014 ❖ the horse and the swamp

this was a week where I thought I didn’t have it, couldn’t get anything down to share. it happens sometimes, not as often as it used to, where, for one reason or another, my brain feels, as I almost put into a work presentation I did about neurodivergent task management strategies (lol), like the swamp scene from The NeverEnding where the boy tries with all of his might to drag the horse out of the mucky swamp as it sinks, frozen and untrying. thank god I didn’t though, because I had forgotten completely until just a minute ago when I rewatched the video that the horse gives up and sinks completely, and while some weeks in my mind I am both the catatonic horse and the screaming boy pulling at the horse and somehow also the swamp, I always manage to get it together because these days I have a lot more people than myself to look after, and that’s really enough to try.

every week there are things I’ve noticed and want to hold on to at least for another week, and this week it’s…

◆ a PB&J flanked with a squeaky cheese stick, hummus, and baby carrots, the exquisite lunch of a child that is made for and by me, an adult, whenever I damn well want.

◆ the stiff black rubber belt that I picked up the other day that came off one of the exactly four Ninja Turtles I allowed my mom to ship from the attic stash in my childhood home, which, of course, yanks at nostalgia but is also a minuscule physical thing that marks a particular era, like I imagine the tense but stretching rubber cord joints of GI Joe figures might connect with my oldest brother and the hope that among the hovering and the constant motion, our kids have those moments to take apart and tug at things in the physical world, maybe never as bored as we were, but grounded in something.

◆ a tall cylindrical takeout container full of leftover pancake batter, distinct from normal leftovers in that it buys you some of the cred for making something fresh, just on borrowed time, not too dissimilar to our cold brew coffee maker that we use to make lukeroomtemp coffee to coalesce in the fridge overnight, a surprise gift from the very recent past.

◆ freely admitting the joy of an old friend unearthing a recording from 2007 that I did guest vocals on (0:46) and all of the things that means, reconnecting with folks I haven’t talked to in years, revisiting songs I haven’t air drummed to in nearly two decades, this thing that I wonder if other late-diagnosed ADHD folks experience where, if you’ve been lucky enough to have had fertile if inconsistent creative periods, the evidence which mounts as some small body of proof that you were capable and therefore are capable, an urge not unlike this newsletter, something I might look back on two decades from now when I feel like I don’t have it (**neigh**), hopefully then, like I do now, realizing that I’ll always have it, even if it isn’t loud or fun or widely accessible, it that manifests as simply making stuff.

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