tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38677220471546809212024-03-11T09:36:37.286-06:00Wrap your head with this material...I ski, teach, parent, write, read, swim, adventure. I get lost in my own mind, chewing on words and images. Sometimes something good comes out.Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.comBlogger489125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-29281464446451650172024-03-11T09:35:00.005-06:002024-03-11T09:35:58.138-06:00<p> Me standing in front of the high school admin assistant: It feels like there's something in my shoe.</p><p>Me: Probably there <i>is</i> something in my shoe.</p><p>Me: (takes shoe off and checks) It is a tiny piece of dog food. Awesome, I love when I do something like this in front of another person.</p><p>Admin Assistant: I'm surprised the dog didn't eat the shoe<br />Me: Me too</p><p>What I didn't say is that I'm surprised I walked around on a piece of dog food for the last 2 hours. Or am I?</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-13737638897805096632023-10-18T21:01:00.001-06:002023-10-18T21:01:18.277-06:00<p>At bedtime last night, my 10 year-old asked me to stay extra long in his room. He was teary and said he couldn't stop thinking about dying. He couldn't stop thinking that, at the end of his life, he'd feel like it had all gone by so fast that when he died it would all mean nothing. Can you imagine? 10 years old. Full existential crisis.</p><p>So I held him and stayed extra long. I could tell you the things I said to him, and they were good and they helped. But the truth is, he's got a point. It's one that I don't subscribe to, but I do think his observations are astute and more well-reasoned than a 10-year-old should have to face. His view is a fair one albeit bleak. And the idea that he grapples with it definitely put a large crack in my heart last night.</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-402623573161226332023-10-04T12:33:00.001-06:002023-10-04T12:33:29.932-06:00<p> Monday I went to pick up our mail at the post office. The postal worker was blocking the path to my box with a giant blue roller bin of packages she was putting into the center aisle lockers so I joked, "if that's blocking the path to my box, does that mean I get a ride in it?"</p><p>She popped up from behind it and smiled, rolling it out of my way. "I don't see why not," she joked back.</p><p>I grabbed my mail then looked at the roller bin, looked at her, looked at the roller bin, and jumped on. She pushed me to the end of the aisle and stopped. I giggled away, running into someone I work with on the way to the line to retrieve packages.</p><p>"Who says the post office can't be fun?"</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-64971646588354099532023-09-21T12:00:00.001-06:002023-09-21T12:00:01.887-06:00<p> I used to always think the best thing I had to offer was fun. I'm a shitton of fun. During quarantine, I had students make sock puppets and do a lipsynch battle. I once let my kids sit on the roof of the car while I pulled up the driveway. I sing loud even at stoplights with the windows down. I am always thinking of games, texting funny pictures, saying weird stuff to make people laugh. I make myself happy nearly every day with silliness.</p><p>But once when I said that was the best thing I have to offer, my husband disagreed. I didn't know what to make of it. I thought he was wrong. I was kinda mad actually. Why didn't he think the best thing about me was the best thing about me? Maybe he didn't <i>get </i>me. </p><p>But more than a year later, I don't think that's it at all. I'm not actually sure what he thinks it is and I'm still not sure if he's right. The fun part is pretty uniquely me and I really like it about myself. But maybe the fun part is the part that's the easiest to find and easiest to like about me. Perhaps he's right that the easiest part to like isn't really the best part though.</p><p>Maybe the best part of me is a little deeper than that and maybe, he knew it all along. Maybe the ways I grow compassion for others, the ways I am present for people, the way I can really see people's value is the best part. I have a pretty solid knack for seeing someone deeply and finding a kernel of what make them them and liking them. </p><p>When I'm looking closely at the people I see often, I'm looking at what I love about them. I am learning their faces so I can love their faces. I am imagining being in their shoes and what I'd want someone to say to me if I were struggling with whatever they are struggling with. I am seeing their strength and thinking of things that will make them feel their strength. Maybe this is what's best about me.</p><p>If I'm honest though, I wish it were my writing. My hope is to someday match that ability to deeply see the value of others with finely honed writing skill to make that the best thing I have to offer. </p><p>I'm writing every day and the book I'm working on has the most potential of anything I've ever written. If I can execute it well, it will be a great story. I mean, a <i>great</i> story. Fingers crossed.</p><p>In the meantime, I spent a few minutes consider what things excite me and bring me an instant jolt of joy. Those things' shine never dulls; I am consistently delighted by them. This is a list of those things:</p><p>1. Hugs from my kids</p><p>2. The sight of Red and Buffalo peaks from Lake Dillon, especially but also from Ptarmigan trail.</p><p>3. Seeing fish jump.</p><p>4. Seeing a shooting star,</p><p>5. Seeing moose, bald eagles, otters, and fox. Seeing any new animal I've never seen before.</p><p>6. Getting a cat to jump after a toy or my hand under a blanket.</p><p>7. Jumping into water whether flipping or diving or jumping off a rope swing.</p><p>8. Someone telling me a reason they like my kid.</p><p>9. Ripping paper off a present.