Physical effervescent reality

“Often, the person in the group who articulates the possible is dismissed as a dreamer or as a Pollyanna persisting in a simplistic “glass half-full” kind of optimism. The naysayers pride themselves on their supposed realism. However, it is actually the people who see the glass as “half-empty” who are the ones wedded to a fiction, for “emptiness” and “lack,” like the “wall,” are abstractions of the mind, whereas “half-full” is a measure of the physical reality under discussion. The so-called optimist, then, is the only one attending to real things, the only one describing a substance that is actually in the glass.”

Zander, R.S. and Zander, B., 2000. The art of possibility. Harvard Business Press, p. 110.

Our becoming

Photo by Adrien Olichon on Pexels.com

“The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.” -Sheryl Strayed

It does seem hopeless at the end of days. The monotony, the constant chatter, the escape to the toilet as haven. The balancing of earner, partner, parent, daughter, coworker. How do you even carve a moment for self, other than sleep? But the mornings, the mornings are promises. Promises of opportunities and in the hush of the enrapturing chill I wake up and imagine the possibilities. Today is the day I will immerse in rapt attentiveness, segmented of course. All these little things, the witnessing of pencil grips, the figuring of codable action moves, the listening to “Hello, blankRoads”, the deciphering of crusts on or off, the caterpillar curves before students congregation virtually, spiraling towards human connection, futurising place health relationships. Slivers of our becoming.

Twenty-three

We have been officially sheltering-in place (my northern hemisphere counterparts) or adhering to Stage 3 pandemic advice and it finally happened. Deer in headlights the anklebiters didn’t know what hit them.

One in the kitchen, one in the living room, we’ve been attempting to manage an income. In the midst (for all they know, it is extended holiday play days), there they are amassed in the living room with a partial set of magnatiles and a partial set of stickle bricks.

“They are MINE.”

Enough said. On normal days that would roll over. For everyone, the storm has been brewing. For me it coalesced in that one moment. My head was hurling profanities but what I did say was an unprecedented ARE YOU KIDDING ME. The lil one looked at me with tears ready to burst as I admonished him into the other room. ARE YOU KIDDING ME as I pretty much tanty-ed and hurled wheels and stickle bricks at the lil ones feet. There’s a whole set here. WHY ARE YOU FIGHTING. Get out K, (WTF) are you doing here get back into the other room. “But I wanted to tell him something.”

And of course, the magnatiles and stickle bricks were abandoned in both localities for something else.

As I settled back to marking. 9AM and I hit the spritzer.

Love in the time of

My, what a world we find ourselves in. Novel Co-Vid 19 has travelled the world, vagabonded into the recesses of our surfaces and demanded that we retreat. And retreat we did. We are currently advised to practice social distancing of 1.5 metres and only allowed outside under four conditions (for food and supplies, exercise, medical care, work and education- if necessary). Gatherings of more than two people are banned. This is not the urban I, nor anyone, imagined.

The type of urban I do imagine is the generous way that children and neighbours have maintained incidental congeniality. From rainbow trails to bear hunts and egg gatherings to the simple evening perambulations, families find comfort in the simple message of Hello, we are in this together.

Bonus

Whilst reading this, it lightbulbed that by having a family, I have created my own book club. Sure, I am some years out but man, I can’t wait. Lord of the Flies, Catch 22, Don Quixote and yes, of Mice and Men.