what you want is just outside your reach*
Even I must acknowledge that, while I have never been a terribly ambitious person, I am falling far short of my potential under my current circumstances.**
My days move at a snail’s pace. I skip from song to song on my playlist. I surreptitiously read between tasks. I use my notes app to record thoughts for later follow up. I check my personal messages. I scroll through Instagram.
BUT!
I also finish everything required of me. I balance bank accounts and process donations. I order needed supplies. And a bounce house! I run background checks. I coordinate our building schedule and contact volunteers. I schedule emails and maintain our website. There is no design work this week. I am a jack-of-all-trades in my current position, proficient at all that is asked of me, but it is only the design work that I truly enjoy.
***
An old friend stopped by my office for a chat. She was somewhat of a mentor when I was younger, and came to ask after the kids, knowing what we've been through the last three years. (Doing much better I tell her). She showed me pictures of her new studio and latest paintings. In turn, I was able to share the plan I have been quietly considering for the past several months, this pivot into something new. Maybe by speaking the words out loud to her, I’ll have to hold myself accountable to follow through.
***
“In seminar, grad students on plastic folding chairs: seven women, two men. Naive enough to believe in poetry’s transformative force, but cynical enough in their darker moments to consider poetry a pseudo-spiritual calling, something akin to the affliction of televangelists.”
— The Late Americans, Brandon Taylor
I wish this book had lived up to the promise of that first paragraph. I wish that there had been more Seamus. I wish that, overall, there wasn’t so much truly terrible sex in literary fiction.
***
*“Beach Comber” by Real Estate needs to be added to the list of songs I never tire of. It came up on shuffle earlier and I listened to it three times in a row. It does something to my insides - such a beautiful sigh of a song.
**As told to me by multiple teachers throughout grades 6-12 and my high school guidance counselor. She once said to my sister, who is four years younger and started high school the year after I graduated, I really hope you’re nothing like Jennifer.
11:44 a.m. - 2023-07-28