</p><p>10. Popping bubble wrap</p><p><br /></p><p>And finally, an anecdote you may already know is that one time I had a bubble wrap party. I managed to acquire four 5-foot industrial rolls of bubble wrap and emptied a room out of my mother's house and we wrestled in bubble wrap. I am a shitton of fun.</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-14552537596297583832023-08-20T15:55:00.007-06:002023-08-20T15:55:50.920-06:00What makes you unique?<p>At the end of the first day of school, I was in a 2nd grade classroom where the teacher asked each child "What makes you shine, what makes you glow, what makes you special, what makes you unique?"</p><p>One kid yells out, "I was born with a tail."</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-69139351086820189392023-08-11T08:31:00.001-06:002023-08-11T08:31:00.135-06:00Positive Sweep<p>One of my sons sprained his wrist, the other broke his. One cast. One brace. I nearly cried about the lost swimming time at the end of the summer. We haven't even been to Waterworld yet! Unheard of.</p><p>I bet my son ice cream that he wouldn't need a cast. I knew he probably would. I didn't want to win a bet so much as to cushion the frustrations and disappointments of spending the rest of summer in a cast. And let's be honest, I wanted to go out for ice cream. Win, win. He wasn't even all that upset in the end. He said that at least we still get to spend time together and at least we spent so much time on the river earlier in the summer and that it's really not so bad. He's usually the reactive one and I'm usually the positive sweep. I'm proud that there's nothing wrong with his broom.</p><p>We also bought them Nintendo Sports to play with one hand. It's really pretty fun. Especially once my younger son figured out that he could take it outside and play it <i>through</i> the window while jumping on the trampoline.</p><p>"Do you want to try, Mom?"</p><p>Yes, yes I do.</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-77711851635052437242023-08-10T15:25:00.001-06:002023-08-11T09:10:55.264-06:00I wonder about the capillary action of our lives, which actions taken in small micromotions that move a nutrient or two here or there add up to be an entire system of goodness delivery. Noticing the house finch's shadow when it passes, feeling the pellets of cold rain on your face and running anyway, the wink at a bored toddler in her stroller, the moment to squeal about a former coworker's baby instead of saying you have a meeting.<div><br /></div><div>The way the feeling of participation is like the blood flow that travels into our tissues, simply diffusing itself into smaller and smaller pathways. Connecting our tissues to each other. It is in actions. Is it these small ones? </div><div><br /></div><div>I judge people on whether they pick up trash as they walk or if they look at it, and choose to leave it. Though perhaps <i>judge</i> isn't the word. I judge outright littering. But picking up the litter of others, I notice. The people who never litter, who pick things up and put them away even when they don't have to, it's not their responsibility to, those are the people that are our capillaries. The people who see a dirty table and just get a rag and wipe it off. The people who notice when a child is sitting alone and find a way to bring that child into the fold. <div><br /></div><div>Yesterday I helped a family who only spoke Spanish. I explained a number of things about registering for school in Spanish and I was pleasantly surprised at how many things I could coherently explain. <i>The office staff is in a presentation and will be back in a couple of hours, they only do this once a year and otherwise they'd be here to help you register. You son will great here. Which town do you live in, oh me, too. And so on. Nice to meet you. Welcome!</i></div><div> </div><div>It's good to be home, in my community, welcoming people and helping. I missed it here. I missed my mountains, the majestic, gray-peaked ones that dot the scene around the lake, like diamonds on a strand around the neck of a queen. I love this beautiful land. I love seeing all the people I know, the people whose imperfections and whose kindnesses I know. I love feeling the sense of self and belonging of this place. I love the lake and the flowers and the cold summer nights. I wonder if my loving this place so much and for so long has become the capillary action of my own internal spiritual ecosystem. It feels like my fingertips are getting what they need.</div></div>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-32077331125157319192023-06-25T10:50:00.003-06:002023-06-25T10:50:43.955-06:00And this is why you do and why you don't ask if your kid likes girls<p> Yesterday while pumping up watercraft to go paddling, my husband pointed out a girl on a inner tube box and was like, "When I was 9, I would've been like, "I hope she's gonna teach me how to swim."" </p><p>I wondered if our 10 year old liked girls and my husband was like, "he sure isn't going to tell us if he does, but probably."</p><p>Taking matters into my own dumb voice, I was like, "hey, do you get all nervous and excited and like girls like the girl on this box?"</p><p>He mostly avoided eye contact or glared so I further clarified, "I mean, I'm just curious if you like girls, you know, like, like them-like them?"