When I ask the brothers before we leave,
“Does anyone need to go potty?”
Abraham always takes exception.
“Mom! We’re young adults!
Don’t use that word, as if we’re three!
Say ‘bathroom’ instead.”
So I was pleased to inform him that
Not one, but two speakers
Used that word from the stage
At Funnel Hacking Live.
I fell asleep just after 1am.
Woke at 2:50 with a shockingly good idea.
And spent the rest of the night (minus one hour)
Resting in bed and
Plugging away.
Happy energy!
Phil came in and said,
“You look happy!
That’s good!”
I don’t normally feel
Unhappy.
But I did feel excited today.
Caleb woke me to tell me
That FedEx had delivered
Three boxes of books,
A promise of
Some stinkers
Some pleasure . . .
Maybe even some transformation.
A speaker said:
When you have hope,
You greet each day with
Anticipation,
Like a child who can hardly sleep
The night before
Christmas.
After six hours of listening without a break,
And a quick trip to get a salad,
That turned out to have an allergen,
I headed back to my room, completely and utterly enervated.
But on the way . . . a light show,
With fountains shooting and splashing,
A performance reliant on
Gravity, pressure, color, pause.
I sat, content for the
Grace administered.
When I told several dozen friends
I write a poem a day,
From that day on,
I stopped.
This is not an unknown pattern for me.
The way the slanting light struck the stream beside the road,
The way the trees dotted the road, but not too many,
The way the car curved back and forth
Triggered ebullient joy.
I needed to clear away piles set to go elsewhere.
I needed to remove the extra sweatshirts and clothes.
(How many of them were we really wearing, anyway?)
Then I needed to put boots on top of the bench.
All outgrown and broken footwear needed to go away.
I boxed up all random detritus from upper storage.
(Phil’s two spots I left alone. He can deal with them or not.)
I wiped down the obvious marks on the door, shook out the mats.
And I needed two days of retraining, for all shoes left out
To actually return to their storage place.
My front entry is entirely new.
Start at the front door,
With all visible surfaces.
For everything that’s out,
Ask, “Where would I look for this?”
And if you have no answer,
Ask, “If I needed this, would I think to look for it?”
Don’t make a mess as you go.
Throw away trash.
Donate obvious things.
Acknowledge that better is good enough,
And usually less is better.
For an hour and a half I watched movie clips.
Two movies I hadn’t seen,
Three I’d seen years ago.
I can’t believe I used to watch such things for fun.
And I woke up thinking about parts,
And it made me mad.
I like my own headspace,
Not that dictated by Hollywood,
Thank you very much.
Phil came home,
Vibrating with excitement
Over how wonderful our old car looks,
Newly detailed.
“Come and see!”
He also mentioned that there was a
Bleeding chicken in the pen,
And another missing,
And a bunch of feathers scattered on the ground.
When I went out, I saw the bleeding chicken,
And the feathers,
And missed sharing in my husband’s excitement.
Later, the missing chicken turned up.
But the missing magic moment
Of mutual celebration
Is gone forever.
