Mashed together like potatoes.

You have to know that I think of new things to blog about every day. Many times during the day. How when I run out of concealer it's like losing a lover. When I talk to my high school students and feel like maybe if I look at them the right way, they'll get how ripe their lives are with possibility. How when my kids are all over me I feel tightness in the air that makes me feel trapped in a box. Or how I can be so filled up with love for them that it makes me a little shaky.

Or how about when I have a babysitter at the house so I can go get a pap smear (word!) and have just enough time afterwards to do nothing. Or maybe buy an overpriced coffee while I'm filling up on milk and diapers. That time to finish a conversation is just a dream and that I feel sometimes even more disconnected NOW because my babies are older and know how to ruin a phone call with world-spy like savviness. (Savviness? Saviety? Saviciousness?)

And maybe how when the girls and Jared are all snuggled up with me in bed I feel like it's the most complete and wonderful place to be and that I wouldn't want for anything else. Or perhaps how I want to eat like a hippie earth mother most days but some days could subsist on nachos and peanut butter sundae. And beer.

But that will have to wait for another day. Someone just pooped their pants.

Cleaning Out the Closets

September has always been a month of rejuvination for me. I get a full-gust of wind and start tons of projects (or, finally finish some!). I feel productive. Alive. I see the days ahead of me and they are full and ripe and bursting with possibility and potential.

I clean out closets. I'll get rid of the summer dresses and cute tank tops that have been my wardrobe and the girls' wardrobe all summer and find the long sleeved numbers, the jeans, the sweatshirts and the thick socks. I'll tuck the bathing suits into the back of the drawer, and hope that the next time I pull them out I could be more understanding of the body they cover.

I want my job to be full of rigor and movement, I want my students to see with clarity the potential before them. I want them to recognize the support they have and flourish under the wings of their mentors.

I want my wood floors to shine with a new lustre. I want the bathroom to be ever-fresh and for the white tiled floors to not piss me off any more. (Who does that, though?)

I'll sit outside and smell the air. I'll harvest my garden with vigor, realizing soon enough I'll be inside, watching the plants wilt and crumble into their winter slumber.

Right now, I'll go roast some fresh green beans from my backyard, and hope for the cucumbers to sprout.