</p><p>And he goes, "your curiosities are my insecurities." <br /><br /></p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-78614037115376781502023-06-14T09:48:00.003-06:002023-06-14T09:48:32.133-06:00<p> Theoretically, you can cook a chicken by slapping it. Yes, my 10 year-old started me down an internet rabbit hole looking into that and it turns out to be true. </p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-90120227502922389822023-02-24T18:18:00.001-07:002023-02-24T18:18:21.444-07:00<p> I'm always trying to remember to be awesome, to do awesome things. The main awesome thing I do regularly is ski. But I come up with other ideas too and some of them I even do. </p><p>Today the kids and I went and picked out pictures from the thrift store we planned to paint partly over or ink marker into our own designs. One kid picked a leopard lounging and made the background the word "hug" repeated in various shades of purple all over. My other son picked out a watercolor of teddy bears he intended to makeover as creepy bears. It's been a pretty fun afternoon of it. Alcohol ink and markers everywhere. I drag a waterproof mattress pad over the table for this kind of activity and there's something about spreading out ideas on the large, protected table that gives me a sense of plenty. And it's less about the product and more about carrying out an idea. In my very long dryspell of not writing much, and publishing exactly nothing, I'm finding a creative lifeline in these outlets. I hope you are making awesome happen in your world too.</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-23344775654926611952022-12-25T13:35:00.005-07:002023-01-14T10:17:04.327-07:00Some dumb stuff that was funny from our Christmas<p> We went to St. Louis. While in St. Louis, we stayed at a variety of family and friends' houses but set up our primary base at Rob's parents' house. One night when we were going to stay at our friend's house, I told the kids to pack overnight bags. </p><p>Upon arrival one kid goes, "Did you grab my bag?" </p><p>And I was like, what the hell? No. Why didn't you get your bag? Why would you think <i>I </i>should grab your bag? You are plenty old enough to both pack and carry a plastic bag of clothes? </p><p>And then the <i>other </i>kid goes, "Oh, I didn't <i>pack</i> a bag."</p><p>WHAT?!</p><p>"I didn't have any clean clothes so I just didn't pack one."</p><p>"But...toothbrush and also YOUR CLEAN CLOTHES THAT I TOLD YOU ABOUT WERE IN A LAUNDRY BASKET FOLDED AT YOUR STUPIDLY PRIVILEGED FEET!" </p><p>Okay, that's not exactly what I said. But I thought something like it. </p><p>One of the idiot-genius offspring of mine in the previous story also once arrived to the hot springs wearing...no SHOES. Like, he, for real, left the house without SHOES on.</p><p>Same kid on the drive the airport reveals that he had not used toothpaste the entire week we'd been gone because...he didn't bring any. No, he had not considered that he was at his Grandparent's four-bathroom house that had MULTIPLE extra tubes. Worse still, his brother who he was sharing a bathroom with goes, "you could've used mine."</p><p>And duh, yeah, he could have used any of ours.</p><p><br /></p><p>But probably I win for dumbest move on the trip.</p><p>For when I started a load of laundry less than an hour before we were to go to the airport? No. And yes, said-load of laundry remains in St. Louis. And yes, I am a dumb, dumb, time-optimist.</p><p><br /></p><p>But no, the thing I did was this:</p><p>I was at my friend's house and she wanted to show me some shoes she was excited about. And boy, were they exciting. I mean, the heels were clear with a screw inside and the fronts also had heels, or I guess those are called platforms? and not heels...or something. I don't know. I know ski boots; not heels.</p><p>The shoes sparkled and were shiny and high and I was like, "somewhere there's a drag queen exists would absolutely beat you up for these and then be real disappointed not to have like a size 5 shoe." My friend is small. And yes, the size of said-friend is relevant. Also relevant is how the temperature was dropping. These pieces of information matter because...physics.</p><p>So anyway, after looking at the very shiny shoes, and feeling exTREMEly excited to see my super-fun small friend, I look up to see... a pole-dancing pole in her room. </p><p>It was chrome.</p><p>It was shiny.</p><p>It was center mounted to the room with nothing around it and I was like, "WAHATT!!!!? Is that ATTACHED?"</p><p>She replied, "yes," and then I guess she said something else about how it attached or something but I heard none of that because I was looking for a safe spot to set my drink down. </p><p>After putting my beer on a dresser, I looked up and didn't think, AT ALL, before launching my entire weight into a spin on the pole, feet tucked up, legs grabbing. </p><p>I'm plenty strong for this. I am plenty coordinated for this. I had also just been doing a push-up challenge and had spent a couple of days doing some really ridiculous physical activities like playing zombie tag and going to playgrounds. It <i>could</i> have been fine.</p><p>Especially if I had heard the rest of what she said before spinning the pole clean off the ceiling. I made it 270 degrees before it crashed down with me still firmly attached. Like I was one of those pencil decorations, perhaps a sloth or a koala.</p><p>Simultaneously, her spouse downstairs, who is my husband's bestie was like "it's about to get crazy up here." This was followed seconds later by the noise of the pole crashing with me centrivically attached to it. Thus his prediction was instantaneously confirmed like he was a motherfucking genie or something.</p><p>Also, one of my children has been asserting that Spiderman is essentially an excuse for there to be a pole dancing super hero and I was proving him right.</p><p>I'm Spiderwoman! On top of a pencil.</p><p>But when the temperature drops and a pole is tension-mounted you should probably hear everything someone says about how a pole <i>is</i> attached. Apparently, you should check it before use and increase the weight gradually because with temperature fluctuations, sometimes the tension-mounting mechanism is no longer tense enough. Think of the shower curtain rod but with me attached to it and spinning around a room when the curtain crashed down.</p><p>I'll cut through that shit just like tension butter!