In the Time it Takes the Kettle to Sing

I want to knit
I want to write
I want to teach
I want to paint
I want to clean, throw out, dismantle
I want to build, create, assemble
I want to sleep
I want to go out
I want to feel beautiful
I want to wallow in warm, cozy sweatpants

I want
to have the mental energy to do

13 Comments

by Jennifer Butler Basile on January 13, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in Living, Poetry

Tagged desires, energy, lack of, melancholy, moment in time, motivation, poem, thoughts, wants vs needs

Posted by Jennifer Butler Basile on January 13, 2015

https://choppingpotatoes.com/2015/01/13/in-the-time-it-takes-the-kettle-to-sing/

13 Comments

pattytmitchell
/ January 13, 2015

Beautiful. Totally hits home.

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- Jennifer Butler Basile
  / January 14, 2015
  
  Thank you, Pat. Glad I’m not the only one! I should add having a cup of coffee with you to my list of to-dos!
  
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  - pattytmitchell
    / January 14, 2015
    
    I agree!!
    
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Jennifer (@thisquiethouse)
/ January 13, 2015

I want all those things too. If only I could wrap my head around them all and just do.

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- Jennifer Butler Basile
  / January 14, 2015
  
  Just do. It sounds so simple, yet is so very difficult. I may need to start wearing Nikes 😉
  
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Toddler_Mama
/ January 13, 2015

Sounds about right… Sometimes I feel like I need a Wheel of Fortune wheel with all my options that I can spin around and then commit to whatever it lands on, rather than doing 1/10th of the list of things I have in my head at any given moment.

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- Jennifer Butler Basile
  / January 14, 2015
  
  Don’t you wish you could just pick one and get on with it? When you invent and market the mother’s wheel of fortune, I want to be the first in line! Something like that would certainly help when it feels like a pinball is pinging around my head, but the spring lacks any sort of tension to get it moving in a good direction.
  
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Joyce Poggi Hager
/ January 14, 2015

My mother used to say, “The more you do, the more you can do.”

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- Jennifer Butler Basile
  / January 14, 2015
  
  You know, that saying about how it’s the woman who works full-time, runs car-pool, and volunteers for PTO is the one who will bake and bring the cookies has been running through my mind lately. Makes me feel incredibly underachieving. But, if I take your mother’s saying into perspective, the more I actually get off my duff, the more I may feel like moving. The first step . . . as they say, right?
  
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Little Mighty
/ January 15, 2015

Sometimes they say if you want to get something done, give the task to a busy person. I like this very much.

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- Jennifer Butler Basile
  / January 15, 2015
  
  Glad you like the poem; I don’t want any more to do, though! Ha!
  
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Kitt O'Malley
/ January 19, 2015

Me, too.
I so, so, so want
to have the mental energy to do

Well said. Well written. Thank you.

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- Jennifer Butler Basile
  / January 20, 2015
  
  Glad I can capture that emotion or state of being. So so so.
  
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