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I last posted on October 13. Can't believe it! Where have I been? Somewhere between Halloween, working, getting office ready to move downstairs, getting ready for a trip to Alabama, thinking about kindergarten for Asher, working, volunteering grant writing services, beginning in a book club, going to Alabama, coming back to blown up (figurative) office in which I could not work for a week, coming back to office that sorely needed my organization skills, getting ready for Christmas . . . and now, here, sitting in my lovely office (all mine! I used to share).
I remember fun things in the last two months like getting my five mountain ski pass, researching schools for Asher, witnessing the approval of our district's Montessori charter school, getting to know a whole group of women in Boulder through a book club (which has been interesting when sprinkled with comments like, "Ooooh, I would never send my child to daycare. You must get a nanny or au pair" and having an argument about the religion behind Waldorf school. I'm so sure! And don't even test me on education philosophies!), trick or treating in 60 degree weather, taking Asher to his first swim lessons (the boy is fearless in water), navigating Michael's hours being temporarily reduced at work due to the economy and lack of bank lending, manning the home front while Michael has traveled stateside and to Haiti (and making Michael promise he'll take me some day soon), and enjoying Thanksgiving and the coming of Christmas.
We had one of the best trips we've ever had to Alabama over Thanksgiving. I enjoyed a wonderful feeling of homecoming (after I got over great anxiety of returning to the place where much yick started), being with a family I've known now for 13 years, and watching my kids with their many cousins and Behmer family.
The Thanksgiving trip continues a theme of healing in my life. Michael and I have had great (close to miraculous because only God could manage this) healing in our relationships and own lives as we figure out how to better love one another and more things to love. How much I enjoy our time as a family (though it's a bit crazy being pulled in three directions - wish I was more ADD) and the time I get to sit down with Michael over a pint or a good meal and talk on the heartside. Our continued trading of weekends with Clare have been a wonderful respite.
I was lying in bed last night (and not because our cat decided he must go outside in the below freezing weather) agonizing about Monday and returning to work. I've worked for the same organization for over 2 1/2 years (3 in March). This is the longest I have ever worked anywhere. While there isn't really any way to go up in my position, I do have the freedom to learn more about my position. Even so . . . I tend towards getting antsy and ready to move on. I start tossing around different scenarios for work and returning to my age old quest of figuring out what the hell my career is meant to be. So there I was, lying in bed, and starting to ask God where He wants me (because that's really what I want to know). A calm settled over me, and I came to understand He wants me in a place to heal. My work comes naturally to me so it's not overly taxing though enjoyable in how much variety I can bring to it. I can do this work, help support the family, and heal.
Last night, I started to think about the number of non-work projects I've taken on (volunteering for two organizations to do grant writing, talking about taking on two possibel paid positions in grant writing, continuing volunteering with the youth conference) and figured I needed to wrap some of them up and spend time healing. My body is worn out with two years of stress, and it's time to get physically healthy and mentally more healthy.
We'll see how that goes . . . I like things to be complicated (so much easier to focus on other things). Maybe I'll try light or color or energy or crystal healing. So many options in dear Boulder.
(Note: The tree is a healing tree! Gotta love it. I could try tree hugging heeling. Or ski healing.)
Last week was an unending whirl of activity - some fun and some stressful. I had four evenings in a row of fun activities and social gatherings and a three day week of work that included some not so fun situations to handle (I'm a peace lover and the idea of "confronting" anyone is possibly worse than the idea of sitting down to eat a steak but sometimes you just have to eat steak. With friends, of course). I woke up Saturday wondering where I had been all week, feeling like absolutely bushed. I spent much of the day on the couch. It was TGIC (Thank God it's cartoon day)!
Saturday is cartoon day in our house, which means that there are very, very few limits on how much television the kids can watch. If Asher knows that the next day is cartoon day, he has been known to get up at 4 to start watching cartoons, and we put it off until about 6 (but only if he goes BACK TO BED). Cartoons then play for hours on end. It's a great time for us parents - time to sleep, get a few things done around the house without interruption, spend time laying on the couch with the kids, have a cup of coffee together.
Unfortunately, television has a backlash effect on my kids. While they are so eerily sedate while watching, once the television goes off, the world seems more than normally difficult to handle. There are more tears, tantrums and less smiles and laughing. My theory is that while watching TV, life is very simple and pleasurable and once it goes off, my kids have to suddenly deal with the real world - pleasurable without a doubt but requiring more effort (like using actual words) and handling of a whole mess of emotions.