</p><p><br /></p><p>On the way home from the airport (which, because of the move, is now a 4-hour drive,) we had to stop for the kids to use the bathroom. </p><p>Upon returning to the car from his pit stop, Gavin exhaled loudly and was like, "well, this is what happened in the bathroom. I went in and thought it was Magnus in the bathroom and I go, "Bro, you're <i>pooping</i>?" and then a minute later this deep voice goes "...yeah..."</p><p>And while I'm cackling and out of breath, Rob asked if Gavin had told the guy he'd thought that was his brother. Gavin was like, "no, I just got out of there as fast as possible."</p><p><br /></p><p>For Christmas we made a video and I'll see if I can post it along with the fabulous super hero concepts my son has made like stripper-spiderman. But it's fifty-fifty whether that'll work out. The video was us singing "I saw three ships come sailing in on Christmas day in the morning" over the visual of our folded paper boats in the giant, jetted bathtub and then some other awesomeness ensued involving sticky-ninjas and lego, attack-ships, except I dropped my phone in the tub as I finished filming; so I'll check on these things after phone completes its rice treatment and get back to you.</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-39894525362042281292022-12-13T22:19:00.032-07:002023-01-15T07:47:23.801-07:00<p>Do you sometimes forget to kick ass?</p><p>Like it's supposed to be riding a bike and you're supposed to just get on there and ride around like it's nothing but you--unlike everyone else in the adage, who say it's-like-riding-a-bike--have somehow forgotten how the bike works and are scared now?</p><p>Ahem, me neither.</p><p>We moved and I hadn't done that in a lot, <i>a lot</i> of years. The last time I did it, I made friends instantly and am still friends with a fair number of those people. It was also before I got married and before I had kids.</p><p>Bizarrely, I still feel like fundamentally the same person. I still light up about snow and just about die of excitement about a powder day. I jam out to music and dance too vigorously at red lights. I haven't stopped playing board games and liking puzzles.</p><p>An aside: the Spanish word for puzzles, "rumpecabezas," means broken head. Like, the idea was hard and my head broke. Spanish is so awesome.</p><p>For comparison, the German concept people love to talk about so much "Schadenfreude" translates to sadness pleasure or sadness satisfaction (but slightly more positive than satisfaction.)</p><p>And I do love the logical, calming, sensible way the German language works. It just makes so much danged sense.</p><p>But c'mon, rumpecabezas? And if you heard it spoken aloud, it sounds like children rolling down a hill for the first time. How can you not assume Spanish-speakers are having all the fun?</p><p>I watched a Spanish-speaking kid in kindergarten this morning. He could be so frustrated by the insanity of what's going on on a daily basis in that kindergarten class. Instead, he just hugs the girl next to him. He didn't break the head but hugged a neighbor instead.</p><p>What was I talking about?</p><p>Right, we moved and it's not going super awesome.</p><p>I took a job that seemed like an exciting dreamjob in terms of growth and focus on the things I care about. I went in stoked to support teachers loving teaching reading, and a desire to grow kids' reading. I wanted to show them they can have joy and fun and that reading is a truly unifying community-builder in a school.</p><p>But somewhere along the line of trying to get oriented to the new people and the new building and the new routines and grants and the state and trainings, plus playground rules and personalities, it just kinda got blurry and maybe fell apart. The job isn't all that I'd hoped for. No job is, but this has been really something awful. Like, next level. </p><p>Still though.</p><p>I know how to kick ass.</p><p>I've lost some of my waistline but my game has nothing but improved. I'm a kickass teacher. I know how to make my expectations clear while making them feel welcome, and I also teach them things. I know how to make them feel seen and then to inspire them. I know how to <i>love</i> being myself.</p><p>No new boss or bullshit is really up for debate when I remember to kick ass.</p><p>One of the difficulties has been some mental health stuff. I always struggle with this part. What is private of another person's, and when do I get to just not worry about the WASPY privacy thing and just be honest about challenges? When do I get to be open about a thing and unapologetically be all-in for a person by being open about how awesome the struggle is?</p><p>I guess it's not time yet and the reality is, this just isn't mine to determine. So the answer is not now.</p><p>But a timid approach doesn't quite fit me. I do like to sit back and take in, but it would be a mistake to misunderstand that for timidity or passivity. </p><p>During shutdown, I did a puppetshow lipsync battle over zoom. My kids turned in pictures of their pets doing homework and everyone did it even though it was for zero points. We crashed another class to sing them songs and then did that class's activity. I am the queen of fun. I came to kickass. I remember now. Oh, and I don't even like riding bikes. I like to do backflips off the diving board. </p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-14429144454230255562022-09-30T17:20:00.004-06:002022-10-02T09:51:30.884-06:00<p><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s a rhythm to the seasons that I’ve gotten used to over the years. When I crest a mountain trail in late September, the leaves are just a smidge past their prime, the brush is burnt orange and </span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">desiccating</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and my hair is the dried grass, my eyes the crisp of a blue autumn sky. I am in-step with this life’s rhythm. </span></span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-c2f8c65f-7fff-5579-6392-cdec4119ac4d"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Having moved, further away, to a lower altitude, I miss the timing by a quarter of a step. Fifteen or 20 days off, I am left nostalgic for other falls when I crested the same hill I have for 8 or 10 or 15 years. