Vice Cards; or "Careful Adventures in the Land of Persuasion"

 
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“You are a deeply rooted student of the earth and a creative mind.  You are a caregiver of children and the planet. You are an expressive spirit of life.”

--D. B., 2014

I’m living a mayfly life these days. Short bursts of frenetic, kinetic energy guide my searches lately, and then the resounding crash or crunch or flapping from being trapped in the spider’s web.  I’m the single mama all the time, but some days I don’t have my children; I replace them with a phantom-limb sadness that aches and makes me turn my head down, looking for two more people at my elbows.  On the some days that I don’t have my children, I’m a woman catching up. I’m cleaning, I’m cooking, I’m filing, I’m reading, I’m writing, I’m typing, typing, typing, keeping correspondence with so many. Some of my correspondents I love more than life, knowing that they love me the same way. To others, I give too much of my time.

“…Your time is so, so precious.”

--N. M., 2014

I have never had to make so many decisions about so many different things at once; at a time where my self-esteem roller-coasters from a dizzying peak of confidence (a summit I don’t recall ever reaching until now) to a self-deprecating gorge of indecision, I worry that the choices I’m making may not be the best, but then, I don’t think they’re the worst, either. Most are matters of the heart.

For example (let’s make a list, because lists are easy):

1. I traveled alone and met someone I had never met in real life before.
2. Gave my heart out to a few new people.  As of this writing, some have treated it well, made a lovely nest for it, and continue to nurture it. I’m lucky to call them my friends. Others tried to hold it with sticky fingers, held it too tightly, dropped it, and used second-hand scotch-tape to repair the larger chunks. In those cases, I tried to pick up the smaller pieces and put them back in my heart dresser. Some of them won’t go back in the drawer.
3. I stayed up too late writing/talking/singing/playing/staring/folding laundry/doing dishes/unpacking/youtubing/listening to sad music/crying/neglecting folding laundry.   I should sleep more.
4. I’ve allowed others to invade my sleep; Freddy Kruegers that just want to hang out until they’re ready for bed.
5. I’ve eaten alone again, happily. Foodgasms abound at the Driftless Café in Viroqua, gentle reader, and I implore you to savor their wares.
6. Paddleboarded and kayaked for the first time. And I liked it.
7. Drank a bourbon mojito (Woodford Reserve, per Nagorski rules) at 1pm after smoking a very small cigar and eating fantastic macaroni and cheese, with a new friend, and I picked up the tab. Because it was Tuesday.

 There will be more, to be sure.

“Tonight you should be able to go to bed thinking, ‘I made the best choices today.’”

--K. M., 2014

Oh, the vice cards we get to play in this year post-divorce…My vices are few, and my boundaries and controls are almost painfully in place. Sometimes I wish I could be as carefree as the polyamorous lover who can easily share what she wants and what she has…I wish I could be the exhibitionist cabaret singer who can throw you a pie filled with emotional meringue, to be licked off the noses in the front row…I wish I could run into the bluffs with bare feet and ripped jeans and scream to hear my voice bounce off the suburban shingle that cloisters too much stuff.

And I don’t, because most of the time, more often than not, I really quite like who I am, right now…and because I’m tired. This gig is tough. But still…

I’m so glad to be here right now, like this. It’s rare and bright pink and just a little too sensitive to the touch. Not the wound after the scab has been ripped off, but the fresh scar that was hidden by bandages for so long.

You teach me so much. You, you, you. You who crochet, and you who listen, and you who buy me a drink, and you who lift something heavy with me, and you who put my shelf together, and you who led and you who let me lead.

You are so very many different people I am so very grateful for.  

*The above quotes are very real. I'm lucky I got to have them hand-delivered to me.