough.  And I was.

march snow 006Saturday, I went back down to the parents’ house, because the only way to be comfortable in my then 42F house was to be in the bed.  One can only stay in bed alone for so long.  Plans were made for them to go to a hotel.  I decided to stay here and tend to critters.  By that time, we were down to broken furniture to burn in the fireplace.  A cheesy “wood” chair made in Yugoslavia doesn’t burn nearly as well as do software manuals.  Surprise, surprise.

Nonetheless, I was all zen and accepting of life’s curve ball when I discovered I had left my car running, ran the battery down and my phone was down to 10% power.  The only way I had to charge the phone was the car charger and that wasn’t going to work with a dead battery.  I lamented on Facebook and my friend/contractor sent his son over to jump my car.

I have been so blessed with the people in my life.  My boss texted me often to see if there was anything she could do to help.  Other friends called.  My Facebook world fretted about my well-being.  I don’t know what I ever did to deserve the friendships I have, but I’m very grateful.

at my parentsSaturday evening was spent in a haze of wine and contentment.  It would have been nice to have had some music, but, alas, I was short of that perfection.  I left my folks’ house at about 11 p.m. and returned to my toasty bed.  If nothing else, I did get a lot of sleep.  I drifted off convinced that the power company was lying to me and I would wake to power on Sunday morning.

Well.  I woke up this morning and I still didn’t have power.  Zounds!

Back like a boomerang, I went to my parents’ house yet again.  The fire had gone out and I couldn’t get that Yugoslavian chair to light to save my life.  Besides the cold factor, the more important problem was that I couldn’t make coffee.  I have a serious coffee addiction.  It was a dire situation.  After about an hour, in walked my parents with coffee and sausage biscuits.  Again, I was suffused with gratitude.

And then the power came back on, well before 10 p.m.  There was great celebration and I returned home to bake and clean and blog and upload photos and do laundry and put emergency light sources away…and…and…

It’s been a wonderful day.   The sticky buns turned out a tad gummy, but recipe tweaking should take care of that.  The house is still a mess and laundry isn’t even half done, but I am happy and content. These days  it’s good to be me – the winter of my content.  Contentment may well be the best state of being.  I know I’m certainly enjoying it.

 

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Writer’s Block (or sumpin’)

/ wvfurandroot / 1 Comment

I haven’t been able to write these past few weeks, months, years.  It seems that I have nothing to say, but I talk to myself constantly.  Clearly, I have plenty to say, but the tyranny of the blank page is winning.

I’m not sure what my problem is, but it’s as if all my words have dried up and blown away.  I sit down to write and nothing comes out.  Or sometimes, I get drivel.

[Warning:  the following is probably drivel.]

But it’s not drivel I wish to write.  Like many writers, I want to reveal the mysteries of the universe.  Or at the very least entertain with a good story.  It seems I am all out of new stories and I don’t feel like telling the old ones.

I tried to join a writing group tonight.  I got stood up.  Or I misunderstood the time or the place.  Or something.  It struck me that joining a writing group to force me to write was either pitiful or a stroke of genius.  I’m also considering a graduate degree in creative writing.  Also either genius or pitiful.  Perhaps  I need deadlines.  Externally imposed deadlines.  I’m not good at corralling myself.

I need to write.  I’ve often said that I don’t know what I think until I write it out.  The process of putting words in order orders my thoughts in a way that nothing else does.  I need to write.  And I can’t.

This is getting tiresome.