Studio Time

Tuesday Morning

cbpotts — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 11:48:13 GMT

Hunching, hunching little boy hiding pebbles in the attic - treasures nobody would want - later he would bring notes written in a language no one could ever read and leave them there, tribute - later still he would learn others, far away, had done things much the same as he - proof he felt of his own prowess - clearly he was always magic

Fast hot words led to a fist in the nose - down he went like a sack of potatoes off a wagon - fuss and flurry and no more school - every unpleasantry meant a faint, soft bed, comforting coos - that lesson learned quickly - consequences unexpected; who would pay for a man grown out of a boy like that - he sets the fainting aside, embracing the will and neurosis as his stock in trade

Monday Morning

cbpotts — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 12:43:00 GMT

Nadia's off for a day long trip to Great Escape theme park; it's a reward for all the middle school kids who made honor roll/high honor roll all year long. She's promised a friend she'll ride on a roller coaster - I'll be curious if that really happens. Harmony picked up her graduation cap for decorating purposes. Tim's helping a friend sand and paint an old iron fence - great job for the hottest day of the year, that paint will dry before bugs even have a chance to land in it. And I've so much work to do and no desire to do it -- typical Monday but we've got to keep the lights on somehow.

Onward, upward, forward!

Wednesday Morning

cbpotts — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 12:56:42 GMT

Sometimes I tell people how I'm failing; very often I hear back about all the work I do and how that's not failing. It's rather like being complimented on your form while you're drowning. There's such a distance between what I'm doing and what I want to do. The only way to remedy this is to do the work I want to do. Understanding that doesn't mean immediate money most likely, and that's problematic, as this family of mine requires a fairly steady stream of immediate money.

But this family of mine is also growing up. Harmony is graduating. I'm not sure exactly how we transition her into her supporting herself rather than us supporting her - I want it to be much less abrupt and scary than what I went through myself - but I do know that there will be a transition. Nadia's starting high school, and those four years pass in the blink of an eye. I'm sure there will be a transition phase there as well. What these changes will look like I don't know; I will never stop working but I feel like the consequences of having one really bad day or even week will be somewhat less.

Hee. My Facebook just kicked up the news that my best friend from high school, a woman I lived with for a time, had a baby last night. Here I am looking at the end of one life phase and she's embarking on it. What's funny about that is part of what I envy about her is how she's been able to do many of the things I haven't done, because family. Maybe we all go through certain phases, just at different times. Maybe we all get what we need in the end. I hope so. That would be nice.

Monday Morning

cbpotts — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 14:12:09 GMT

Some people are real and some people are not. Some people are only real by association; they matter if we know them, or we know someone who does, or we look like them. Solidarity is situational. I am boggled by all the people who have the solutions to things like Orlando at their fingertips; they tell me if only an armed trained professional had been in the club, none of this would have happened, ignoring the fact that there was an armed trained professional in the club and this absolutely happened. I'm aghast that people I know can go immediately from hearing about an epic tragedy to a four color rant about how the president had better not come for their guns; not even a breath for mourning. Who are you people? Have you always been this full of hate?

Friday Morning

cbpotts — Fri, 10 Jun 2016 12:46:08 GMT

I dreamed about a taxidermy lion, huge fierce and posed to pounce, and two taxidermy gazelles, one haughty and one afraid; they were brought to me by someone who knew they'd please me even though pragmatically, logistically there was no place/need for three large African taxidermy animals - woke from this strangely shaken; it was an intensely real dream and I was surprised by the lack of lions in my living room.

Tuesday Morning

cbpotts — Thu, 09 Jun 2016 11:53:10 GMT

Raw -

Love is independent of quality. You can be passionate about what you're doing, all in, heart and soul, and still have the results be very not good. Loving something doesn't give you skills; loving something doesn't grant abilities, understanding, education - all of these things require work, and you may be willing to do the work because of your love - love is a great motivator, sometimes the only motivator one has, but anything worth doing requires so much more than love

Monday Morning

cbpotts — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 12:45:12 GMT

My favorite lie I tell myself is "Someday I'll be organized." Someday I will go through these boxes and boxes of notebooks, full of story fragments and interview notes and bits of captured conversation and transform them into finished, money making things. This is my retirement savings, I tell myself. The work I will do when I don't have work to do. And perhaps its true, although I'm beginning to suspect it's not. I'm beginning to think that the next phase will have entirely new work demanding to be done and all of these things that have been relegated to wait will have to wait just that much longer.

