The Ends Of Things

This is the season of the ends of things.  This is the week of the ends of things and the night of the ends of things.  I have to turn in my dissertation revisions tomorrow but instead I'm writing a blog post.  I should be revising. I don't have internet at home right now and have to get to bed by 11 at the latest and that's after a shower.  I work in the morning. 
This is the end of my homeless wanderings.  I've spent the last 6 months wandering all around Oklahoma as my house was rented out while I finished my teaching contract in Ada.  The contract was not renewed and I ended up getting a teaching job in Oklahoma City. I got my house back on September 1.  It was a terrible mess and will cost me thousands of dollars to clean up.  My contractor is installing new kitchen countertops and replacing drywall in the pantry because of the heavy urine smell.  I bug bombed since the roaches were large and singularly unafraid.  One of them looked like "Ponyboy" from The Outsiders. I think he was carrying a straight razor so I backed out of the room and called in a nuclear attack. My cat is happy to be home at least.  The livingroom, hallway and one of the bedroom carpets has been steamcleaned four times and spot treated several times.  While stained badly, they won't be replaced since I just don't have the $1,700 to do it. Then there are the dead trees and landscaping in the back yard and the garbagea dn assorted junk tossed into the yard here and there.  It's going to take several pick up loads to get rid of it.  Now you know where the roaches came from.  All of this on only 6 months.  The meager deposit didn't even begin to cover the steam cleaning. I feel relatively safe tonight and the house is rather stink-free save for the pantry. The contractor will take care of it.  I put the ball in motion.  The end.  My very nice ex-boyfriend is babysitting my Big Dogg and he will come home soon too. My happy little family will be home and in the same place.

This is supposed to be the end of my dissertation. I'm a little blocked.  I don't want this to be over.  I'm teaching full time during the day and in the evenings I teach an online class.  On Tuesday nights I've got an in-person class.  I'm not sure that I'm spending enough time on revisions. I'm not sure what I'm afraid of. I'm not sure if it will pass. I'm not sure if it *should* pass.  I'm not sure what to do next. I've been a student for a long, long time. I don't want that to change. I don't want it to stop. Can't take it back now. I will finish this too and be done with it.

I am glad to be on the back side of summer and the end of the hottest season on record anywhere.  I thought I would die.  I didn't.  I complained a lot on Facebook and obsessed on the topic with my friends and family.  Wildfires raged and tempers flared. For four months I sweated and played ninja in my avoidance of the giant ball of gas in the sky.  I couldn't run more than 2 miles without getting heat stroke.  It went on and on forever until suddenly, like a puff of smoke, it was gone.  Today I turned on the heater in my car on the way to work.  It was all of 55 degrees.  I rejoiced. I reveled in it, rolling down the windows blasting the heater.  I love the descent into fall, bringing in the eaves and putting away the summer dresses.  I love putting the earth to bed, to sleep for a season of dormancy, of well deserved rest already after the long and winding dirt-road season under a burning sun.  And I feel an easing in my mind too, in my philosophy that things can wait and that there is time yet for me to think and to reflect and ponder some of life's greater mysteries. A season to compost my thoughts and plan and to dream.  To gather my wisdom about me like so much yarn to spin into the shawl of age.

I have had the end of a relationship too.  My brother is not speaking to me, nor I to him. I got pulled in to some stupid drama where I did not want to be. I am not a tactful woman and did not pull my punches when I perhaps should have.  We argued and fought and said things we cannot take back and he did something he cannot take back.  For now, for this season, I am done.  I'm not angry anymore but won't open my heart for someone who has caused that much grief for me, knowing the stress it would cause. I hate the ends of relationships and really, really dread conflict.  I do love being healthy and now perhaps we can both be healthy on our own. 

Finally, I am going to end my relationship with Blogspot.  People clicked on the ads.  I was supposedly making money from my blog.  Then I made too much money- over $300 that I never cashed in over the course of a year- and the blogspot people decided to suspend my adsense account.  So now you can read my work but I cannot make money from it.  This is work, keeping a blog and trying to put something thought-filled out there every week.  As soon as I get a suitable new home for my writing, I will let you know and we will go from there together. 

Drink the last of the summer wine. Enjoy the leftover pieces of watermelon in the refrigerator.  Pick the remaining tomatoes from shriveling vines and watch as the squash and pumpkins grow and grow. 
I leave you today with the following from William Butler Yeats:

The Folly Of Being Comforted

One that is ever kind said yesterday:
'Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey,
And little shadows come about her eyes;
Time can but make it easier to be wise
Though now it seems impossible, and so
All that you need is patience.'
Heart cries, 'No,
I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain.
Time can but make her beauty over again:
Because of that great nobleness of hers
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,
Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways
When all the wild Summer was in her gaze.'

Heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head,
You'd know the folly of being comforted.