Category: Noticing Practice

Noticing.SeventyNine

Of taking thoughts captive, bread betrayal, and fake geek girlness.

  1. The phone vibrating on the end table pumps me too full of adrenaline to sleep longer. Grateful and annoyed.
  2. I pull out the thought slowly, careful not to leave any fragments behind. It emerges as a thick, black, ball of sludge dripping crimson in my fingers. I hand it to him. And suddenly, I can think of it out there rather than living it in here.
  3. I’m idly ruminating about Christmas. This week-to-week existence makes it simultaneously easier and so much harder to think about the future.
  4. We walk the aisles, dodging cosplayers and children and forty-year-olds in Naruto shirts, each of us marveling at different wonders, each of us immersed in the pure joy of the day, our cares and charges almost forgotten for a few precious hours.
  5. Indie vs mainstream. In vs out. Real vs fake.
  6. Seems I was right about bread triggering my low-grade cold symptoms. Crap. First caffeine, now this?!
  7. Their minds are so different from ours. Their world is so different.
  8. “I have a right to wear that shirt,” I say, laughing but serious. I did the time; I feel the love. But if quizzed on minutia, would they strip me of that right?
  9. Still full at bedtime from four slices at lunch, my body finally satiated after two hollow days.
  10. Where are those wagon wheels?

Noticing.SeventyEight

Of too much decaf, the curse of a vivid imagination, and bigfoot.

  1. I sleep in—way in—just to get the six hours I need to function. It might be caffeine’s day to visit.
  2. Underskin tremors, body gravity, low heaviness, powerful weakness. The sensations of waiting.
  3. I mentally skim the list and instinctively know there’s no way to get it all done. I mark what’s good (not what’s written largest), loosen my grip, and give it over.
  4. Tori Amos and the season of feelings.
  5. Four cups of coffee is too many, even when it’s decaf.
  6. We talk about titles, oversaturation, internet community, and how it feels when the thing is your thing but you don’t want to do the thing even though you know the thing is good.
  7. I pour out a pain that isn’t mine into a note on my phone with tears streaming and prayers whispered and a fugue over it all. I’m afraid to go back and read what I wrote. But what is it for?
  8. One day I won’t have panic attacks in the diaper aisle.
  9. I curl around her at the side of the bed, our foreheads touching, our breath synchronizing. The knot in my throat is made of memories of all the other times like this, made miniature and sticky with time.
  10. Oh, Dang! Bigfoot Stole My Car With My Friend’s Birthday Present Inside

Noticing.SeventySeven

Of benediction, memory, and tessellations.

  1. One solitary degree outside. An extra sweater. Peach tea in the coffee.
  2. They give me an apple, red and shining and perfect—a benediction. Go and do what you are made for. New teachers are always nervous.
  3. Artists ship.
  4. “Was that a story you just told me? About when I was a tiny baby?” “Yeah, baby.” “Why?” “Well, everything is a story, baby. Everything you do. Even when God made the world, he did it with a story.” “Wow….”
  5. I hate phoning it in. I could skip to catch up, but I’m enjoying doing something outside my usual. Something is better than nothing.
  6. She sits in my lap briefly at circle time, my arms wrapped around her not-so-little-anymore body. I sense her growing strength, her growing understanding, her growing up. I squeeze her too hard and she squirms away, sensing only adventure.
  7. Tessellations of people.
  8. I champion the virtues of the internet, of social media. They champion the virtues of my voice, of my call.
  9. “What is time for?”
  10. We stay up far too late talking about what he saw, heard, learned. I’m bleary and fading but can’t leave the moment of witnessing his transformation.

Noticing.SeventySix

Of arid eyeballs, shifting schedules, and nerd nights.

  1. A ball of light explodes over the treeline just as I wake up. For a moment, I’m afraid—there’s no thunder, is it time?—but I shunt it aside, grab my clothes, and head downstairs. If it is the end, I’d like to be dressed.
  2. Nothing quite like waking up with a very dry eye and discovering that both bottles of drops are expired.
  3. I don’t want to ask him. How do I even start?
  4. Dutifully searching but uninterested.
  5. No matter how I schedule my day, afternoons always end up in appointments. I’m more intrigued than annoyed.
  6. We talk about creating your own niche, dreams (that kind you’re given, not the kind you make up yourself), cultural misunderstandings, community exclusion, and the nature of chaos. You know, normal stuff.
  7. Further up, further in.
  8. Another flash of insight on the treadmill. If I’m not careful, this could become a habit.
  9. What if I started with just one per month?
  10. Monster Factory and Donkey Kong Country. Nerd date night at home.

Noticing.SeventyFive

Of risking being seen, poor laundry skills, and music to work to.

  1. I hate the darkness that haunted me more when I see it in others than I did in myself.
  2. Emails sent with nervous hands. Stepping out of the comfort of shadows and into the risk of light.
  3. Time to admit the winter.
  4. We have to go home after an hour to face the consequences of her choices. I observe my own anger from a distance, reminding myself that consistency and word-keeping pay off. Eventually.
  5. Pretty sure I ruined that pillow.
  6. Everyone’s in a bad mood, our individual moods feeding off each other and growing into one giant mood that threatens to take down the house. So I go out.
  7. Skull: the foundation material of the greatest creation.
  8. Released. (Shit, now what?)
  9. I wish I could fix it for him. I wish I could slip my hand between his ribs and winnow out the sadness from his heart with my fingertips, then watch his face soften and smooth as peace fills in the gaps.
  10. LoFiChillHopCatchUp