Tag: poetry

What I Really Meant to Say About Leisure Time

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Something has been bugging me about my “leisure time” post for the last few days, but I didn’t want to admit to myself what it was.  Today I did.  Even though it was a perfectly fine post, it did something that I would like to stop doing:  it took the easy way out.  I complained about something (again, perfectly fine, because saying that working women have 30-40 hours of leisure time per week is ridiculous), but I didn’t take my thinking to the next level.  I didn’t offer anything new in place of what I was criticizing.  This is kind of lame. 

Anyone can criticize, and some things deserve to be criticized (did I mention that saying that working women have 30-40 hours of leisure time per week is ridiculous?).  But writers worth reading don’t stop there.  They think, and imagine, and envision new ways to see what is ordinary and commonplace.  There is so much stuff to read out there, and I made this commitment to myself and to people whom I asked to read my blog that I would try my best to be a writer worth reading.  I learn more about how to do that every single day. 

Continue reading “What I Really Meant to Say About Leisure Time” →

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To Read in Your Leisure Time (Ha Ha Ha!)

If you are a Dr. Phil viewer, you may have seen the recent show on Dr. John Robinson’s time-use study claiming that “Women have at least 30 hours of leisure every week.  In fact, women have more leisure now than they did in the 1960s, even though more women are working outside the home.”*  If you are a working woman, you may have already used Google Earth to locate Dr. Robinson’s home, somewhere in the Baltimore area, and are currently figuring out how to make something very large and very heavy fall onto it.  And if you were doing this, by the way, you’d be using your “leisure time.”  As Brigid Schulte wrote, in her Washington Post article on the study, answering emails or using the computer for anything other than work is leisure time.  Other examples include:

“Watching movies with the kids. Visiting a sick friend with the kids. Talking to a friend about her leisure time on the cellphone to report this story while taking my son’s bike to the shop for repairs with the kids. Leisure, leisure, leisure.”

“Printing out a gift card to Best Buy for my friend’s son while yelling at kids and husband to “get into the car now” two minutes before leaving to go to a birthday dinner. Leisure.”

“Sitting in a hot, broken-down car for two hours on a median strip and playing tic-tac-toe with my daughter while waiting for a tow truck. Yes, that, too.”

Continue reading “To Read in Your Leisure Time (Ha Ha Ha!)” →

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A New Season, a New Project and Some Updates on Familiar Things

Well and here we are!  The first post-Lent post!  I’m super excited and if you’re here, I hope you are too!  There’s a new soon-to-be announced project coming up here at From the Heart, so stay tuned for that!  For today, you’ll find updates on some familiar topics, AND a new family-related post over at: http://srajek.wordpress.com.  It’s about raising social deviants going to Wal-Mart with my boys.

So, updates!  A few weeks ago, I wrote about my attempts at being a “secret messenger for good” at work (thanks to Summer Pierre and her wonderful book, The Artist in the Office).  As you may recall, things got off to a disappointing start (the inspirational quote that I taped up on the paper towel holder in the women’s bathroom stayed up, the one in the men’s bathroom didn’t last the day).  However, I am happy to report that there have been some exciting developments.

Continue reading “A New Season, a New Project and Some Updates on Familiar Things” →

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“Afraid Yet Filled With Joy:” The Blessings of Easter

Two amazing things happened to me on Good Friday as I was driving to meet some friends after a crazy 36 hours.  The first was that I passed Jesus on the street.  Actually, he was on the sidewalk.   He was walking east down Windsor Avenue, wearing a white robe, the crown of thorns, and carrying a cross.  A small robed woman wearing head coverings was walking next to him.  On the other side of the street going west was a jogger with no shirt on, and coming up towards Jesus on his side was a guy on a bike.  I felt concerned about the biker because there’s not a lot of room on the sidewalk, and it seemed like it could be awkward trying to bike past Jesus with the small woman and the cross.  Also, if it had been me, there was no way I could just RIDE PAST Jesus, especially not with the cross and the crown of thorns.  Maybe on a normal day, i.e not Good Friday.  But no, not even then.  It would feel too disrespectful. [note: my dad said he didn’t understand this part of the post.  It ACTUALLY happened!  Exactly this way. It’s a TRUE story!]

