Where Your Feet Are

Be where your feet are.
Wait, does that sound familiar to anyone else?

I've been more than a little distracted for a while now. I'll give you more details in person or something, but for now suffice to say that the sitcom that is my personal life had some kind of epic season finale (complete with potential cliffhangers) this weekend. At the same time, it was a working weekend (Sunday was International Festival, Monday afternoon speech contest, Monday night was the Sequim farewell party, etc.)... so I and my cohort have been extraordinarily busy even just with that.

And when I wasn't busy with work, I was busy complaining about work, preparing for work, or bitching about that sitcom bullshit that all happened in a row (seriously, it's great.. my life = ridiculous, squared). I had basically no time to do things like wash my dishes, put away the laundry that has been dry since Saturday, clear off the table, etc.

Today started out in an existential funk, the kind of day where you don't really know what anything is worth. I spent the whole morning hating life for no reason and pretending to be super excited and genki for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders about Halloween.

Try explaining to kids who don't speak your language that one night a year, all the kids in your country put on ridiculous clothes, go knock on other people's doors, yell "Trick or treat" at them and expect to receive candy. And you thought the akimatsuri was weird (okay, you haven't had a chance yet to think it's weird because that was last Friday and I haven't had a chance to post the photos yet... haha).

Anyway, after lunch I put my face down on my desk and zoned out completely until it was cleaning time. I wordlessly swept almost the entire genkan (students' entrance) and left piles of dust for the kids around me to dustpan. Somehow, my last class of the day was the best (again, even though last time I was at the Small Elementary, and today I was at the Big Elementary).. I suspect their awesome homeroom teacher. At the end, they gave me stuff they made for my birthday. It was pretty much the most amazing birthday card(s) I have ever seen. And I was thinking.. there are kids here, and they want my attention too.

And then it was dismissal time, and kids were literally crawling all over me, and I was giving them hugs and high-fives, and they were.. like.. hitting my arms too (I gave blood Sunday, and one of them kept hitting me right in the crook of my elbow.. ow, kid!), but then I was laughing, and looking at the way the sun was cast over the mountains, and the trees in the background were reddening as fall deepens, and all of that sitcom crap seemed very far away (because, um, it is far away. Freaking America), and there were these kids, and they loved me. And the one of them was dragging me across the field, and I wasn't wearing good shoes to be jogging after her, and I didn't know where we were going, or if we had time before we had to line up and dismiss, but we got to the edge of the field and she said, "Look. It's probably the last cherry blossoms of the year," and it was so cool, these little flowers here and there on this otherwise totally barren tree. And then my heart was in the same town as my feet, and I felt a lot better.


Because yeah, I did need to spend some time being upset about the drama. But for better or worse, this is where I am. Yamasaki town and Ichinomiya town are my towns. It does me no good for my confused heart to wander anywhere far from my feet. It only leaves me spaced out and sad.