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Missing the familiar way it caught my eye and inspired my heart. Yet it weighed me down too. I couldn’t keep doing the same things over and over again. So I moved on. Reminded myself of my gypsy-soul and how I’ve always yearned to keep my feet moving, keep living new places, breathing new scents, seeing new wildlife, drinking in new vistas.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stagnating so long in one beautiful place, I have forgotten the fearlessness of new places, the exhilaration of chasing all that’s new.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here now, I am torn between the yearning I feel for the familiar changes of September, and the exhilaration of this new place with its longer season, warmer fall, when it has not yet snowed and the leaves are just now turning. Stimulated by the newness of this place, the joy of different mountains that spread views farther and wider, with a broader palate of clouds splayed before me. My soul sprawls and expands here. And with the new room to spread out, it breathes a sigh of relief. There is opportunity. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Space.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The rain drops are bigger, their patter louder, drowning out more of what I couldn’t stop hearing before. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And yet. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is still autumn. The leaves are still changing. My knee hurts the way it does this time of year. My regrets are the same as they were when the beat of my life was a quarter off what it is today. My insecurities are not gone. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My choice is more visible though. I have chosen this reset. How will I set my attention? On this new experience? Will I put my energy forward the way I mean to? Or are the background noises simply different? Is this a cover of my same life’s song?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I believe the bridge has arrived. The soundscape of this fall’s sky will set me right if I set the metronome with intention.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To go into the world and live deliberately. To examine what life has to offer. To not, when I face death, rue an unexamined life. Not regret the songs I never sang. Instead, to belt it all out; to soar.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-17698293255030814062022-06-02T23:02:00.004-06:002022-06-02T23:02:43.312-06:00I like turtles<p> Gavin got his adenoids out today. When the wooo-whoo meds hit, I was like, "Gavin, you're going to tell me all your secrets now," as a joke.</p><p>He had that misty, dazed look and goes, "I'm gonna tell you my deepest darkest secret." He pauses for dramatic effect and then whispers, "I like turtles."</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-13013540582685321552022-05-26T09:03:00.001-06:002022-05-26T09:03:21.234-06:00<p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sometimes when I want to read, I can't. I fill with distaste and disdain for each book I pick up, because none of it is Maya Angelou, or Toni Morrison, or the literary meal I need to sate my soul's craving for meaning and a cosmic guide for that moment in life.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The problem with the book I’m reading isn’t the story. It’s the problem of my living. The rote nature of it. The sentences– simple declaratives, the tasks –things that get struck from a list, done and redone.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Remember? See it? Done.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Life. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Life is not merely written down like any other list of things not to be forgotten, but witnessed so never forgotten </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">even after memory failed to hit record, </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">because a day was witnessed at its onset </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">is the answer.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s the lack of feeling mornings, not the story of what happened.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The lack of witnessing.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mornings, that time of awakening at </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">t</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">he birth of the world </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">watch an egret’s legs in water, slender limbs glistening beneath a cool tide pool surface</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">barely moved in the stillness of a day that has never happened before. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The sunrise imminent,</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> the lack of toes in water, </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">the watching, </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">the waiting </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">for sunlight to crest and </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">for beak to breach, </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">the skewering of a life has not yet occurred. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Failures are forever away and there is only </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">time </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">encapsulated in</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> the watching of a moment.