I woke up too early. Today, I need to walk Teddy, to get milk and my library holds, and to find a way to get enough sleep. Today, I need to work with my two reluctant students at their house and find a seat in the library for me to meet with another student who seems to care about her work.
I'm cold. I'm always cold in the morning after I drink my smoothie. I can imagine how my cells feel, expecting something to keep them warm, some carbohydrates to burn, but I don't give them many in the morning. Plus, I give them cold food, something with nine ice cubes. It's so disappointing to them. They consider going to the cabinet that is the fat they've stored on my butt and eating some of that, but it's like they've stood in front of the open door of my butt-fridge and there's nothing they want to eat in there. They just want to order pizza and have it delivered straight to the couch.
Do you think my cells are just too lazy to cook what they've already got in the fridge? That's about the time every morning when I just want to crawl back into bed and sleep. I could give them caffeine to rev them up for the day, but I hold off on that until I really need it, when I'm about to leave for work.
Last night, I dreamed I couldn't find the spot in the library to work with my students. Can you believe that's what I'm worried about? Plus, I had to work with all the students that I swore I wouldn't bring with me. Will I run into them and their parents at the library? Will they realize that I rejected them? Will I have to face all these people I don't want to see any more as I make my new office at the library?
I probably will. And there will probably be days when I can't find a table just like in my dream. And I'll run into my old coworker whose name I'm sick of hearing in my mind, you know, they guy who was the reason I quit my old job.
I also dreamed I didn't know what to write on my daily work sheets.
Oh, I worry about what I'm going to do with my students. I didn't have to worry about that before when curriculum was provided, but I went off the curriculum so many times, I should feel a relief. Math is easy. I can work in the textbooks for math and find worksheets, but reading and writing? Is it enough for us to read and write?
Oh, I have my list of exercises. It's an amazing list. I just have to figure out what we're going to do next. I can relax.
But I don't.
This morning, I woke up with a feeling, that feeling that if I can't do one true thing in my lifetime, what is anything worth?
My lemon meringue pie is true. It is. I put my heart into lemon meringue pie.
So, what do I do that is authentic, so true that I can't fault myself for faking it?
Calzones
Pie
Reading books
Writing? I feel like I've been faking it with my writing lately. I can sit here and look out my living room window at the dark greens and browns of my winter landscape and feel like I'm cheating you. Am I really doing this the way I should? Am I putting my heart into it?
I can tell I’m exhausted. I've been wondering what I really want to do lately. I want to take an art class. I can feel that, but not enough to sign up for one.
Do I want to write? It's my go-to thing to do, but do I really want to keep doing it? So many times when I get a chance to finish my little cat book, I don't. Why?
Because nobody wants it. It feels futile to keep going when nobody wants a thing.
And yet, if it's true, then I should finish creating it anyway. I should because it is an authentic creative act.
Is it true?
Sometimes, I don't think it is until I go back to reading it and it makes me laugh and it makes me cry. It does. Isn't that the definition of a work that is true? Somehow, this book has gotten a shadow of sadness over it, for being pathetic and worthless, until I open up the pages and remember what's there and I love it all over again. The shadow is from the agents' doubt, the ones who didn't read any part of it. The shadow is the looks on my friends' faces, the ones who haven't read it, who have no intention to ever read it. That shadow is my despair over the lonely fate of my sweet little book.
Even though I still believe it is one true thing.
What do you do that is true?
Thank you for listening, jules