Week 5 Promises

 This time of year is always busy for the family, so we, once again, found ourselves scrambling for time and making extra efforts to get our promises in.  We are developing a bit of a routine though, so it gets a little easier every week.  


Tracy - Cook Dinner With Kyle

Why was this promise important to you? 

Good quality time with my husband.  Not talking about work or children and just messing around and having fun.

How did it feel to fulfill your promise?

Laughing.  Flirting.  Groping (He's a monster). It was fun.  Good.  I enjoyed it.


Shea - Play 4 Different Board Games

Why was this promise important to you?

It was important for me because I wanted to spend time as a family not on our phones.  I wound up playing two "board games," one card game where we all shared, and one game with the dog.

How did it feel to fulfill your promise?

It felt really good.  It felt exciting, fun, and we laughed.  



Kyle - Write a Poem

Why was this promise important to you?

Finding time to write is always a challenge for me.  I'm not great at putting my needs first sometimes, but I am a better person, father, husband, when I have a creative outlet.  I haven't written poetry in YEARS, but it is my undergrad degree, and I've been feeling nostalgic for it lately.  

How did it feel to fulfill your promise?

While the process of getting the "juices" flowing can be difficult, once I have been in the writer's seat for a while, things generally loosen up and I feel like it is a constructive use of my time.  I'd had the 2nd dose of the COVID vaccine, and I've been a bit obsessed with the mRNA science used in the vaccine, so I was thinking a lot about "instructions" and how the vaccine instructs the body to defend itself.  That wound up being the germ of the poem, which is a disaster of a poem, but the process of thinking in poetic terms felt great, and I appreciated my time in the chair, even if I am not totally in love with the poem.

Here is the Poem I wrote:


I’ve taken my instructions

Internalized them

And burn as a result.

 

I’m ablaze with information

Culled from decades

Of labor and focus,

 

The instruments of science

Working inside me

Like a foreign intelligence

 

With a tender heart,

Tender like kiwi

Scooped with a spoon

 

I am filled up

And hollowed out

Emptied of the anxiety

 

That coursed like blood

Throughout my system

And refilled by the light

 

Of a rational mind

Leveraged to the benefit

of all.


Our Promises for this coming week are...

If you can't read Shea's, it says "Draw 3 stickers."  So Tracy's "Color with Shea" promise is very timely.  I, on the other hand, will be starting a running routine because I need to sign up for a 5k this week.

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