Impatience
I am so impatient. The whole Hodgkins things seems so far in the past. But today we went for a bicycle ride (fourteen miles down, breakfast, and then we road back on the Cuyahoga Valley railroad. It was great.) And afterwards, I was wiped.
And I still don't have enough hair to quite go public.
You'd think someone with a possibly fatal illness in their near past would have learned something, wouldn't you? I mean, you'd think I'd be grateful for each day and brimming with wisdom. Not a shot. I am working and happy to be working, but no more able to just take things in stride than I have ever been. I want to be thin. I want to work out more. I want to work more. I want to travel more. I want to do everything.
And I'm still taking naps, goddamnit.
(We saw deer, muskrats, herons, Canada geese and song birds. At one point a little flock of Canada geese complete with half-grown goslings, blocked the bike path. As we rode through, a couple of geese stepped forward agressively and hissed at us, their beedy black dinosaur eyes fixed on us menacingly. I went ARRRRGGGHHHHH and they stepped back, and then Bob went RAAAWWRRR. From the road, two guys in spandex--serious bike people--yelled, 'Bark like dogs!' But we were already through the flock. I can't wait until the next time. I'll bark.)
And I still don't have enough hair to quite go public.
You'd think someone with a possibly fatal illness in their near past would have learned something, wouldn't you? I mean, you'd think I'd be grateful for each day and brimming with wisdom. Not a shot. I am working and happy to be working, but no more able to just take things in stride than I have ever been. I want to be thin. I want to work out more. I want to work more. I want to travel more. I want to do everything.
And I'm still taking naps, goddamnit.
(We saw deer, muskrats, herons, Canada geese and song birds. At one point a little flock of Canada geese complete with half-grown goslings, blocked the bike path. As we rode through, a couple of geese stepped forward agressively and hissed at us, their beedy black dinosaur eyes fixed on us menacingly. I went ARRRRGGGHHHHH and they stepped back, and then Bob went RAAAWWRRR. From the road, two guys in spandex--serious bike people--yelled, 'Bark like dogs!' But we were already through the flock. I can't wait until the next time. I'll bark.)
posted by Maureen McHugh at 10:57 PM
5 Comments:
You'd think someone with a possibly fatal illness in their near past would have learned something, wouldn't you? I mean, you'd think I'd be grateful for each day and brimming with wisdom. Not a shot. I am working and happy to be working, but no more able to just take things in stride than I have ever been. I want to be thin. I want to work out more. I want to work more. I want to travel more. I want to do everything.
Hmm. Sounds like something approaching a full recovery to me.
Just watch out for those fierce water birds. Ellen Datlow and I were almost mugged by a couple of black swans in Perth, Australia. We didn't know that you weren't supposed to go look at them without a couple of loaves of bread.
Yeah, I agree with la cadigan. Being alive is a moment-to-moment thing that has to do with, you know, experiencing the everyday hopes, irritations, happinesses, gripes of being a human being.
Being All The Wiser is a subterranean water table that rises slowly, mostly undetected. Occasionally it bubbles to the surface through a crack in your daily life, but it's not something you swim in every hour of your waking day.
Swans are nasty. Watch out for swans.
Meanwhile, Pat's right. Sounds pretty damned healthy to me. It's good to hear you being a little testy about your limitations...
I thinkn Want is a good sign in many cases. People strive to eradicate Want from their lives, but I think there is some healthiness in wanting. It means, in some cases, that there is that pull, that hunger, in the center of our selves that craves more of living.
So go ahead and want. You deserve everything you want right now. Just take your time while you begin to take those things you want in hand.
This has nothing to do with anything, but seeing the word Impatience in big orange letters, right above the sentence I am so impatient, keeps making my brain read it as I am so impatience.
Which, you know, works pretty well, in a Chinese-English or Japanese-English kind of way. I am so impatience! Somehow it reads as an affirmative statement, a legitimate complaint, in a way that I am so impatient doesn't.
(I am so impatience for my copy of Mothers and other Monsters.)
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