Friday Morning

cbpotts — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 12:14:13 GMT

So it's been about five years since we stopped dealing with some family members; out of the blue, one of the youngest - a man I held in my arms when he was a baby - showed up just to see how things have been. The stories he tells are full of death; one gone to diabetes, another pair suicides, brains blown right out. Them that are left aren't doing all that well. One is depressed and letting his life fall further into ruin; another's taking nitro by the half-dozen. Not said but implied is that we're welcome to swim back toward the sinking ship.

I've fallen for this once before. But I am not the woman now that I was then; I will not yield such hard won peace. The world turns as it will whether I want it or no, so I might as well do what I want, and what I want is to be happy and healthy and strong.

Thursday Morning

cbpotts — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 11:11:53 GMT

Tim was cooking sausages on the grill and I was working when we heard the beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep. And our lives are so electronic; this could have been anything, but it wasn't; it was a smoke detector, and it wasn't ours. Outside, sound is different; I walk to my neighbor's driveway but it is uncertain. I turn back to look and see a handful of neighbors in their driveways, watching. "Do you hear that?" I ask; one says "Yes, it's coming from that house." And I knock, and remember that my neighbor is quite aged, and I open the porch door, and through the glass on the next window, see way more smoke than I should, and I open the next door, not even thinking about knocking, and call out her name, "Are you all right?" She is pulling a heavily smoking pan off the stove with a silver fork and then greets me with a too-bright smile; everything's fine, the steak just smoked up, that's all."Just checking, that's all," I said. "I wanted to be sure you're all right." I retreated, letting the neighbors know she said everything is fine, telling Tim the same.

Tuesday Morning

cbpotts — Tue, 31 May 2016 11:10:14 GMT

So there's the fire fighter shirt, from the parade on Sunday - I only wound up with two pictures of me, and the other one I'm wearing sunglasses, so here you go. Also, I'm wearing my pencil socks, which are my favorite.

The kids have an extended break since they didn't use their snow days. At least it's actually a beautiful day - we're going to go over to the river later to stick our toes in the water and decide maybe we're not all that warm after all.

So much to do, so this is short - will write properly tomorrow.

Friday Morning

cbpotts — Fri, 27 May 2016 11:36:32 GMT

You have to know your magic as it is now, not how you wish it will be.

Tim went out just before three for a structure fire; it's a very quiet morning here. The girls are asleep. I've swept the living room and weeded the asparagus; the rhubarb has gotten tall enough that it's time to make a pie. Yesterday included a disastrous work meeting that triggered all of my control freak issues; later, we went to the fire department to get ready for the parade and while many people were busy, I was not; I spent a lot of time just watching the guys wash down the front of the bays and the driveway. One of the ladies had her three year old son with her and that was fun, watching him run and laugh and just be happy. It was the most restful time I've had in a while, and I am very happy it happened.

Also we got our fire department t-shirts; I'll have Harmony take a picture later & post it so you guys can see.

Thursday Morning

cbpotts — Thu, 26 May 2016 13:10:22 GMT

There's a type of habitual numbness that can develop when you learn that feeling is dangerous. There's also a state of baseline calm, where life is going along as life goes along but nothing exceptionally dramatic is happening - it's all good, as it were - no triumphs, no tragedies, just Thursday. There's the deliberate sort of meditative zoning out where you remove yourself at least mentally from the hubub around you; there's the quick version of that too - pick your poison, they all work. These can be hard to tell one from another - the last one maybe not so much, the empty bottles are kind of a clue.

Thinking about the intersection of hormones and emotion, experience and expectation. We're coming up on a big transition for our family, with Harmony graduating. And all I can do - or all I can find myself doing, which is almost the same thing - is stop, frozen in time, and try to understand what comes next. What it means to let her go. What it means for children to grow up and move away and start thier own adventures. And no matter how fine a spin I put on it, I hate it. This is what is supposed to happen; this is how life actually goes for normal people, and I hate every fucking thing about it.

The opposite of numb is crying; or panicing a little bit, or talking to myself that it will all be fine. And ultimately, it probably will all be fine; life has a funny way of working out one way or another. But I don't know, I can't see, the future is as uncertain as its ever been. And I know that certainty actually probably wouldn't help much; the things I do know for sure aren't exactly making me feel better.