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-406bf739-7fff-dfc3-79ff-387c1e59f9a8"></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I will swallow my morning pills, read the words, do my deeds, but first, first, I must watch.</span></span></p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-17322076100907922202022-04-04T12:03:00.002-06:002022-04-06T15:04:33.388-06:00<p>Rob was talking about how a presenter at a conference he was at hadn't seen him until she was mid-slide. She interrupted her presentation and said, "Hi Rob. You still look young even with the gray hair."</p><p>The kids picked up the rope and Gavin argued, "Mom looks way younger than Dad."</p><p>Magnus whispered, "she has more wrinkles though."</p><p>"That's cuz she <i>smiles</i> more, no offense Dad."</p><p>I've always known I'd have great laugh lines because I smile a lot. And now I do.</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-82984404598415852162022-02-21T11:55:00.003-07:002022-02-21T11:55:46.854-07:00<p>Rumi said to treat each morning like a new arrival to ourselves as if we are a <a href="https://allpoetry.com/poem/8534703-The-Guest-House-by-Mewlana-Jalaluddin-Rumi">guest house</a>. A day may bring darkness that sweeps us of our furniture and destroys parts but doing so makes room for another guest. Another morning. </p><p>I wonder if we treated this life like a Meow Wolf exhibit imbued with fervent curiosity, would that work just as well? Here wonders expand us and allow our minds to be at once separate yet converging on a moment of experience. </p><p>You are here. </p><p>I will die. </p><p>We are here. </p><p>We will cry. </p><p>Not denying the fear of death/misfortune/endings but not avoiding either. Enthusiasm and curiosity, a drive to see and touch and feel the bright colors drives forward. It all compels you too. Forward from room to room. Open the sky. </p><p>Treat each moment like an experience that has a place and allow it to expand us, to be curious about it. Where does regret live in my body? Does it have weight or zip? Tendrils or a forcefield? How does it vibrate my body to bits or shake me to feel how my edges <i>do</i> hold.</p><p>What color is the mourning of our love? </p><p>What refraction is its waking? </p><p>How do I walk while holding your hand in my pocket and feel my own rhythm on a journey where you are beside me always? </p><p>I never let go, not really. </p><p>Your sweat is in my palm, your print is on my finger.</p><p>Yet when I cut myself, I feel the beat of my drumbeat heart. My pain's thudding rhythm.</p><p>I'm right here, even when you're there in another room, just through those plastic gray industrial refrigerator flaps. It's not another world. We're together. We're a convergence of different and same, waking up on a Monday morning.</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-71055011942836643052021-12-27T09:57:00.009-07:002021-12-27T12:40:03.938-07:00Silver Hot Pink Christmas<p> For Christmas, I found my first silver hair, then more and more and more of them. They're hard to detect in the ash blonde surrounding them, but they're there. I saw them in the fluorescent hotel bathroom in Mexico.</p><p>I have two reactions.</p><p>I am elated at the idea of winning the hair lottery with first a beautiful color of blonde hair followed by the best color of gray. </p><p>And I am thrown by the idea of not being blonde and the way it chucks my identity around like I've just found myself in a rock tumbler. 10 years is what it takes to go gray. 10 years bouncing around, aging to old. </p><p>What if you don't recognize me or think I'm beautiful anymore? What if it means you don't know me? And the most bizarre is the idea that I don't know this self I am set to become. I'm the person who still jumps off cliffs and dances and blares music. </p><p>How do I reconcile that concept of self with a silver haired woman? I'm not cute and quiet and docile. I don't bake cookies. I eat raw dough from the fridge in the middle of the night in stolen moon hours. </p><p>I guess I'll have to find a way to make this me. I have a bit of time to congeal the new, older me. Or maybe a more likely reaction is to dye it purple and give hotel, florescent lights the middle finger. Or HOT PINK</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-15965255183967787502021-12-21T12:43:00.004-07:002021-12-21T20:21:15.150-07:00<p> We're in Mexico. The kids are watching TV.</p><p>"Is that a soap opera?"</p><p>"No, it's The Smurfs!"</p><p> </p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-44361124170245078182021-11-27T11:50:00.002-07:002021-11-27T11:50:16.538-07:00<p> I'm writing again and it's good to be in another world in my mind. I build it from scraps that interest me. A sound wave I ride into another 3D world created by sounds themselves. </p><p>Climb a tree with giant knots and consider how your foot fits into its crooks and know the reds in its bark even though you never left the library. I smell the cedar. </p><p>Anywhere's exactly where I needed to be for the story to come free. Sometimes I hunt factoids and digest them instead of weaving them in. Sometimes, I put them in a box to save for wrapping up just right in story and language. Tissue paper placed just so, box-lid laid down slow. And don't forget the bow.</p><p>This tale I'm weaving is becoming a scarf over my head protecting me from thinking too much about the unraveling world around me. I will pull you in, give you a cup of hot story tea, and you'll drink down the magic wending its way through these threads. I have lost myself entirely here and good riddance too. Attachment to the self is a lie anyway. Better to be rid of such constraints and allow your mind to sail on a wilder river. I am a water creature after all. At least for today.