Happy Monday…
This morning, in the midst of a major meltdown during my writing time, I heard something knocking and went outside to find a pileated woodpecker on the dead tree behind my cabin.
My meltdown was impressive — my 13-year old could have learned a few tricks from it. On Thursday I go back to work — at the college, I mean. (I’m supposed to be working now, my real work, which is writing.) I can’t bear the thought of the start of a new quarter teaching full-time: 26 composition students, 25 literature students, 16 (so far) creative nonfiction students. I called my mom and told her she should pay me to stay home this fall. (She laughed.) I called a friend and told her I was abandoning the novel rewrite. I emailed friends (several) and whined, whined, whined…
The only advice that ever worked for me when my daughters threw tantrums was to lie down on the floor with them. To be fully there in all the maelstrom and torment. I didn’t have to cry and kick my feet–in fact, throwing my own tantrum was counter-productive. I just had to be there. I had to let her know that she was fully heard.
So I’m trying to be there for me.
I know, I know. Bethany! It’s not that bad! It’s not that many students! They will be wonderful students! You’ll be talking about books and writing! What a great job!
Today, additionally, would have been my dad’s 85th birthday. Happy Birthday, Dad. 
I call my “meltdowns” releasing my pressure valve(like that on a hotwater tank. I believe they are healthy and necessary ways to let go in order to move forward. Adults too, have much on our plates and have to choose what we want and what we need. I think working outside the home gets a bit too overwhelming the older we get with the additional demands placed on our aging bodies and aging family members!
For now, we eat trout , drink wine and buy lottery tickets and throw in a meltdown to revive our soul.
4:00 — trout and prosecco…
Remember the praryer HELP AND THANK YOU – and the hymn GIVE IT ALL TO JESUS – I’m in the same spot today, I don’t have all those students and papers to read and carefully grade ahead of me, but I have the caregivers, visiting nurse, rehab, shopping and one little girl and her mom all in need – and I wonder, but what about me? It takes a huge village to care for one 97 1/2 year old mother and my village needs expanding. HELP and by the way thanks for being the part of the village who cares for me.
I have been thinking about how — this summer — I have not had students and have STILL not gotten very much writing done. There is something else I must need to learn. And you, too.