A year a week

I started to write
a little jotting down to capture a particular week.
Two sentences and a list,
Abandoned.

A week later I returned and said it all

I lived an entire year in a single week.
A few more sentiments jotted down.

The same words scattered through dozens
of journals.

Fragmented glimpses through the
graveyard of my attempts to gather my thoughts
I am stressed
Frayed, Frazzled
a bit overwhelmed
off kilter
not centered
it’s all too much
I am standing in my own way.

These are often followed by determined words
I know what I need
Space
Time
Walks
To work out
Meditation
to eat right
a glass of water.

Occasional the more profound

But these all seem harder than searching the internet
for the magic
Acronym
Pill
Supplement
Treatment
Button
Which does not exist.

So I will recommit to
Walks
Working out
Meditating
A glass of water
giving myself the space and time.

So then I have lived an entire year in a week
and cannot understand
how time has passed so fast,
how I have done nothing, and never stopped doing.

A week ago my children were born
and now they are grown.

I think, I forgot to enjoy them,
I started to but them someone needed
to eat
to read
to wash their hands
to take a bath
to go to bed
to put on clothes
to get to school

and then we were fighting again.
 

Sometime passed while I just treaded water
trying to keep our heads from slipping into the dark depths.

I am fairly sure I forgot something along the way
to workout
to eat right
to save money
invest in myself
invest in my partner
enjoy my children
to clean my house.

I just can’t recall what it is.

January

The thing about January is that it is cold. No matter how bundled up against the weather you are, you cannot help but notice the cold. Walking through the glittering white from the house to the car there is no sound save the quiet crunch and squeak of boots against the cold hard snow and the high pitched whine of the gas meter measuring out in cubic feet our attempt to beat back the cold.

It is the stillness and silence of January which makes the cold ever apparent. There is no movement of nature. The birds are gone or huddled in quiet. Even the squirrels only venture out during the warmest few house of the day to raid bird feeders and scraps. Although in January we do get storms of ice and snow which make the branches creak and groan, most days in January even the trees are quiet.

It is not always gray and bleak, on the coldest days the thin January sun emerges and turns the whole world more glittering than any diamond. That is the irony of January, when it is the coldest of the year you must don your summer shades. Perhaps it is the reminder that even in the short cold days the future is bright, and summer is coming. (1.2.14)

cut-outs

The trees were black silhouettes against the rising dawn. That seemed fitting really, all the world within her reach was flat, like children’s cut outs. While the world beyond her, the heavens, were abloom with gradients from rose to indigo.

Hunting Season

The whispered hush of the winds in the trees built up into an insistence like the rush of a waterfall or the roar of a passing semi. This was punctuated by echoing booms, it was hunting season.