</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-56412785789074400602021-06-19T16:02:00.002-06:002021-06-19T16:02:15.551-06:00<p> I wonder if I can delete myself from existence. I wouldn't have thought so but since deleting social media and then losing my job and not checking email, not needing to do things, I kind of wonder. My days have no bustle to their beginnings now, no one needs a thing. I made whole life plans that grew and built and tumbled just as quickly and it made not a dent in the world of downward turned heads, necks not even sore from staring at phones. I never bothered to tell most people I wanted to move, I was interviewing for jobs, I was thinking of leaving my life.</p><p>No one ever knows what's happening with me now other than the people who live in my house and obviously there are days when they don't either. They have their lives and I don't need to share what is happening in mine. I watch theirs turn like the pedals on bike spokes and I sip coffee, watching. Sometimes the quiet and anonymity of that feels good, freeing, calm. Other times I realize that my quiet affects no one. If I make not a blip, no one notices and so I know there's a truth of how I do not actually matter. </p><p>It's a bit of an existentialist dilemma. Life is meaningless and you die. The teenagers in my classes loved talking about that even though they often grew quiet and weren't quite sure what to say, like you'd caught a thought they had in a net and showed it to them. It caught their breath midair. The idea that life is meaningless and then you die feels like our culture had a teenaged temper tantrum. Like it's bigger and louder and more frightening that anything actually real. It'll settle down in a moment and take a nap. It won't last.</p><p>And what I know of my own existence's meaning is that even if it doesn't objectively matter, it matters to me. Even if my life is meaningless and then I die, I like being alive and enjoy being a body observing the way leaves flow in a breeze, the sound of maples as a wind swooshes through branches is like the way my hair flows when I turn it back and forth under water in the bathtub. I can do that for long thick moments. I like that. I want to live in viscosity. I mean, not always, obviously. Sometimes I'd blip myself out of existence for a bit.</p><p>When I got none of the jobs I interviewed for and then found myself stuck with a life that wasn't exactly what I was aiming for, there was part of me that wanted to curl up around a gun and let it rip me out of that situation, tear my viscera apart. Not that I was suicidal even though I know it sounds that way, but more that the thought experiment of it would flit across my consciousness. But I am too vain, too selfish for that sort of giving in. I still hope to matter. I still hope to do something great. Write a great book, really. And even if I don't, I like so many parts of life that I'd not give up over this hiccup.</p><p>I like to watch the world and see connections. To view the striations in rock and imagine how they are like a petrified trunk from a time when trees were thicker, wide as rivers, tall as mountains. I like to stare into a tiny of puddle of water and watch a waterbug's shadow at the bottom, with rings of rainbows as it dances its circles. To watch for the rupture of a tent caterpillar's silken nest to see them all freed to gravity and an uncertain and ravenous future.</p><p>Still, this reforming I'm currently doing, it is lonely and also not. I wonder if I even really want to be around others. I find them overwhelming. Sometimes other people, <i>any</i> other people, overwhelm me. Then I feel like the lonesomeness of this time is a deep breath I can enjoy. I don't need anyone else's thoughts on it. So perhaps I will delete all my online presence soon. Delete my goodreads, this blog and any others. Maybe I'll no longer have email. Maybe I'll delete myself from all digital space and see how it feels to journal only in sand where the wind will take my words almost as soon as they form. </p><p>Maybe</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-8861429391370524902021-06-04T12:23:00.004-06:002021-06-04T12:23:41.407-06:00<p> Shelves full of books full of pages full of lines full of letters full of punctuation full of space and ink and wood fibers and glue and stain.</p><p>the brain folds like this</p><p>gray matter full of cells full of fluids full of dendrites full of electrical impulses full of chemical reactions full of neural pathways full of axons</p><p>reorder the axioms</p><p>reconnect the s p a c e s </p><p>the letters </p><p>the words</p><p>the books</p><p>the shelves </p><p>it becomes a new space, a new idea,</p><p>an entire brain of story is electrified on every shelf</p><p>I think of this swishing my head side to side under water</p><p>every bookshelf has a world of currents, an infinite potential flow of ideas flashing across time and space</p><p>I tuck a few into the folds of my mind</p><p>Wrap my head with this material</p><p>and spend a time with it</p><p>or hopefully a lifetime</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-63952923362656339522021-05-25T11:56:00.000-06:002021-05-25T11:56:10.202-06:00Colored Pencils in the World<p> I do this activity with kids where they choose three colored pencils blind and then we take them outside on a slow walk and then a journaling spot to find where the colors are. Today I did the activity too.</p><p><br /></p><p>Examining my colors, the blue not quite cobalt sends me squinting to the sky. Where in the depths of light trapped by that dome is this exact hue? </p><p>When I hold the pencil up to it, the sky is at once within my grasp and an unreachable horizon extending away from the sharpened tip, blending into now, my phone case... the refuse of an old newspaper's print.