Have you fallen in love with them, yet?
“Have you fallen in love with them, yet?” she asked. We all snapped to attention with this query, so far was it from the actual emotion we were experiencing. Um…no. I don’t even like them much right now.
Eleanor Rigby
Waits at the window
Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?
The Beatles, “Eleanor Rigby”
After the Rain
It’s Spring Break for the kiddos. And, it’s been raining all week. Rain is hardly ever a welcome meteorologic phenomenon in my world. It’s become even less-so during this time of lockdown. We have so very few options for respite from the walls that surround us, from each other, from the staid repetition of our Groundhog Days. Yet, the melancholy that accompanies the rain is not a phenomenon isolated within this time of pandemic. Not for me at least. This week’s deluge took me back to this time almost a year ago. A time of uncertainty tinged with hope. I wrote then…
Lost and Found
In November, I lost my wedding and engagement rings. I love my rings, but I don’t wear them all the time. Only when I’m going out do I really put on any jewelry. I opened the dryer one day and found my engagement ring lying under the jeans. I didn’t even realize it had been lost. Suddenly I recalled that the night before when I was putting lotion on Sloane, I slipped the rings off and put them in my pocket. Then I forgot all about them. So tumble-dried engagement ring – here. Where’s the wedding ring? I searched the dryer, shaking each of the jeans that inhabited it. Nothing.
Who am I?
My name is Valerie Livesay. Not so long ago, I left my job as full-time faculty teaching in a graduate program in organizational leadership at a university. I left my job…to attempt to be. To sink into not doing (doing being a favorite compulsion of mine). To find myself anew. To shed the many parts of my identity that I had spent a lifetime creating; the parts that had been created on my behalf; the parts that had certainly served me well to that point. And, to see if I could still be loved…by myself…by others.