Wherein I Wanted a Dog for Three Seconds

This morning, in a moment of brief insanity, I wanted a dog. I was driving Madeline to school and this guy was jogging along the road with his dog and they both looked really happy and comfortable and no one was sweating or yelling.  Meanwhile in my van, three children were yelling and I was sweating.  In that moment I wanted to trade places with that man, and my brain short-circuited.  Instead of thinking, "I want solitude and exercise," it thought, "I want a dog."

So, like this:

1. Kate sees man running with dog.

2. Kate envies man running with dog.

3. COMPLETE BREAKDOWN OF LOGIC AND REASON.

4. Kate wants a dog.

By the time I got home I was still kind of wanting a dog, so I had to have a come-to-Jesus meeting with my brain.

Brain, this is an intervention.

You are sleep-deprived, and it is beginning to take it's toll on your ability to function rationally in the real world.  I think the best way to call attention to your compromised state is to demonstrate the gaping, cavernous difference between what you think is real, and what is ACTUALLY REAL.

What you think owning a dog will be like:

What owning a dog will actually be like:

(Images by Allie Brosh, originally published at Hyperbole and a Half, "Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving")

I want you to think on this the next time you start thinking about dog-ownership like a psycho.

So, to recap:

What you think owning a dog will be like: Jogging jauntily down the road early in the morning - nary a care in the world - with man's best friend.

What owning a dog will actually be like: Kids screaming in the van on the way to school; dog eating entire loaf of bread off the counter at home.

P.S. You are already responsible for the crap of way too many other human beings to throw a DOG in the mix. P.P.S.  You already have enough human beings waking you up in the middle of the night to throw a DOG in the mix. P.P.P.S.  You already have enough human beings making weird smells in your house to throw a DOG in the mix.

et all.

Yours truly, Kate

Ode to My Office, AKA Starbucks

Today I'm using #TBT to share a stream-of-consciousness post I wrote last fall, but never published.  It's about my office, or as I like to call it, Starbucks.

This is my happy place.  Starbucks, at the little round table for two in the corner.  It is raining, which means I am extra happy because I love rain in all its forms.  I'm wearing my favorite walk in love. shirt, my first pick from the load of laundry I washed and folded in the wee hours of this morning - after Madeline got on the bus, but before the boys woke.  It is bright pink, which normally isn’t my jam, but maybe that’s why I like it so much.  I’m feeling very fresh – showered and scoured hard with a louffe and mint soap, to wash off the days of sweat, and Sam’s peanut buttery fingers, and the little bumps on my upper arm.  What are those, and why? My hair is still damp, swept up into a slick, minty bun on the top of my head, and I’m pretty sure my mascara is looking the bomb.  But I always think that.

I’ve missed this place so much.  I feel like it’s been ages since I sat in my spot – it’s actually been 2.5 days - and I went through the drive-thru during that time.

I keep wanting to bring Henry in to show him off to all the baristas, and to Mr. Carl, a regular who comes every afternoon at 2:30, gets a black coffee, and sits in his chair.  Everyone vacates his chair when he walks in.

I felt silly for a while, loving this place and these people so much, until I realized:  these are the people I work with.  I also work with my agent and my editors, but during this phase, this writing phase, these are the people I see every day at my office.  And we are relational people - humans, I mean.  I like my work and I like my work-people: David, who was raised an orthodox Jew, whose mother is a Holocaust survivor, and is an artist that creates these incredible pictures by stippling dots with ink pens.  And Jamie, who is a movie buff; we laugh every day when Dan comes in because Jamie once noted that he looks (to her) like an actor who played a pedophile in a movie she saw.  He’s taken the whole thing very personally, but we think its funny.

I am drinking blonde roast coffee with cream in a big for-here mug, because I’ve officially made myself at home.

I can't think about the task at hand; I'm too busy being happy.  I want to sit Indian-style on my bench, with my table pulled super close, like a desk, and drink it all in.  Coffee and music and rain and my pink shirt and great mascara.  David in front of me drawing before his shift starts, an old man in a UNC cap and a knee brace reading on his kindle.  The students moved into the dorms yesterday, so there are all manner of college girls here.  Some in work out clothes, some in PJs, and one in the most adorable black dress with little white birds flying all over it that I suddenly feel like I need.

I think I’ll go write my book now, seeing as the manuscript is due in 15 days.  That would make me insane with anxiety if it weren’t so completely wonderful in here.