This is almoost exactly how I felt a long time ago when the midwife poked her fingers around a bit and said, "Yup! You're having this baby today!" There are moments when you have no say in what is going to happen; you just have to go for it and hope for the best. And apparently no one will hook you up for an epidural for this part of the game.

Wednesday Morning

cbpotts — Wed, 25 May 2016 12:06:08 GMT

Your childrens' expectations of life are not shaped by what your own experience of childhood was like. Instead, they form their expectations based on their own experiences and that of their peers, as well as what they see in the media. This means that they can take for granted things that would have been beyond your wildest imaginings when you were their age; not just technology and stuff, but things like how they'll be treated by others and the nature of support they can rely upon through life's transitions.

That's one of those paragraphs that takes 5 minutes of writing and 20 years of living to put together.

Tuesday Morning

cbpotts — Tue, 24 May 2016 13:34:34 GMT

Where is the line between bitter and realistic? Last night I sat in a meeting and was told how important it was for everyone to work together to support the town & foster a sense of community. After ten plus years and multiple members of the town leadership body telling me I'm going to hell and people like me shouldn't exist, I find the amount of work I'm willing to do is...limited.

I heard myself saying something to that effect, and thought, Wow, crazy curmudgeon achievement unlocked. The moment you discover you're perfectly capable of sounding like Alan Moore is not necessarily a good one. But it is what it is; perhaps next I shall work on growing a magnificently shaggy beard and start training the chickadees to make themselves at home on my battered hat.

Monday Morning

cbpotts — Mon, 23 May 2016 12:53:26 GMT

I put on a shirt yesterday and discovered it has become a dress. Not a marginal dress, the butt-cheek brushing type the girls occassionally try to convince me isn't too short - an actual dress that came to mid-thigh. I've been trying to do healthier things for myself and knew a few pounds had come off - jeans that used to be snug now don't actually fit me - but this was a shock to the system.

I'm not sure it was/is a good shock. I've been struggling a bit with - well, I wouldn't say body dysmorphia, as much as I'd say self-dysmorphia and a little bit of everyone else dysmorphia too. When I look in the mirror, that's not what *I* am supposed to look like. It's not bad. Sometimes it's even good. But it's not me. And other people - they look different. Frailer a lot, and I guess that is a thing that happens, but I'm seeing more too people in a way I never saw them previously. It's not that everyone's gotten new haircuts or changed their wardrobe or whatever; maybe I haven't been paying attention for forty some odd years and this is what everyone's always looked like.

I don't know. Reality's gotten very bright and jagged edged and there are days when I want none of it. The distance between who I was a long time ago and who I am now seems tremendous to me, but others can not see it; perhaps I have been living a secret life for decades, out here in plain view where everyone can see but so easy to overlook. And I vacillate between being so angry about this and this eerily comfortable Zen mood where it seems clear I just need to let go of even more; things I'd clung to as foundation facts turn out to be just another story I spun up, largely while I was drunk.

There is work to do, and for so long that has defined me, and now I am wondering why. More than loving what I do, I love that I am the person who does it, and the bloom has gone of that rose. The surprise is gone. Of course I do these things; of course people bring me these kind of gigs; this is who I am. But this is not a terminal identity, apparently. There's something more coming, and I'm not sure what it is. I feel like it is sneaking up on me; that it's going to get me when I least suspect it. And that's not a good feeling, but it's not bad I can't manage it. It's just passing strange, my friends. Passing strange indeed.

Wednesday Morning

cbpotts — Wed, 11 May 2016 11:57:43 GMT

My bones are a barometer for deceit; they ache when I'm lying to myself. I feel it in my shoulders, my neck, my hips, my spine; my fingers are fire. I've learned by now there's only one cure. I have to hunt down what's not true, what's not right, what's useful instead of authentic, and get that sorted. Every I'm fine, every it's okay, lately every I can do this takes its toll. Fixing it isn't necessarily easy, but I know I'm on the right track because the pain goes away and I can move without wincing.

Monday Morning

cbpotts — Mon, 09 May 2016 12:24:13 GMT

It might be one of those days. I'm going to be writing a few pieces for the Mercury transit; here is the first one:

Begin one day with your back to the dawn. Be as naked as you can be; the goal here is to feel the sun's warm touch as it rises. Close your eyes and feel the heat soaking into you; know the slow burn climb from ankles to hips, up the column of your spine, to the shoulders you carry the world upon. Let there be nothing but this - feel and listen and be, just for a moment, with the light behind, and eternity, unglimpsed, ever ahead.

