Mr. Kim Blogs - Perspective

Too many days at work for hours numbering into the mid-double digits gets me cranky and childish and self-centered and foul-mouthed. I am currently in the seventh consecutive month with way too many of these days, frequently back to back to back. Tonight, after yet another day of getting to the office at dawn and leaving well after 8 PM, I trudged to my mother’s house to fulfill a promise of helping her around the house with toting and lifting and yanking and holding – things she can’t or at least shouldn’t do any longer with her bad knee. I do not mind helping out, that’s what family does and especially what children-who-can do for their parents-who-cannot. But I was tired and after I finished my ten minutes of chores and was loading into the car a half dozen small plants she had kept in her garage on life support for me through the long winter, all I could do was complain about work. The hours, the idiots, the money, the uselessness of some of the things I do, the frustrations, the arbitrary decisions – it all sort of came burbling down like mud in a gully. She listened and waited for me to run out of air, and apropos of god only knew at the time, she offered, ”Do you know they are calling for snow flurries tomorrow night?” I allowed as I didn’t know that, that the weather was not something I had had time to keep up with. She looked to her flower beds, now in full bloom. “I guess I’ll have to cover those up, maybe they’ll make it.” Mom can make flowers grow from a pot of rocks.

“Come around front. You need to smell my hyacinths.“ This was not a request. She was already walking around the corner, not looking back to see if I was following. “Come smell them, they’re wonderful. They may well be gone tomorrow with the weather coming in so come smell them. You need to remember what is important. Not ‘smelling work’, smelling hyacinths.”

And she stopped directly over the front flower bed and suggested that I smell the pink ones as well as the purple ones. I bent down as close as I could get in my three button grey pinstripe suit, careful not to ground my knees. And I inhaled. I missed it at first but the second time the perfume just grabbed me. It really is such a pure thing. I stood up, and she looked expectantly at me. “Best smell in the whole world, don’t you think?”

I have much to learn.

An Actual Post from ME!

I've been feeling guilty that I haven't posted in so long. All my good intentions of last September have gone nowhere. My resolution to write about ANYTHING just to get something on the screen has fizzled. I don't think that writing just anything is a fruitless exercise, either. I have such logorrhea that when I get started, I tend to carry on until everyone is exhausted trying to follow my line of thinking and wondering when I am going to GET TO THE POINT.

I hate to have this blog turn into some navel-gazing exercise and goodness knows I've posted enough about NOT posting. But I really am having trouble finding the time and energy to 'put pen to paper'. My life is no fuller than others and I have so many lovely things in it. But I suspect that what a friend just called "that black dog" has decided to camp out at my doorway. I have 'the blues'. Unmistakable signs - irritability, lack of interest, being tired for no reason, feeling overwhelmed to the point of inertia. The whole, boring litany. Just the edges of it, though. Not the full fledged TV commercial lying-on-the-sofa-ignoring-the-kids-setting-the-dog-on-fire depression. I'm not crying all the time. Or screaming all the time. I'm just 'blah'.

And I really do need to push through it. We are leaving for England on May 13th. That would be 50 days from now. We have all of our transport, hotels and some other bits and pieces all set. But I still have a million little details to see to. Shopping, packing, getting the 'itinerary' down in writing so that we have a coherent schedule to follow and know when and what we need to confirm. My dining room table is covered with paper and lists and notes and books. I have lists of questions and list of who to ask the questions of. Sometimes I wish that we had opted for one of those package tours with every day, every meal, every excursion planned by SOMEONE ELSE. I need a mommy. To quote Charlie Brown: AAUGH!!!!!

So, in the knowledge that the quickest way out of one of these attacks of the megrims is to DO SOMETHING, I am going to plunge into some preparations for the trip - TONIGHT. I know that if I just get organized and get something accomplished, it will help me stop feeling so overwhelmed. I don't know that it will improve my blogging, but it should improve my life.