Continue reading ““Afraid Yet Filled With Joy:” The Blessings of Easter” →

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Someday We’ll Look Back & Laugh. Or Not.

Things got a little hairy on the mothering front last night because it was Report Card Day.  There was a difference of opinion between Noah and me about what constitutes a “good report card” and I ended up locking him out of the house.  Yes indeed.  In a move of deep maternal wisdom, after he stormed out the front door and slammed it behind him, my hand went right for the lock and clicked it shut.  “That kid is not getting back into this house,” I thought.  A well-thought-out parenting strategy if ever there was one.

Continue reading “Someday We’ll Look Back & Laugh. Or Not.” →

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Longing for the Great Transforming

In Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott quotes Lenny Bruce: “If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”

My respect for Anne Lamott was enormous before I started this Lenten blog, and now it’s pretty much expanded to such a measure that no word feels big enough, like numbers and the federal debt.  It’s HARD to write about spiritual issues, especially once you get past the easy-to-say stuff that is really more like “spirituality lite:” having compassion, being nice to others, and generally making an effort to be a good person.

Continue reading “Longing for the Great Transforming” →

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Motherhood: The “Thankless Job Filled with Fail” Version

One of the funniest websites for all things parenting and pregnancy related is Let’s Panic! by the fabulous writers Alice Bradley and Eden Kennedy.  I wish I had created it, because it’s like they open their mouths and everyone’s voices come out, except 100 times funnier.  Here are some of their tips on “Alternatives to Yelling:”

  • Tamp your anger down, down, farther down, as deeply as you can, until you are wild-eyed and tense as a jungle cat.  But at least you’re not taking it out on your child!  Oops: you have cancer now.
  • Instead of making noise at your child, express yourself through art.  Try a collage made with your child’s photograph and large streaks of thick oil paint and maybe some animal teeth or feathers.  So cathartic!
  • Communicate your feelings via your child’s teddy bear. You can’t punch your child, but you can punch Mr. Fuzzy.  Just punch and punch and punch some more.  Mr. Fuzzy can take it.
  • Move out. Make sure to leave him or her some beef jerky and spare lightbulbs.  No need to be cruel. (source=Let’s Panic!)  Continue reading “Motherhood: The “Thankless Job Filled with Fail” Version” →
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    And Now For Something Completely the Same

    There are three strands of one story trying to weave themselves together in my head today, and if I were a better or less tired writer, I would not have to tell you that upfront—it would be clear from the writing itself.  And since I’ve started off with that unsubtle disclaimer, I’ll follow it by just telling you what the three strands are, even though that feels like handing you the rope and telling you to go braid it yourself, instead of weaving a fine and smooth story, which is what responsible writers are supposed to do.

    Continue reading “And Now For Something Completely the Same” →

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    “It Was Like This: You Were Happy”*

    If I had thought last week that I would be writing about rainbows and butterflies, I would have felt immediately compelled to dress in black, light up a smoke, and drink JD straight out of the bottle.  That’s my delusional edgy writer persona talking and it says things like, “What is this, the Hello Kitty Blog?  The Snow White Blog?  Are you going to be posting pictures of yourself with tiny birds perched on your finger and furry woodland animals gathered around your feet next?”  And then my you-can-be-a-normal-person-and-a-writer-at-the-same-time-voice says, “HEY!  If rainbows are good enough for Maya Angelou, they are MORE THAN good enough for you!  So GET ON with it!”

    Continue reading ““It Was Like This: You Were Happy”*” →

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    God Put a Rainbow in the Clouds

    In 2002, Maya Angelou was the speaker at the University of Illinois’ commencement.  It was a cloudy day, and all the dusty old Important University Administrators droned on and on with their dusty old words.  And then Maya Angelou was introduced.  She stepped to the podium, opened her mouth, and her honey-rich voice rolled out singing, “When it looked like the sun wasn’t gonna shine anymore, God put a rainbow in the clouds!”  Then she called out into the mass of people, “Good afternoon, rainbows!”  It was 8 years ago, but it could have been 5 minutes for how full and powerful her voice still is in my head.

    Continue reading “God Put a Rainbow in the Clouds” →

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