When I was little, my parents had a book called, "The Plug in Drug," which was about television. I never read it, but I clearly remember the cover and thinking about what the title meant. Watching my kids, I can see how television has a drug-like effect not only while they are watching but once it's off. They go through withdrawals.
Television has a place in my life and my kids (Asher is a HUGE fan of cartoons). I'm not always so happy about this and with little prodding could fall into a big "Kill Your Television" advocate. I still try to keep the tube off more often than not even as on a day like Saturday (with a day of rain), I took full advantage of cartoon day.
During my first fall in Santa Fe during college, a few friends and I drove up the road to the Santa Fe Ski Basin to check out the changing aspens. We had hit the peak of the leaf change, parked the car and walked into a grove of yellow aspen trees. Such a place is unbelievable - surrounded by leaves on the trees and spread all over the forest floor, that seem illuminated from within by a yellow light and that make a gentle, rustling noise in the wind as the leaves touch each other. Holding up all the yellowness are bright, white tree trunks, slashed with lines of black. Breathtaking.
Colorado is also home to aspen groves, which grow in a kind of family unit with many trees sharing a single root system. The last two years, I have been able to drive and see aspens at their peak again. A few weekends ago, on Michael and my trip up to Tabernash, we took a hike with friends and ended up in a few aspen groves. Walking off the trail, I walked into the middle of a grove and let the yellow light, the leaf rustle fall all around me. I breathed deeply.
Michael looked at me and asked, "Are you having a moment?"
"Yes," I answered. Indeed I was.
There was a time some year and a half ago where I felt like trees - among other things - were God's message of strength to me, messages to keep going and to continue hoping. What a joy to have messages of beauty now in these trees I love.
The day after I had Asher, hormones arush and crazy, I realized the profound love of a mother and wept for, as my postpartum mind put it, "all the babies without mommies." I thought of orphans all over the world who were born into a world without a mother's love, without a mother's touch, without a mother's voice (do they feel so lost, I wondered, not hearing the voice they "knew" in the womb?). My head was in a rather pitiful place.
To this day, stories of adoptions as well as a baby passing away can easily make me cry. Yesterday, for instance, I cried at church when the pastor talked about visiting his adopted daughters grave (she passed away at 6 weeks due to trisomy 13), cried while reading a story in Wondertime about an adolescent, blind girl adopted from China and cried - oh, yes, still more - while reading "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" and the loss of Edgar's par
ents' baby (note that we had two days of overcast skies and rain in Colorado, highly unusual, and apparently not so good for my sense of happiness).
It is no surprise then, that on the happy occasion of our nephew's official adoption by his step dad that on entering the judges chambers and seeing a bookcase full of families adopting children from around the world that I teared up, and I teared up as the judge signed the final form making our nephew's adoption final. Such joy in seeing children happily united with a family - with a mommy and/or daddy. Such joy in seeing our nephew's dad officially recognized as his dad.
Explaining why we were going to see Jaden on the day of his adoption to Asher was interesting. I really didn't want to get into the biology of babies - yet how to explain that Jaden's stepdad was "becoming" his dad! When I told Asher something to this effect, he replied, "But Tio is already his dad." Wise words indeed. Sensing the joy of the moment, after Jaden received a certificate from the judge and an uncirculated quarter, Asher turned to Jaden with a big smile and hugged him. How did he know?
I woke up this morning with a small depression hangover from Sunday. The sun was just coming up - thank God! - as I drove to work, and I tried to work on being thankful for what I do have. Apparantly, practicing thankfulness can increase our happiness by something like 25% (whatever that means!). I looked in my rear view mirror and saw the blond heads of my two kids, and I felt thankful for them, for their place in my lives and for the unending joy I find in their lives. There is something unendingly mysterious - in the emotions and the journey - of parenthood.
I have a friend from work who has been through the grinding mill with her ex-boyfriend. Suffice it to say that they had very different ideas about commitment and sex. So for a second time in just under two years, my friend was flung out into singlehood after a six year relationship (and lots and lots of tears and yelling). Some time in the weeks following the break up, my friend had the following late night text message conversation with a male school counselor she had worked with at a school (purely - and I mean purely - professionally):
Guy: Hey. What's up? My girlfriend and I were thinking that you would be perfect to do a threesome with us.
Friend: This is xxxx xxxxx''s phone. Did you mean to text me?