</p><p>Indigo, Inego, An Ego</p><p>A royal purple filled with pride. Ancient garments worth so much in their day for finding a way to dye cloth this color. It's at my fingertips, the fuzzy floral petals' veins brushed through...undersides of petals</p><p>undersides of rose petals, pink</p><p>rose quartz is too easy an answer. It must be in the pinks of my own flesh. Live tissues healthy with nourishing fluids and blood. Pink, pink like cartoon babies' cheeks or the cheeks of the real-life translucent newborn voles we found from a downed birdhouse yesterday. Rotted wood, plus boggy earthen adventures among neighborhood kids searching for frogs, equals 1 downed birdhouse. And even the neighborhood's meanest kid turns nurturing for a few fleeting moments warming the furless flesh of translucent new life squirming desperately in tiny palms. </p><p>We warn them the babies will likely die. They were <i>just</i> born, I think. I think of them eating up my yard and garden. There are so many of them. But...</p><p>Birth, a set of opportunities arising from nothing, does not beget the promise of survival even when our own young defend the idea of ubiquitous vole potential, exclaiming "But they don't deserve to die."</p><p>Maybe the mother returned</p><p>maybe she moved the nest</p><p>maybe their pink refreshed the flesh of another animal</p><p>maybe they are alive</p><p>After all, in spring-filled possibility, what new birth <i>does </i>deserve to die?</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-88294237683098751632021-05-05T12:00:00.000-06:002021-05-05T12:00:04.875-06:00<p> There's a tiny hole, just big enough to put a pinky through. The fabric of my life is wearing a bit thin, loosening to let my skin out and let me find a new shape. It's tiny, but unraveling goes quick. There are just 21 days of work left before I'll need to rip the rest of the way loose and decide how to patch myself up into whatever is next. I feel the tugging of quantum strings pulling me in a variety of directions, some resonate louder and stronger while others, a drawing constant hum. I'm afraid of ending up naked, no job at all, forced to live in my own skin and remember how it feels beneath a summer sun. The sun will feel good but standing naked feels too vulnerable.</p><p>I've avoiding facing the 19 days as a need to say goodbye when I'd rather simply ghost. But today, now that there is a spring warmth on my skin, that tiny hole feels like it will grow to be enough. I will grow to be enough for whatever comes next and the patch will fit just fine. Or I'll make a new one.</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867722047154680921.post-51202131764348150552021-04-16T04:46:00.006-06:002021-04-16T18:45:25.794-06:00The future fabric of my time<p>What I've loved about my job is the ever-expanding sense of kindness I feel and the joy at interacting with kids, person-to-person, mentoring them and feeling like an aunt or an older cousin. I've grown more from this job than any I've yet had. </p><p>But as much as I love it, keep growing from it, I also need something...different...in my life. More than me, my family needs something different. The itch for change has been scratched too softly and has grown to a larger-than-life rash. Healing will have to begin soon.</p><p>So I have decided not to return in the fall. It hurts to say goodbye and I lie to myself about not coming back for a beloved student's senior year, nor others' sophomore years. I do not allow myself a countdown because that would be to admit it will end and I've always been the kind of girl to ghost a gettogether, not the kind to say the proper series of polite goodnights. </p><p>When I travel to my hometown there is a social routine in The Goodbye in which people ask "how much longer are you guys in town for?" That's the phrasing. Verbatim. </p><p>I've always been thrown off kilter by it. It sounds like an attempt to get together one last time and I've always felt perplexed knowing I didn't have time for another meetup. But it isn't an attempt to make plans. It's a nicety to avoid the issue of a final goodbye.</p><p>I wish there were an equivalent at my job in which I were allowed to ever keep my place in this story of my school that I love so dearly. I never want to walk into it and know it's no longer my place; that someone else's classroom trinkets have taken the place of mine. Yet I also know the day will come and soon. </p><p>I'll enter a new school and it won't quite fit right. Too newly starched, the sleeves will feel stiff and as though the threads in the seams still need cutting from within. Because cutting the ties I have to this place where I have grown so much will take more than a few snips. I've woven myself in.</p><p>And yet it is time to try something new, something that makes space for loosening middle aged skin to not quite yet fully sag but to plan for it to happen. Something practical with a retirement plan and good dental perhaps. It may sound pedestrian but I have these brilliant offspring to plan for. Something that allows me to begin passing on a torch, helping other teachers receive some of the lessons my boss has passed along to me. A chance to add a cornerstone of kindness upon which future teachers grow their compassion and resilience for students.</p><p>Or perhaps the space I open into may not be a starched shirt at all, but more a bohemian wraparound all-in-one dress fabric that will fit to any size I wish. I write in that future. And write and write. I peek into the nightsky during my witching hours and do not mind the tick of the second hand at 4:14 AM. It is a secret time for writers and lovers. A secret stolen time when the young and the old cavort and tell tales. I open my laptop to a magical fabric of story, stretching as far and wide as I can imagine. If I expand into that future, I shall surely join the stars.</p>Karin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09818964183621543689noreply@blogger.com0