Friday Morning

cbpotts — Fri, 06 May 2016 15:37:45 GMT

Not everything is a gender based slight designed to reinforce the patriarchy. Was with a woman, we were looking at some horses - animals with which she is not overly familiar - and the owner of said horses cautioned us against going near one particular stallion if it was 'our time' because 'that brings out the worst in him'. Which is a thing that happens, but the woman I was with was absolutely incensed at this sexist discrimination and let the farmer know. He said he'd take the horse in for sensitivity training but until then it was best to stay away if we didn't want to get bitten or kicked. She was so mad, but I laughed - I was informed later that this is proof positive that I'm full of internalized misogyny.

Stallions, man. Thinking they're not actually people up on the latest nuances of proper human interaction and shit. I don't even know who they think they are.

Thursday Morning

cbpotts — Thu, 05 May 2016 11:57:29 GMT

No matter what, there's a tendency for people to self-segregate into groups that don't communicate with each other. At work, we call this siloing - marketing doesn't talk to customer service, in store people don't know what's happening online; it's a mess that inhibits sales and slows brand growth. I see it elsewhere too; in academic disciplines, people cluster around their chosen school of thought and ignore, if not actively repudiate, all others. Kahneman, in his Thinking Fast & Slow (which I am reading slowly), points out that creativity/intelligence is based in the ability to recognize and use information that originates in a silo other than the one you normally occupy. You have to pay attention to what other people are doing.

Wednesday Morning

cbpotts — Wed, 04 May 2016 11:52:24 GMT

We are rather bad at baby proofing. I am watching a friend's little one today while she goes to a funeral; he is almost 3. After the girls 'got things ready' I still had to pick up the stovewood hatchet, a surge protector full of plugs, and assorted sharp pointy things. Clearly we are not around wee ones enough...although according to his Mom, all he needs is cartoons and chicken nuggets and he'll be adequately entertained. So the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Tuesday Morning

cbpotts — Tue, 03 May 2016 12:00:44 GMT

Just now, a man driving a black car drove by and took a picture of a neighbor's home. It only took a second; he turned around and drove away very promptly. And seeing him now reminds me that I've seen him before - yesterday, certainly, last week, perhaps. He had an air of scuffy professionalism; short hair beneath a baseball cap, not in fighting trim now but he's been there before, an evident agenda. He used a cheap digital camera, not a phone.

Monday Morning

cbpotts — Mon, 02 May 2016 12:03:24 GMT

I wrote about the Nazis last night, the night my husband had himself convinced that the pain in his hip was obviously incurable cancer. Not the Nazis in their heyday, but the Nazis as I knew them; decades after, old men, self-satisfied, fat, stinking of cigars and beer for breakfast. The men who were both confident and terrified, at the same time, all the time; they wore a veneer of obnoxiousness, of bluster, of righteousness. They all had wives but I don't remember them; they were women who knew the value of invisibility. It made for a sleepless night but I came away with what may be the bones of a good story. We'll see.

Tuesday Morning

cbpotts — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 13:03:34 GMT

There are ways to divide the world:

Things that are alive; things that are not
Things that are flammable; things that don't burn
Things that can be eaten; things that can't - not if you want to live a long time, anyway
Things that can be let go; things that must be carried
The things that you remember; things that slip away

Monday Morning

cbpotts — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 13:14:58 GMT

So you take your chisel and you put the edge of it here,
at this little bone knot where the ribs all come together,
you take up your hammer,
and there you go.

It is important to understand how things come apart.
Easier to take apart than to put together -
never no mind create -
but still there's an art to it.
By now you should know.

Violence is a part of it,
even well refined -
that's why old women
butchers and cooks
it's why we treat them so

Such necessary evil
is wrought by the kind.
Of such stuff life is made
We could rise to be so mighty
Had we not of started quite so low.

Monday Morning

cbpotts — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 13:07:49 GMT

I dreamed the house was full of smoke. When you have a woodstove, that's not a dream you can ignore. You have to get up and check. It was both cold and unexciting in these parts round midnight; the wind had blown the fire out and I did not start it again. Dawn comes soon enough. What else are blankets for?