Guy: Oh, yes. We think you'd just be perfect.
Friend: Go to hell.
Um, yeah. Niiiice (from a middle school counselor). Uncharacteristically, this friend, who has a huge heart for people and their potential and a small heart for her own gifts and what to expect from people, especially men, took the conversation to the director of school counseling. She complained. People listened. The male counselor had a big sit down with the three female counselors at his school - so embarassing - and he ended up leaving his position. My friend expressed new found power following her break up and actions that made her feel so grown up and like a powerful woman who just wasn't going to take the crap anymore.
As Michael and I are back together, how much I recognize my friend's new found power and developing that power myself. Following Michael's moves out, I felt like I first lifted myself up by my bootstraps and then was powered forward by a new found inner strength. Two things were symbolic of this - my new found ability to make appointments (I used to put off getting my hair cut or making ANY appointment because I didn't feel "old" enough or part of that world to do it . . . emailing for doctors appointments totally enables me) by phone and a pair of knee high black boots my mom and her husband bought me. I put on the boots one day for work and felt, quite suddenly, like a woman. Like an adult. Like part of the grown up world.
I have wondered as life moves forward, if getting married at age 22 changed how I "grew up," if being flung out on my own made me grow up in new ways or if just having a life crisis paved a path for new growth. As much as I'd have liked to skip over the last two years, I have learned, like my friend, to be more forward and more of a self-advocate. I take less crap and expect more from people. For this, I am thankful. And I am still ready to kick some more ass with my sexy boots (or at least get my hair cut).
I have a windowless room in my head, this guest house of being human, that I am trying desperately to swepp clean, if not get rid of. On my bad days (and when I'm PMS'ing) my thoughts enter this room and start bouncing around like a bouncy ball in a small space, pinging from side to side and gaining momentum as it bounces off the same thought walls over and over and over again - walls made of trauma memories from the last two years. The bouncing ball may start out innocently enough, set off by some object or impending date, and then turn into a sharp, spiny ball of destruction, causing increasingly piercing pain.
The ball started to bounce yesterday morning when I woke up from a dream crying. Because my dreams in the past have related to reality and have even revealed things I was not seeing, I can take my dreams too seriously. Throughout the morning, the ball gained its momentum so that I was impatient with my kids, crying off and on and desperately in need of a lobotomy to sweep the damn room. How I wish I could remove some memories and associations. How I crumble with the weight of them . . . some days.
By nap time, I was desperately in need of something to change my thoughts so I made tea (heal with water), I flipped through my dusty Bible to Psalm 143 and felt relief in reading,
"Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed within me;
My heart is appalled within me. . . .
Let me hear Your lovingkindness in the morning;
For I trust in You;
Teach me the way in which I should walk;
For to You I lift up my soul.
Deliver me, O LORD, from my enemies;
I take refuge in You.
Teach me to do Your will,
For You are my God;
Let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground.
For the sake of Your name, O LORD, revive me
In Your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble."
I prayed for God to take the room, to deal with those things I have no power over, and to give me trust in what He is doing in my life, and I took a nap. It doesn't always happen that scripture nor praying relieve my mind, but yesterday, so thankfully, they did.
I am noticing that I have definite, strong times of PMS, but rather than reject them as merely hormonal episodes, in the last two months, I have, as much as possible through the agony of it all (because really I want to do something like tear all my hair out and run through the next few days with a nice lie in), tried to give these feelings space to be felt and to have purpose and, perhaps, to be honored.
The following poem is aanother place to meditate, as things were indeed cleared for new delights later in the day (like Asher's birthday celebration with all four of us together as a family):
The Guest House by Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
(P.S. I'm going to start praying for just a light dusting of my rooms - who needs the violent sweeping!).
Michael flew out to Miami on Monday, on his way to Haiti to do an advanced needs assessment for Mission to the World's disaster response team and a pastor in Haiti following the three storms and hurricanes that recently hit. I envision his work as a kind of James Bond version of ministry - fly in, drive around, assess, do crisis debriefing, escape impending danger, hunker down in a compound, make plans for future teams, fly out (Michael would probably beg to differ what with all the dirt, low-tech sleeping quarters, and lack of martinis, but it's my blog and there is no shortage of rum).
