I have to keep reminding my self that its OK to feel what I feel sometimes, mountainous exhaustion. I am after all an artist, a wife, the mother of four kids, and a HS art teacher that is desperately in need a better sense of humor, or maybe just for the year to come crashing to an abrupt halt so I can be done with teenage angst for a few minutes. Oh wait, I still have one of those at home. He is 17 going on that age just before nesting sets in, the listen to everything loud, except me of course, stay up too late and have momentary lapses of the pre-frontal cortex kind of thing, all of this despite having an intense desire (and focus) to make it as a speedskater. To think I have to ride across country with him this summer. This rant was spun out of my desire to work out as hard as he does, and being jealous of my lack of time and energy.
My day started at 5 AM with a mountain of tasks to accomplish before 2:05, my first thoughts this morning were if I just had an hour:
* an hour to work on an article that I have been working on for weeks now. Its just not quite right yet. It needs more substance and less bourbon.
* an hour to grade student work uninterrupted by plastic crisis', gossip, or even some other administrative task.
* an hour to prepare annual reports for a meeting that is happening directly after school.
* an hour in my studio without my head getting in the way.
* an hour to sit and plan my trip to SLC. OK, this might need more than an hour, but a good honest uninterrupted sixty minutes might actually help get things going. I need to find hockey skates, a 60 CM road bike, and figure out how to pack my cycling gear for the PMC so that I don't need to stop home in August before going to MA.
* an hour to figure out just how I am going to raise all that money for the PMC? YIKES!!!
* an hour to procrastinate about working out so that I can still get in as much as I had planned on.
* an hour to just sit and talk to my kids, or Kenny, or my mom, or Kelly, or Alison, or Pete for that matter, no phones, no texting, no electronics, no distractions.
* how about an hour to just sit, though I am not sure I can do that, or if I ever have done that?
I budgeted an hour for a meeting after school. It took two. I had budgeted 2 hours on the bike and took only one. How did that happen?
In that hour on the bike I contemplated big life questions such as my recent love affair with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fridays at the Met are intoxicating, for some literally. The people that go to the museum at night are different than the people who make their way through by day. It is almost as if its a who's who want to be seen kind of thing. There is live music and what seems to be a happy hour of sorts in a variety of corners of the place, the young professional wanna be jet-setters on the roof, while the actual jet setters are in the restaurant listening to live chamber music, then there is the quieter wine bar crowd, who seem to be there to enjoy a light dinner out while in the midst of visual overload, this is truly a contemplative crowd. It made me wonder in that cavernous place, just how many artist's lives were being changed forever, how many were there just to say they did something slightly intellectual, and how many were there to people watch. How much BS was dished out about aesthetics for that matter? And, just what was going on on the other side of the museum, in the Egyptian wing while I was in the Greek wing, not digging for headlines here just wondering, was there someone like me, a kid in a candy store re-discovering why I am an artist again and again as if it were the first time tasting some sweet heavenly morsel. And? Was there someone like me, wondering why the Alexander McQueen show was as popular as the Gates were? Yes, it was a great show, but do that many people really know what the significance of the collection is? Will it ever be quiet enough to view and contemplate rather than try to crane over the woman in the Manolo Blahniks's that despite being able to afford a McQueen, doesn't understand the aesthetic quality because she is just trying to keep up with her neighbors, the Jones' who just happen to had a personal invite from McQueen to dinner.
In that hour I thought about how my road bike is acting up. All the things it could be. All the things I hope it is not. I can't afford to hemorrhage more cash or the time to get it up to Tim to fix it?
In that hour I thought about what I was going to write about and if it all would make sense. I also forgot about what I was going to write about so now none of it makes sense.
In that hour I thought about nothing too. I took a mental break, which is why I love riding so much. In that hour I was in heaven just meditating.
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