A Day For Myself

I really needed a day and I took one.  Work has been absolutely nucking futs.  I am just so tired of dealing with capitol "C" Crazy.

Rational detachment is the concept that the crazy is not about you, that these kids come with sooo much baggage and ongoing chaos on the home front that it is understandable that they are acting irrationally.  Rational detachment is about "not taking it personally".  This is all well and good, but after a few hours, days, sometimes even weeks and months of being kicked, spit on, bitten, punched, (Yesterday someone's little darling repeatedly tried to punch me in the crotch, key word tried.  But it totally creeped me out.  Jeebus, the little rat is only seven.), called every name in the book; it is hard to keep a cool head and firm grip on my "happy place", to keep calm and rational.  Sometimes you just get mad.

So I need a day.  A day to just relax, breathe, and remember why I do this crazy job. 

Enough about work, other than how amazing it feels to just sit on the couch (my real "happy place").  There is an old family saying.  Work is just like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer, it feels so good when it stops.

Dinner is already in the bag.  It's the third day on an especially delicious, huge pot of homemade beef, barley, and vegetable soup.  It is so rich that it has congealed in a mass of protein jelly.  "He" and I can eat that stuff day after day after day.  I think I will throw some 'Rhodes Dinner Rolls' in a dish to rise around noon.  The only thing that could make the soup better is some warm fresh baked bread to go with it.

Here is a weird Oregon thing, Here and there you will see a tree in bloom even in the middle of winter.  It is a little sad when the frost three days later burns them away, but for a fleeting instant, it seems like spring.  I grew up far, far to the north where winter is winter, where the snow would squeak under your feet and the air was so cold that as you inhaled the inside of your nose would burn.  These Oregon winters are like perpetual springtime, soft warm air, and foolish flowers that peak out under grey rainy skies.

I am still struggling to hit that place, the magic zone that the story writing builds momentum and takes on a life of its own.  I miss the days where the stories seemed to write themselves.  Each sentence is a exercise of forced concentration.  It is easier to write about the mundania of my daily life; work, soup, and weather.