Still thinking

Last night I was thinking that I should just write. Every day. 500 words. Nothing exorbitant, nothing structured, just start some stories and write while I was moved by them, then stop writing when the movement stopped. I started imagining one--a woman pulls a veil more firmly over her face as she moves through a crowded street, the heavy cloth of her covering stirring itchy prickles of sweat. But the feeling on the back of her neck? That isn't sweat. She's being watched and she knows it, and then I was off and running. I don't know whether I fell asleep or it just turned into half dream, half awake plotting, but she was smuggling birth control pills, and what an odd thing for my imagination to conjure up. This morning it feels like it was more of a dream, just because it was so vivid and quirky, but it definitely started as something I was writing.

We're going to be late to school if I don't start the morning momentum going, but it's so cold. I'm trying to remember how to enjoy cold, how to breathe deeply of the fresh air and walk briskly to stay warm, but this morning, I'd rather just stay in bed and skip the day.

I'm thinking about tackling a major project, too--moving my desk into the bedroom. I like the front-room office, except for two things: there are too many distractions, ranging from all my books and the television in sight to the laundry room door always reminding me of the need to tackle that never-ending chore, plus the clutter I create out there is driving me crazy. And I have to stay wireless there and my connection is being so erratic--my frustration level is high. If I move the desk into the bedroom, I can actually plug in to the modem, which might resolve some of my problems. But today I have loads of work. And I guess it's time to get going.

RSS clean-up

I cleaned up my RSS feed over the holidays and it's killing me. It's not that it was a bad decision--there was too much in there that I'd lost interest in or depressed me (more) or that I'd never really liked after the first post anyway. But the Internet is so quiet now! I read five things and then...done. I'm craving new information sources like a kid in need of a sugar fix. Today maybe will be a day to hunt for interesting people. Suggestions welcome!

Basketball Take Two

Basketball practice last night made me so glad not to have to endure it myself.

I think coaching must be a really tough job. Finding the right balance between encouraging the early-learners and pushing the competent is an art. I don't think this coach has mastered it, but I think he's trying to find it and that alone is worth commending. But still...I don't know whether it was a drill or a scrimmage or what but for some endless eternity, they were all on the floor, all looking like they were playing, while pretty much three kids passed the ball to each other, took a shot, took it out, and started over. The other six mingled. At relatively high-speed.

And then a drill...oh, I cringed for one poor kid. He's tall, advantage him, but seemed totally lost. It wasn't just that he didn't know how to play, he struggled to follow the coach's instructions. He was never in the right place at the right time, never quite getting the next step. And I could tell that he knew it and hated it. He looked so miserable.

Practice ended well, though. Rory made a free throw basket--a beautiful, graceful shot that dropped so smoothly through the net that it was as if it was meant to be there. He surprised the coach, pleased his teammates, and delighted himself. And that moment of happiness will give us at least another two practices. I hope.

Basketball

Took R to his first basketball practice last night. Young people--even at his advanced age--are so painfully cute sometimes. Watching them stumble over each other, miss baskets, lope down the court only to get to the end and look around with a lost, "what now?" expression...it dazzled me. There were a couple kids there who knew how to play, and a couple kids with energy, and one boy who just fit inside his body really well so that every move was graceful, but the majority of them were adorably bad.

I talked with a mom, randomly, she was simply the one who had thought to bring a book and I commented on it, and she was a foster mom for a while. Her son (the graceful one) is adopted. I've thought about becoming a foster parent for such a long time, but it scares me. The coincidence, though, made me wonder whether I should view it as a message from the universe, answering my question of yesterday.

New Year's

I've been trying to think of a New Year's resolution for days now. Since before the old year ended and this new decade started. A new decade! Think of that. How amazing.

It's not as if it's a blank slate: all the baggage from the old decade comes with us. But still, it feels like an opportunity to cultivate change. My problem is that I can't figure out what kind of change to cultivate, nor how exactly I want to go about it. Lose weight, exercise, get out of the house more often, nurture plants, try harder to live in moments, meditate, actively cherish my boy and the people/creatures I love...all those seem really obvious and yet completely uninspiring. I feel as if a decade deserves a challenging goal, a worthy goal. And yet whenever I try to think of what that should be (encompassing it within the bounds of what I really might be willing to do in the next decade, so no joining the Peace Corps or living on Mars), total blank. What do I want to do? And why is that such a hard question?