The last few weeks have been like this. Quite likely, for you, too. In fact, from the looks of things while scanning headlines, the world, in general, has been living a whack a mole game from or with the energies or angels or astrology or life (take your pick) much the same way. Most more drastically than mine.
I remember playing the game when my grandson was young and we’d take a trip to Chunk E Cheese. He always won.
I’m on my own this time.
Today, for the first time in weeks, months maybe but I don’t want to look back at the calendar as it will only produce my usual, “Mercy!” which is what my mother used to say, I have four free days with no appointments. Four!!
I have three saved blog ideas/starts from the past few weeks but, obviously, haven’t written. You have no idea how many mole heads I had to bop just to find an image I could use for this post! It’s an endless game.
I have set up and taught the first class for the online Memoir and Personal Essay workshop. Talk about moles to bop in learning and setting up that one! Including downloading an app on my phone so I could record the audio only to learn the files are too large to send. But they do go directly to my Dropbox. There’s that. However, I forgot to put on my ear bud for the first class, on which the app was set to record from, so I had blank audio files and had to redo. Another mole that WOULD NOT stay bopped. But I got ‘im.
And we, husband and I, have completed yearly physicals because that’s the time of year it is and all the attendant blood work and the attendant (fill in the blank) of one thing or another except for the last one this coming Tuesday when my free days end with a rousing full one to maneuver. And then there was all the other stuff, the summer classes he does, the counseling/mentoring she does. Oh, haircuts. Of course!! We must look good, after all, as was famously said by Fernando Lamas.
I’ve had several grants meetings, the committee of which I’m the leader of as the VP of Grants on Whispering Prairie Press, a small literary nonprofit. We’re inching along
Mephistopheles the Gremlin returned to the inbox, which is overflowing, and in which some of your blogs are waiting to be read. I know. I’m sorry. But they are highlighted so maybe in these four empty days I can attend to same.
However, in perusing the world’s whack a mole game, I feel pretty fortunate. It looks a lot grimmer than my game. My husband and I are both healthy; he’s finished teaching and has taken over errands and grocery shopping. He always fixes dinner. I may go hungry the week he’s away on a brother-trip, but I expect I’ll remember to shop. At least for yogurt and blueberries. I already stay home a lot and do much of my work here in my office, and while the work has whacked at me as much as it has the moles, I’m home.
It’s often more common to look at the challenges in our own lives and not recognize society, itself, going through big changes and challenges. When we can see ourselves as cogs in a pattern, whatever we want to call that pattern, which is birthing itself in such grievous convulsions, it’s easier to feel grateful.
Because most of us, individually, are doing okay. Tired, maybe, but okay.
Hope you are, too.
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janetsunderland.com 
“….. it’s easier to feel grateful.” Truth, but we don’t always follow that path. Thank you for reminders and windows into your world where it’s happening!
The whacks have slowed a little. I taught an online course in Memoir/Personal essay in July and THAT was a commitment to the whacking moles game, especially as it was all about learning new technology. But it worked and I’m pleased. Now I’m going to try one on saving elder’s stories during August. I so like teaching and do appreciate this new mode.
Great to know you are doing well and have the luxury of working from home, Janet. I wish that I could take your workshop. Do you offer any online courses?
Yes, I do! I’m just finishing up a Memoir and Personal Essay class online and will start a class on saving family stories in August. It’s called Saving Grandpa’s Stories (and Grandma’s too!) and focuses on what and how we save those stories we’ve heard from family members. I’ll also touch on some of the points in writing memoir, knowing your story in relation to the family story. So if you’re interested, email me with the Contact Me form and I’ll give you particulars.
I’m glad you have your four days off and amazed at how busy and productive your summer has been. It’s good to see you pop up for air. 🙂
Thank you! It’s good to be seen, as my very short mother used to say.
And it’s been absolutely wonderful not to have a to-do for today except read a novel.
Janet, I hope you have kept the moles at bay these four days! The best thing about all this business, is you (we) chose it, and we get to be home while whacking the moles, like you said, and there is a lot of comfort in that!
Absolutely! In that i can take four days off and not have to ask permission. Yesterday was my first day and I wrote the blog post; today’s my second and I’m reading a novel… a novel!!! i want to finish. It’s good.
hi there Janet, I just referenced this blog in my own daily blogpost which was about the same kind of ideas. I hope you don’t mind. I really enjoy your blog. My link is https://mornings-viv.blogspot.co.nz/2016/07/buffeted-09072016.html
cheers
viv
i’m so glad to see a post from you. And isn’t that just the perfect metaphor — the whack-a-mole game. Things do pop up — sometimes with a vengeance — and its both a delight and a horror, not knowing what the next one will be.
i know you’ve written about it before, but I never mentioned how much I like the name “Whispering Prairie Press.” That’s so evocative, so reflective of my own limited experience with prairies. I’m debating whether to make a trip over to our closest natural prairie this weekend. It’s so blessedly hot, it’s a real approach/avoidance situation. Maybe I’ll just clean house.
Happy four days! You might even consider just sitting down and putting your feet up for a time. You don’t even have to read a book. You could just breathe.
Thank you! What a kind thing to say. I’m not so good at doing nothing, but I am hoping/planning to make headway on The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami. It’s a stunningly well written novel and I so appreciate all the historical research that must have gone into it. Alas, I’m only a quarter of the way through after four weeks of reading. But maybe. My main goal today was writing a post; maybe tomorrow my main goal could be reading. I don’t often read fiction but when I do, I want it to be luscious. This book is luscious. Reading would also help me avoid the inbox…