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Category Archives: Sans Therapist

Escape

24 Saturday Sep 2016

Posted by Vicki Hamlin in Beauty in the Dishsoap, Sans Therapist, Stuff I Want to Tell You About

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On Friday night my family went to a rainy and chilly football game at our local high school.  I wanted to do that about as much as I want to sit in a room with Donald Trump, or see his photograph or hear his voice – or have his campaign label Hillary Clinton a liar while nearly every word that comes out of his mouth isn’t remotely close to truthy, let alone the truth.  I’m getting tight in the chest just writing about it now.

And for the record — so don’t send “helpful information” to set me straight on Donald Trump — I don’t want to sit in a room with any political candidate. Not one. I’m tired of their names. I’m tired of their voices. I’m tired of their bullshit and their games and their bullshit games.  But mostly, I’m tired of the effort of being sold the “fact” that America isn’t already a pretty damn good country.  A thriving democracy.  (And no, I don’t live under a rock. I know things are a fucking mess for all kinds of people, across the board, in all facets.) But my god.  Have we forgotten that the right to voice our dissent, to send a letter, to write a blog, to stand up, to speak up, to write down, to criticize…these rights do not exist in all places.  That our right to disagree makes us stronger, better and keeps us moving forward?

We seem to have arrived at a place of expecting and taking for granted these rights, and that is a thorough shame.

Now I don’t care if you agree with me, and I don’t care if you don’t.  All I have is my one vote, and all you have is yours.  Well, my vote and this blog, where I have the privilege, and still the right, to think through how I really feel about things.  I’m not here to convince you of anything at all. That’s the beauty of art. The beauty and the blade, of course, as some of you are itching to respond in disagreement.  I urge you not to bother. I didn’t come here to incite you.

So back to Friday. On the way home from work, I told myself I’d turn off NPR at the first political mention.  It was thirty seconds. I rode home in silence.

When my family had left for the game, after a high energy dinner and making sure everyone was wearing enough layers to not freeze to death, I sat in my favorite chair and turned on Netflix, wanting to just escape.  I didn’t want to think about anything at all. And I don’t watch television normally – I don’t follow any shows – but sometimes Netflix is enticing and helps me get out of my own head for awhile.

I watched an excellent comedy show called Bo Burnham What.  He’s good.  For over an hour I listened and laughed. So I’d like to say here that if you’re needing the same – a get out of your head without the use of substances card – take a look. He has other specials, too, including Words, Words, Words and Make Happy.  But don’t watch if you’re offended by swearing – you’ll certainly be offended.

Here’s one of my favorite clips.

That’s all.

I’m going to go walk my dog along the river and think about my dog and the river, and nothing else.  I hope.

 

 

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A Teacher’s “Day Off”

24 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by Vicki Hamlin in Sans Therapist, Stuff I Want to Tell You About

≈ 1 Comment

These are the ramblings of an apparent crazy person – so beware.  My brain is still moving at the speed of work and I am recently delirious with lack of sleep.

I’m unwinding from end-of-year craziness at my job, which, for those who don’t know, is teaching 8th graders.  They are 9th graders now and to that I give a simultaneous whoop and sob.  It was an exhausting, lovely year.

Today is my first full day off.  I have no idea what to do with myself.

Guy is in Germany.  Garrett is in Costa Rica.  Luke spent the night with a friend and Natalie is at the lake with my mother.  I awoke to an empty house.

What does one do who finds herself explicably without teaching stuff to do?  It turns out she does the following:

Awakes at the familiar hour of 5:15am, as she has done for the past 10 months, because her brain is telling her she’s got papers to grade.  This is not the only time her brain will lie to her today.  It will tell her several times she has something important to accomplish.  LIAR.

Tries, rather unsuccessfully, to go back to sleep, only to arise at 7am having spent a couple of hours going over everything she could have done better in her classroom this year. Really, that is no way to start a day.  Feels a little blue.

Gets dressed in clothing she did not – I repeat, did NOT – set out the night before. This feels, somehow, like freedom with capital FREE.

Takes the dog out to pee, then takes the dog to a local walking trail.  Okay, it’s not a walking trail.  It’s a cross country trail used by our local middle-schoolers and which is not supposed to use for dog walking.  For the record, I clean up after my dog.  And I have no plans to stop this rogue behavior.

Buys an iced coffee.

Drives across the street from Dunkin’ Donuts to the self-serve car cleaning place and vacuums out car.

Goes to bank to get money she owes a friend.

Returns home.  Has a bowl of grapenuts cereal with banana and vanilla soy milk. Realizes this is the first breakfast she has had at her table on a weekday in … ten months.

Cleans the kitchen for an hour.

Sits at her computer.  Reviews comments on report cards for over an hour.  Yes, work is “over” – but it never really is, is it?  Answers email for another 15 minutes.  Sets a time with a new teacher to meet later in the week.  Work for fall has begun on day 1 of summer break.

Has a visit from aforementioned friend.  Laughs for a bit – feels a lot less blue.

Reads for an hour to prepare for her MFA residency which is in less than two weeks. Does this on the deck, in the sun. In a tank top.  This, too, feels like freedom.

Does two loads of laundry.

Opens all the mail.

