Presence

Work Song on a Saturday Morning

May 29, 2021

Saturday morning, a few minutes before I need to leave for work.

Cooking breakfast eggs. Drinking tea with cream. Biscuit the blanket stealing dog on a blanket on the couch, because it is already warm out, so I have no need for a blanket on my lap that he can steal.

This was a week. A good week with good work. Had a chance to do a few days of substitute teaching for an elementary school.

Here’s something that it has taken me a surprisingly long time to figure out: we can’t control anybody, really, except for ourselves.

If, for example, two little boys want to hide under a cabinet and not come out, there is nothing anyone can do about it, especially a substitute like me, and they know it. We all know it. Continue Reading…

Featured, Presence

Waiting for a Call

May 22, 2021

It is not so fun, to get a letter in the mail that tells you that you need to be available for a phone interview on a specific day in a two hour time frame, or else.

Which is why I am sitting here at 1:00 pm on a Friday. Not that there is much else I could be doing now. It is actually a fairly convenient time to be waiting for a call that could occur anytime in the next two hours. I’m in between massage appointments. Still, though. The letter carries the hint of a threat.  Also, it is not written very well; there is a sentence fragment on the back side that I find a little annoying.

So that is right now.

I am writing. I am waiting.

I keep checking my phone to make sure that I didn’t somehow miss it ringing. Even though it is sitting right here next to me. No, it is not on silent. Yes, the ringer is turned up high. I went to the bathroom a few minutes ago, but my bladder is a little anxious, maybe because it realizes that I might be stuck sitting here for the next few hours and can’t leave to go to the bathroom again (because if the phone rang while I was in there? Awkward!). Continue Reading…