//

Do you have a conventional or an unconventional office?  What do you love about it?

Puppy Box

You know how puppies in a box sleep? In a big snuggly heap, all piled on top of each other and nuzzled in? Shauna Niequist wrote my favorite ever thing about moving and change - she said it felt like someone had taken her out of her puppy box.  That she felt cold and lonely and just wanted someone to put her back in her box, with all of her puppy friends, safe and warm.

We moved this month, and I feel like someone has taken me out of my puppy box.  Hear me, I don't want to be back in a particular place; Raleigh is my favorite city I've ever lived in.  It is the first city we chose just because we wanted to live here.  This misplaced feeling isn't about location - it's about growing pains, it's about change, and no matter how beautiful the pine trees are, no matter how nostalgic the streets, I still feel cold.

(It doesn't help that 3 days ago Madeline added an icicle to her collection of nature treasures on the porch and it's STILL THERE, CHILLIN'. Pun intended.)

Maybe you need to be put back in your puppy box, too.   Maybe you feel lost and drifty, or maybe you've moved, or maybe you are lonely, or carrying secrets, or you just need a safe space.  

I've found that the fastest way to make myself feel at home is a routine, a beautiful space, and one safe friend.

1. Routine.  When every single big thing in life is in flux, the more things that can stay the same, the better.  They're your constants; tiny anchors.  It's easy to see it in babies, because babies wear their great, big hearts on their tiny, little sleeves.  When babies move it's World War III; they can feel it in the air.  This is why vacations with babies aren't vacations.  They are crisis-management operations on beaches.  Babies need tiny anchors - their bedding from home, their favorite towel, their lunchtime plate.  They need a nap at the same time every day.  They need a meal with a plate and a napkin and a cup and a vegetable.

You do too.  You need to make your bed every day.  You need to eat lunch on a real plate with a real napkin and a real fork.  You need an evening routine, your bedding from home.   Routines keep you from having to think too hard.  They let you spend your mental energy on something other than just getting through the day.  Take care of your heart like you'd take care of a precious baby.  Lots of constants, lots of tiny anchors.

2. A beautiful space. I wrote about this a few years ago, and the longer I live, and the more change I experience, the more deeply I know it to be true: when there is beauty in the details, when routines become experiences, when you touch something sacred once or twice every hour, you are happier.  Walk through your day, replacing your pillow case with one you notice, your coffee mug with one that means something; replace your pen with one that writes perfectly and your ordinary handsoap with soap that makes you inhale deeply - suddenly your whole day is full of delight, no matter how much chaos abounds.  Tiny anchors.

3. A safe friend.  It's dumb and self-defeating to tell everyone who asks exactly how hard life is.  Complaining is ugly.  But if you don't have one safe friend, one person that knows, you'll start thinking crazy things like, "I'm alone."  "Nobody really knows me."  "I'm the only one dealing with this."  "Every one else has normal lives."

You need to hear about somebody else's bumps and bruises to remember that we're all people; there is no "Get out of humanity free" card; no one's exempt.   And you need someone to see you, because...well, because you need to be seen.

These things don't make a puppy box by themselves, I'm sorry to say.  But if you start nestling into a great routine, in a beautiful place, with a safe friend at your side, you're well on your way to warmth - even if life is very, very different from what you imagined it would be.

Happy Friday!

 

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Happy Friday!

Spend it singing, Kate

3 Mantras for 2014 // #JanuaryMantras

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I write about my mantras a lot.  About the dialogue in my head that keeps me centered.

Here is the January 2014 version.  This is what I'm speaking to myself, to my kids, and to any one who asks what I'm learning or how we do it:

1. Treat other people the way you'd want to be treated.  (Not in a manners way; in a handling people's hearts way.  If you'd want comfort, give comfort.  If you'd want touch, touch.  If you'd want help, help.  If you'd want common courtesy, extend common courtesy.)

2. Don't be an idiot.  "Whenever I'm about to do something, I think, 'Would an idiot do that?' And if they would, I do not do that thing." -Dwight Schrute

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVVsDIv98TA[/youtube]

3. "In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways."  Edith Wharton

Unafraid of change, happy in small ways, considerate, not an idiot.

What are your January 2014 mantras?  They may become my February and March and April ones.  Share them with the hashtag #Januarymantras.  

Hit me with your best shot and I'll share my favorites!

Happy 2014! Kate