2011/05/21

Bigger Pot Please

A quick glance through the images for re-potting, and I found a whole site called

This cracks me up. It's such an unadorned invitation, catering to the whiners among us. I'd be one of those lately. Why? Why? My inner voice is about two and a half years old these days.

I need re-potting. I can tell. I need it for so many reasons, and I feel exactly like this philodendron (is this a philodendron?)
It's root-bound. Its previous pot was good and meet and right and perfect ... until it wasn't. That's me. Prior Learning Assessment at Marylhurst was perfect and good and wonderful and satisfying ... until it wasn't. My current employment feels cramped and stuck and new opportunities are materializing at last. My household routines are gradually finding new reasons and fresh structures, now that we are in a permanent two-person household. Resting and recovering from nearly a decade of one health "event" after another has taken enough of my attention. It's time to stop convalescing and be convalesced! I need a new pot!

The starchy no-nonsense writer at Repotting - Why? says,
Let me give you a word of advice, and if you follow it your plants usually do well.
GROW GOOD ROOTS and the foliage will follow.
Yes. It's time.

I am turning in my Prior Learning Assessment final portfolio. The process of turning it in, completed, ready for final evaluation, should be a straightforward march to victory, but for me, it has not been.

I let it go too long. I didn't just move into the process and then through it to the other side. I stopped in the middle, pitched a tent, and worried. I did a full-on Jonah after Ninevah routine. Wah wah wah. Poor me. I wrote my essays and they were good and I was successful at getting credits recommended and then I wanted to pout about it. Fuss and fret and sit.

And sit.

And sit.
Turning it in has become just as exhausting as anything else. (Root bound. Definitely root bound.) My final portfolio contains essays for thirty credits. Not forty-five. Saying that aloud feels like admitting to laziness. But the truth is that any amount is good. Forty-five is the maximum allowed. I have written for the maximum desired. I only want those thirty. I'm done. How odd that success feels heavy. This accomplishment feels like laziness. (Root bound. I'm just root bound. I need another pot.)

I turned in my portfolio on Thursday. On Monday or Tuesday of next week, I will find out if there are any last minute details to tweak to satisfy the accreditation people. Then I will wait for the official decision about the credits I've earned. Then I will need to find a way to pay for transferring them to my transcript. And then I'll be done with that part of my life.

My leaves feel dusty and crinkled at the edges. The first part of my degree-getting needs to transition into the last part. I need to write more and work at the library less. I need to spread my decades of experience into new (offspring-free) household routines and pleasures.

Maybe this past winter of our discontented sogginess is ready to be made glorious summer by the sun of Work. New work. The next work. Where I live, it started raining in October of last year and didn't quit until last week, in the middle of May. I started my PLA process three years ago, and didn't quit until last week. I'm ready for a bigger pot and wider work. I've been root bound, over-watered and soggy for long enough - at school and everywhere else.

Repotting why? Because it's either that, or mulch me.

The clivia is repotted,
hopefully in a pot that is not too big, not too small, but just right.

2011/05/18

Nothing Will Ever Be Out of Print

This recorded conversation takes about half an hour ... and if you were ever fretful, concerned, curious, or amazed at the way electronic media is taking over the world of books, this is a conversation worth hearing.

Watch the full episode. See more The Open Mind.

2011/05/07

Stay This Time

And if today I stay
not turn or shy
not try to get away from it

If today I stay
and look

If today I wonder not
why I should be afraid
or sad
Why should this happen to me?
God only wants me to be happy
believe the Secret
chant the affirmation
gather some good way
to crawl from this
escape

What if I observe
instead
and wonder what
not why

What is your name
Sadness?
No, I mean your proper name.
Are you called avoid
or guilt
or caught betwixt between
an expectation and a slap

Are tears good?

Bow down for weeping

There is a time for it.