Takes a walk to see another friend, whose daughter says she has gone to vote. Decides to go vote.  Votes YES! on the school budget and has heart palpitations thinking what a setback it would be if it doesn’t pass.  Sits and stares at ocean for 10 minutes.  Feels better.

Walks home.  Decides to do an Insanity workout.  Aptly named.  Feels like lungs might explode.

Drives to pick up Luke.

Drives to go get gas.

Arrives home.  Watches “The Barefoot Contessa” and is bored senseless.  TV has almost no draw for her, but she’s brushing out the dog so she finishes the show. Considers making a homemade chicken broth ala Ina Garten, but gets over it.

Showers.  Shaves.

Writes this blog entry.

Realizes how mundane this entry is.  Doesn’t care.

Drives to Thomaston for a Babe Ruth game and hopes to have ice cream for supper at Dorman’s Dairy Dream – a place she grew up going to after her softball games 30 years ago. Looks forward to it.

 

 

 

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Coo Coo Cachoo

13 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by Vicki Hamlin in Sans Therapist

≈ 1 Comment

Date night used to exist at our house, and recently it hasn’t, and the topic just isn’t worth the 7 paragraph explanation I wrote and then deleted.  In essence:  we used to need it, then we didn’t.  Now we do again.

It’s been a particularly difficult winter, even by Maine standards. One of those that brings with it too much gray, too much of a feeling of being trapped, too dismal, interminably internal-organ-freezing cold. You can venture out, but you feel you’re fighting, even with your parka to your ankles and your hat down past your earlobes, to breathe.  It began to hold us under.  And I can’t speak for you, but I’m going to go ahead and do so when I say:  that is not good for anyone.  Anyone at all.

In February we took a night for ourselves, as a couple and not as parents, necessarily, to spend some time together actively making sure we still know who the other is, in what might be the worst winter of our marriage.  These years are busy and these days even busier than that, and we felt it might do us some good to sit in the same boat, inciting spring to arrive, and row in the same direction, see how our synchronicity still fares.

It used to be that date night was a hurried affair, with frequent checks that the babysitter hadn’t, in fact, called during the eight seconds it took to gulp down a chicken wing.  It came with a lot of reminders that we had veered off into discussion about our children, when the first rule of date night was: don’t talk about the children.  We were tense, because there were little people at home who were certainly terrified, not knowing where we were or when we might return, who felt abandoned and who had curled up into little tiny balls into corners of the playroom, rocking and swaying to soothe themselves.  This fact, of course, was disproven every single Tuesday upon our return, when one or another of them would yell “why are you HOME?!” as feathers from the pillow fight they’d been having careened around, landing ever-so-softly in my hair.

Our first date night in 7 years brought with it an ice storm significant enough to cancel school.  Determined, and with a reservation, dammit, we went out anyway.  The minivan couldn’t hold itself in the first parking space we tried, too steep of a hill on an eighth inch of ice, so it slid itself into another, where we were grateful no one else had already parked.  It rested peacefully enough for us to shrug and consider it safe.  We had to hold hands and lean on each other as we made our way to the front door of the inn, shuffling like elderly people must, to keep our footing.  “Are you going to take care of me like this when I’m 85?” I asked Guy.  “Nope,” he said with no hesitation.  “Well, why NOT?!” I demanded.  “Because I’ll be 90!” he laughed.

I ordered a martini, something made special for Valentine’s Day.  Something with basil, I think.  Or cucumber.  Something very spring-like and in complete juxtaposition to the falling sleet clinking at the window.  White lights still illuminated the trees outside the inn, from the holidays, and through the watery panes, cast a lovely soft shine on us.  We ate several wonderful nibblets of seven different courses for our meal, including something Asian-inspired, to begin, which got us talking about our year in Korea, a time that in some ways feels lost, like a word you can’t quite bring to your tongue.  Life pulls us forward, incessantly, and there is little time for reflection, even of that incredible experience and of the year that changed us so.

There was a salad, a bisque, a risotto, a cut of filet mignon with accompanying brussels sprouts and also, once in awhile, sorbet.   As morsel upon morsel arrived from the kitchen, our conversation deepened, lengthened – maybe the longest one we’d had since fall (since before coaching basketball had begun), wherein we had nowhere else to be, and no one else needing our attention.  I’ll state the obvious; this is good for a marriage, and I, for one, had forgotten how lovely it feels to have someone not just listening to the way you see things, but who, whether they agree with you or they do not, is on your side.  Rounding out the dinner was a chocolate souffle into which our waitperson poured luscious chocolate fudge sauce, which, if you have to end things, is a good way to do it.

Picture, if you will, a walrus who has gone and gotten himself stuck up to his armpits in, say, snow, since that works here.  See that walrus faloomph itself, somehow, maybe inchworm-style, maybe baby sea turtle-style, out of that snow.  Free at last.   Watch the walrus when it lands on the ice which inevitably surrounds all that snow. Picture how, with it’s gigantic walrus belly leading the way, it gives up the farcical belief in having any control whatsoever over the weather, particularly this ice and this snow we’ve been facing, and just lets go, with a wooohooo!, putting its head back, closing its eyes, and riding the slick carnival slide down the icy hills of life.  It is then that you will have some semblance of an understanding of — not only how full we were upon leaving our dinner, which was uh, to the gills– but of why date night must exist, and will it continue to, for another while.

 

 

 

 

 

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