I’m trying to get my writing voice back. I have had trouble writing anything that I
like ever since my divorce. Once a
month, I’m just going to record a day as it happens, in an effort to teach
myself to pay attention to what’s happening around me. Will this work?
7:00 – One of my favorite times of the day is right after I
wake up. I take the 5 minute walk down
the road to our mailbox to get the mail and the morning paper. We love to eat breakfast together; to drink a
cup of tea and talk about the news. I
eat my honey-nut Cheerois, and then I am off to the dentist. When I was about 6
years old, I chipped my newly emerged front tooth on a piece of playground
equipment. It has been repaired for many
years, so imagine my shock a couple weeks ago when I woke up and looked in the
mirror to find my six-year-old self looking back at me. Shiiiiiiiit!
Chuck came to find out what I was swearing about and could not resist a
smile. “It’s not funny! Look at me!”
“I love your chipped front
tooth!” That’s how he is.
8:15- I drive out of Little Cottonwood Canyon and into
sunshine. About this time in the fall,
Chuck tells me, the sun will no longer reach his house; and it will not be seen
coming in the windows again until mid-February.
The Canyon walls are steep.
8:30- I visit the office of Dr. Russell, my very warm and
personable dentist. I visit with his
hygienist, who is getting up at 4:30 in the morning these days to go to Boot
Camp fitness training. She will be in
the Miss Utah pageant in a couple of weeks.
She is about 19 and looks flawless to me, but she says she needs more
muscle. They fix my tooth and I listen
to her explain the world of $500 evening gowns.
This time, hers will be black – her pageant director picked it out for
her because of its contrast with her blonde hair. Not her favorite choice.
9:30- After much filing and fitting, I have an even smile
again. Because I have a meeting at noon
in this part of town, it is pointless to go to the school. I go home (smiling in the rear-view mirror as
I go) to do a few chores: make the beds;
wash up the breakfast dishes. Then I
take a little time in the yard, my happy place.
I have enough time to plant some bulbs, mix some compost-maker-stuff
into my compost box, surround my new lilac bush with chips from the wood
pile. Chuck borrows my car to go to the
hardware store. When he comes back he
reminds me: only 15 minutes until I have
to leave.
I change clothes into something appropriately corporate (Don’t
get too excited – even my most ball-busting outfit is…uh…not very ball-busting. The red jacket with the big, padded
shoulders? I don’t own one.)
11:40- I drive over to the new Worker’s Compensation Fund
building in Sandy
12:00- Meeting of the Executive Committee of our school’s Board
of Directors. I have been asked to come
so I can fill them in on the Adult Education program: how the past year was; problems that I need
to solve; goals for the coming year. The meeting is at times tense. I have
disagreements with the way our budgeting process was handled last spring. My boss clearly does not want to be having
this dialogue in this setting. She is
probably mad at me, now. That is bad. I got a chicken salad sandwich and a bowl of
pea soup out of it. That’s good. And a cookie.
Even better. Almost worth it.
1:00- I exit the meeting, gratefully, when my turn is
finished. I drive downtown to Guadalupe School
1:30- I get to work.
Yesterday, when I was planning this day, I thought I had yet another
meeting, up at the university. I
mentioned that I might not actually come in to the office, because I would be
zooming from meeting to meeting all day.
The afternoon meeting was cancelled, though. When I walked into the office, one of the
newer members of staff exclaimed, “Hi! I
thought you were taking today off!” Two
more veteran members of staff, including one who is not well-disposed toward
me, both pricked up their ears. Ooooh. Is Kate taking a day off in the middle of the
week? Is she being lazy? I had to state (for the record) that there is
a difference between taking the day off and not making it into the office.
However, here I am. I
send a bunch of e-mails. I put together enrollment
reports for the two programs that are currently accepting new students (Here’s
how many students you have, here are the ones with missing pieces of paperwork,
here are the ones who still need to take tests, here’s how many children were
in the childcare last night, etc…).
I call the Catholic church next door. We always rent their hall, which gets more
and more expensive every year, it seems.
Last year, I was shocked when the price went from $100 to $200. But I found the money and put $200 in this
year’s budget. So, when the priest’s
secretary told me that this year, the hall rental would be $535 (!!!!!!), I
about hyperventilated. She went to talk
to Father and pleaded my case (always keep secretaries and cooks on your
side). Today she delivered the good
news: $285. I’ll still have to find $85, but I am in a
better place.
I took a moment to change my address for the purposes of
voting. No problem, except that I have
to deliver the registration form to the County Clerk
4:15- I am ready to
go home. Lately, home is where I want to
be. Home is the place where I have
forgotten the shopping list. I call
Chuck and ask him if he is near the fridge door. He reads me the list and I leave work.
To Smith’s. Honey
crisp apples, salad fixings, a couple of those long lighters for the cook stove,
beer, oatmeal, cornflakes.
5:20- Home sweet home.
I unpack the groceries and change into my running clothes. I ask Chuck if he wants to go with me. Hmmmm…No,
but yes. He puts on his running shoes.
It is nippy out. My fingers chill. We do a trail run on the Granite Quarry Trail,
and then the Little Cottonwood Trail for about 45 minutes. The trail is steep and rocky. Every week, I do this run with the goal of
getting as far up the trail as I did the time before, then an additional 60
paces. I was strong until the last few
hundred yards. The trail got really
steep and I did my stint, but with that lungs-ripped-out feeling.
6:15- it is starting to get dark when we get back to the
house. I put on water for pasta and
Chuck kindles a fire in the cook stove. I jump in the shower to thaw out. I wash my hair and shave my legs. After a bit, Chuck arrives with a glass of
white wine for me, which he balances on the window sill. “Are you a prune, yet?” I trade places with him and get dressed. Supper is simple tonight: pasta with the pesto I made last week, and salad. We get Scarlett out of her cage and let her
hang out with us while we eat. She perches
on Chuck’s shoulder for a while, but is attracted to the pasta. She makes her way down, down, down his arm
and begins tossing his dinner out of the bowl.
“Hey, learn some manners, bird!”
I give her some of her own pasta on a little plate. She is very orderly – removes each noodle and
lays it out on the table before consuming it an inch as a time. After supper, Chuck does the dishes and I clean
up the kitchen. I want dessert, but
there isn’t anything. To Smith’s for ice
cream? OR to Dairy Queen for ice cream??? Finally, we decide to make cocoa and put Bailey’s
in it. Chuck settles down to watch a
rugby match on YouTube and I look at the paper for a little while.
I scrub out the kitchen sinks and clean the gunk off the
dish drainer. I survey the pantry. It’s a mess:
everything thrown in there higgledy-piggledly when we first moved in,
and not yet changed. I start organizing
it, putting like with like and discovering that my disorganization has resulted
in the purchase of multiple bottles of vinegar and jars of chicken bouillon;
and somehow we have become the proprietors of 7 bottles of hot sauce. Chuck does not disapprove of the hot sauce,
though. In his opinion you need a lot of
different kinds: some moments call for Tabasco
10:00- I get my shit together for the morning and Chuck
proposes a soak in the hot tub. We
retire to the back yard with another cocoa (for him) and a whiskey (for
me). We hang out talking in the hot tub
for a long time. This is partly because
we are having a talk about our relationship and our future and partly because
it is chilly out there and I don’t want to get out! I finally make a run for it and dash to the
house and almost directly to bed.
What a great post idea! Good for the writing mojo and for practicing mindfulness! I ought to try it too.
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