I spend the weekend catastrophizing. I'm always looking for something to go wrong. Actually I do better than that: all I need is something to worry about going wrong. I can make myself miserable, the kids miserable, May miserable.
And my predictions. Oh, my dire predictions! If we go look at houses in the Annex, I'm certain we'll never find what we want. Or if we do, we won't be able to sell our own house in time to get it. Or if we do, there'll turn out to be something secret wrong with the new place, like some kind of magical dry rot that hides itself from the housing inspector. Or, it'll be something clandestinely wrong with the neighbourhood that you can't see in the daytime (Oops! Loud kids living 3 houses down, who will keep you and the kids up all night! SURPRISE! Hlaghaglglahglagh!).
And when we're done house hunting for the day, and it's time to drive all the way up town to my aikido class, boy am I certain we aren't going to make it on time. And boy am I going to lord the one time May misestimated how long it would take to get there over her the whole way there. See that red light? See? I told you we should've left earlier. (Five minutes pass; then, in deathly serious tones, as though I'm discussing the prognosis of a fatally ill patient, conveying my seriousness through slow, deliberate speech peppered with awkwardly-placed emphasis: I just want to register... my concern... that we may have left downtown... a little too late.) I'm like a cartoon of the stereotypical Jewish mother. I can't stop myself! It's embarrassing.
Then there is aikido, and it beats the crap out of me and bends my mind back into shape. It holds me down and gives me no other choice. Home, and there are wonderful, wonderful children and some of my wonderful, wonderful siblings to help entertain them. And there is the deep joy I get from shared homemade food, and stupid teevee to dull the world a little bit, and I drive a brother home, and most of the way down we listen to Grizzly Bear, and don't really talk much, and that's kinda wonderful, and I realize how insanely lucky I am to be able to share that kind of music in that kind of silence.
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