infinite

Here we go again, another near year between posts. It’s not for want of whoa. Time marches on. My kid is almost two. I put my mind to the grind and got a new job and boom, bought a house and love the fall of the light each degree of rotation and the dark that falls at night absent streetlamps in the neighborhood, far enough from big city life to see the real sky.

I natter to myself, next year I’ll slow down but I doubt it’ll happen. I’ll hold my breath at the bottom of my chest, empty out that exhale till I keel.

Wish I could report I’m writing elsewhere, journaling, or anything, alas. I love being a mom, yes and and yes—it is at the expense of old ideas of me. Not the love. Just the momming. But honest to god I would give anything, I am giving everything, to keep getting all I am receiving, my world shrunk tight yet rapidly expanding, anew, through the eyes of my child.

He’s a terrorist.

Holding our sleep hostage, crawling in with us at four in the morning, sometimes snuggle snoozing, often forcing us up, every day, again and again. Tantrums over YouTubes, you guys, this crap is crap, sound effect starter packs, disembodied hands orchestrating jump-cut ASMR everything, kinetic sand, Kinder eggs and rainbow gak.

He puts his hot little hand in mine and mama’s me to the floor to play.

When a pickup roars by blasting Tejano, he moves his shoulders like a mobius strip.

He has this wide stance dance that carves out space, a fulcrum and a magnet but turned the other way, like the guy who throws down in the middle of the pit and like magic holds the chaos both apart and together.

Hey, check it out:

And so we left. We looked for a house in Austin for over half a year, outgunned by cash offers 100k over asking, on let’s be real, dumps, pushed further and further out while still not flush enough. The dread of a commute reined me in, but this vanished once I got a new job.

I work 100% remotely now, for good, for the best for me and my family, pandemic or not.

For a while I distanced myself from the Great American Work Upheaval as though it didn’t apply. Yeah sure, it’s about the kid, but now that I’ve escaped—the condescending oversight, the perpetual moving targets, the emotional labor and compassion fatigue, the fear uncertainty doubt and double-edged everything, plus! plus! getting reamed by the worst human beings when forced to enforce mask policies, it didn’t matter how important The Work was, or how good I was at it.

It sucked, and I was done. Burned out. Used up.

“My heart is still in public libraries” but only because enough of it got tore off and chewed up.

There’s more to say, and there’s not. I miss folks, though—colleagues and regulars alike. We’re close enough to visit but we won’t. Not as often as intentions declare, but that’s a choice, and it feels all right.

I wonder how many times I have left to start over. If there’s a limit. If I actually did it, now or ever, gnawed my limb out of the trap and let it dangle, or do the metal jaws drag behind with sharp teeth, jagged jewelry hobbling me.   

Did I mention I’m happy?

I’m sad for our country. Scared and second-guessing doubling-down in Texas.

But this part. This plot.

This land, this story. It’s mine, it’s ours, it keeps going.

Love is infinite.

Don’t you It’s best you forget it.

So it can wake you up

Again

And again.