Seven Months

Three weeks ago I wrote a post about how monotony was dragging me down. Not even within my job, but the life part of my life. The making of beds, folding of laundry, the washing of dishes, putting away blocks, picking up crayons, wiping yogurt off tables. The life stuff. But writing about it didn’t change it or really make me feel less like stale, stretched taffy.

And then I found out my mom was coming to visit.

Then she came. And doing anything more than spending time with her or napping didn’t seem important. And then it snowed a lot. And then she left. And we all got sick. And then vacation ended. And today it was 0 degrees at one point. And now you’re caught up.   

Someone sent me an invitation to “connect” on LinkedIn today and I looked at my profile. It said I’ve been working here for seven months. I’m not really sure how that is possible and I questioned their algorithm’s math. Seven months is one month longer than I worked at Words Alive: a job that could quite possibly go down in my permanent history as my most favorite-ist group of coworkers ever (Sorry, all my other jobs, it’s true.) And yet, I’ve now been here longer.

Over the last several days I’ve driven close to 400 miles on five different trips picking up students from vacation. This has given me time to process my seven months of Maine. So much of it has to do with the weather. I came in sun and now we live in snow. It was sticky, 90 degrees, want to spend all your time in a pool, in the shade, drinking something with ice in it hot. Now it’s single-digit, dry, red-nosed, immediately freezing anything that’s exposed to the air, your hands tingle when you walk inside cold. This requires flexibility. 15 years ago Pittsfield had an ice storm that lasted for two weeks. At least ten days without power. In January. I asked my mother-in-law how many people died. “None.” She said, looking at me weird. “We’re Mainers.”

I recently had to drive in a snow storm. And again, because of the hours spent in the car very recently, I’ve thought about all the witty, clever ways that driving in “inclement weather” is a metaphor for life.

·         There is very rarely a reason to slam on your brakes as most often taking your foot off the gas works better.
·         The same goes for speeding up. Unless you’re running from a tiger, the damage and eventual adrenaline drop of going from zero to 60 is unnecessary.
·         Cutting corners doesn’t actually save time, but it does raise your blood pressure and piss off the people around you.
·         Jerky movements are for jerks.
·         Courtesy waves should be law.
·         Pay attention.

 In reading this back through, it needs to be edited. Some of this stuff doesn’t even make sense together. But, since I hate editing and would probably just put that off for another week, I’m going to post as is. I promise to get back into the swing of things (aka, edit) soon.