Our preparations for him leaving are not nearly so well coordinated nor suave. Actually, I think we pretty much look like two fish who've jumped ashore and are gasping for breath as he gets documents in order, packs, shops, checks his Blackberry, repacks, takes out stuff, repacks, attends to last minute work, checks his Blackberry, repacks, grabs a sandwich, runs out for something he forgot after checking his Blackberry, repacks; and I play with kids, help Michael pack, get the house in some kind of order (last minute before I'm the only parent), help Michael pack, make a meal, play with kids, help Michael repack, put kids down for a nap, schedule the drive to the airport, make a meal, clean up from packing, run to the store for something Michael forgot, and help Michael repack, breath, breath, breath (you might get the idea that when you're going to a really poor country following a disaster that your gear is kind of important).
My friend, Shari, asked me if I was stressed while Michael is away. For the most part, all of the stress is piled up before he leaves as both our anxieties are high about him getting everything together (patience is incredibly short, but we did quite well this time with only one or two tearful outbursts from me and one frustration outburst from him), me getting things in order at home, saying goodbye, me battling old trauma points and trying not to nag too much about him doing his own debriefing when he returns.
I woke up the day after Michael left with sore shoulders - I usually hold my stress there, but they felt like I'd been lifting weights (yeah, no kidding, a big ol' stress ball o' weight). Michael gets into work mode while he's gone, and phone calls are brief check-ins (notifications that he's still alive). I get my game face on at home. There's not much stress once he leaves, and, really, when it comes down to it, I think it's pretty damn amazing that he gets to do this kind of work and that I get to be the home support (although, you know, I really do have big dreams of going on one of these trips).
I have never been a big fan of football. In fact, until yesterday, I had attended a whole 15 minutes of a game in high school and watched maybe a combined 30 minutes on television in my life. It's a game that I have never understood and can't remember the rules. I will start to watch a game, ask someone to explain what is going on and then promptly forget what I was told (part of it is getting confused by the idea that there are consecutive first downs - why are they all first?). I also have a very, very hard time with cheerleaders. I don't really understand them, their purpose nor the mindset of someone who wants to be one (at least a professional football cheerleader who seems to be a tamed down - or maybe not so tame - version of a burlesque performer. I have come to realized some cheerleaders are quite athletic but there such an objectification/anti-feminist version of women . . . ). At my high school, we did not have cheerleaders but a group of students, mostly boys, who were the "Knightmares" (our mascot was a Knight), and once got in trouble for throwing dog biscuits at an opposing teams' cheerleaders (my kind of cheerleading squad!).
So, of course, when my friend, Shari, asked me on Friday to join her at a Broncos game on Sunday, I agreed to go. If nothing else, I wanted to witness what all the hub bub is about - get a taste of why people like football (and to get out of the house with Shari). And it was fun! It was really fun - watching all the 74,000 fans in their gear, funny hats, pom pom outifts and couples in matching outfits, slapping high fives when the Broncos scored, stomping my feet and yelling so the other team's offense can't hear plays (that was extreme fun - to be part of the game), chatting with the fans, screaming when the Broncos got close to a touchdown, watching people reconnect who have been sitting in the same seats for years and seeing each other at each home game, walking the halls in a large crowd of orange and blue, and starting to understand what the game was all about. I finally got a glimpse of the athleticism in the sport, which I'd taken to thinking was just a game of large, grunting men (though there are those, and I was kind of happy to see a place for them in an American sport).
I have to admit, though I've watched and understood so little, that I love the absolute Americanism of football. I remember soon after 9/11 watching some football awards and crying because it was so good to see America celebrated through the awards. I teared up at the beginning of the Broncos game, which was dedicated to the U.S. armed forces and had servicemen from the Army, Navy, Airforce, and Marines march during the opening ceremonies and a live feed from an Army unit in Iraq (followed by the cheerleaders performance and 600 junior cheerleaders - you know, we all have our dreams). Being at the game was like eating a huge piece of apple pie.
It will take something big to make me a die hard fan of any one team. I really do feel bad when the other team gets boo'd. So sad! Asher asked me what took me so long in getting back, but he has enjoyed making the orange pom poms I brought back for him and Harper into a weapon.
When Asher was between the ages of 1 and 2, he had a great fascination with construction trucks (which he called "di di" for diggers). We read all kinds of books from the library about how roads are made and books on the single exciting subject of dump trucks and front loaders. We got Asher diggers to play with at home. I made a point of driving around town to construction sites to see what the diggers were doing (ah, the life of a SAHM). When Harper was born, the Super Target was being built, and there was a great viewing point in a parking lot across the street where Asher could watch while I nursed Harper.
I gained a lot of knowledge about diggers and came to develop a stronger and stronger pet peeve about things that only do one thing. For instance, in building a road, there's a machine that digs, a machine that flattens, a machine that spreads out gravel and oil, a machine that rolls the pavement flat, and a machine for painting. One machine for each task. I have a smiliar pet peeve with kitchen tools and gadgets that only press garlic, only zest citrus fruit, only cut herbs, etc. Certainly, some machines really can do only one thing (although even there, there's probably room for creativity - like the coffee pots and grinders in one), but I believe we live so much with these single minded machines because they have been made by men.
To unpack this . . . I skim read a book a while back titled, "Men are Like Waffles - Women are Like Spaghetti." The premise was that men tend to live as if the parts of their life are sectioned and don't touch - like a waffle. Women, though, tend to live their life with all the parts intertwining, like a plate of spaghetti. This may account for why women are better at multitasking, generally, then men (and why some men don't believe there is such a thing). It also leads me to think that when a man sets out to design something, it will more likely be made for a single purpose. Roads have to be built, so we'll need separate machines to dig, flatten, spread, roll and paint. A kitchen tool is needed, so one will be made with that single purpose.
These days, when I ask Asher to help pick up toys, the process goes much smoother if I a) help him and b) give him a single, waffle boxed item to concentrate on. No doubt, these different skill sets are vitally important to the world, and a reason that I often feel so freaking complicated!
Over the last two nights, I've had a hard time sleeping because my mind has been racing with presidential election and political thoughts. Last night, I was stuck on some internal argument about the Iraq war and diplomacy and what it means to serve one's country and democracy. It was quite interesting but a bit irritating at 11:00 p.m. I have said this before, and I will say it again, I am so excited to be living during this time in our history - to witness such an historical election during a time of some turmoil and situations that call for change. Though the two sides argue about who can really change things in this country, it's interesting that both sides see the need.
I was reminded again today about another aspect of the greatness of our country - that we can peacefully discuss differing viewpoints across the right-left spectrum and peacefully approach an election - but about our capacity for change. Driving in Boulder this morning, I navigated around bicyclists and a bus, and on the way back to Longmont, navigated around more bicyclists - more than I've ever seen either in Boulder or on Highway 119 in the almost four years I've lived here. We have some big lemons and here are all these people making big pitchers of lemonade. I love it!
I love to think about and realize the unintended consequences of new political policies and cultural changes and am excited to see the unintended consequences of the gas crisis. Already, we are driving less, exercising more out of necessity, pushing for greener energy and more fuel efficient cars. What else? Bring it on!
I have been running (again) for almost two months now, having taken the plunge at the end of June. It's been pretty good, but, really, in the last few weeks mostly hard and not so good. I've discovered that one of the best ways for me to get started on something that requires real effort - whether it's writing or running or some such effortful thing - is to sneak up on it. For instance, if I need to write a grant, I tell myself that I'll just go check my e-mail, maybe write a few messages, and then just open a grant document, read a few things, fill in some information, and before I know it, I'm actually writing a grant. With running, I'll start talking myself out of it (too tired, other things I want to do, getting to dark/cold/rainy), and I'll decide just to take a walk. Then walking is too slow and before I know it, I'm running.
I missed my usual run time on Tuesday so I dropped the kids off at daycare on Wednesday and went over to Golden Ponds to just take a walk - or maybe run - before work. It was a beautiful, late summer morning with just the slightest, not at all uncomfortable chill. The pond water was almost flat, reminding me of perfect crew days on the Chesapeake Bay, and reflected the newly snow capped Rocky Mountains. Ducks and pond birds were out, started for the morning. I enjoyed the feel of walking and running along the gravel path, saying hello to other walkers and runners, such that I had the energy to run longer than I had since getting back to it. I got in my car with skin cool from the morning air and a brain exceptionally happy on a runner's high that carried me through past lunch. How blessed I felt to live in such a place where I can take such a pleasurable run. Morning is definitely my favorite time to run.
I have been wondering how much running is a part of me. The main speaker at the youth conference I work with, RYM, explained during one his sermons this year that when he thinks of himself, running is deeply part of him. I ran in high school in both cross country and the track team. I ran off and on through college, after college and ran a half marathon the day before I found out I was pregnant with Harper. I've put in a lot of miles, but I'm not sure how much running really is me. It often feels like a second choice in exercise because it's easy (put on shoes, go out door, run) and cheap. I realized on my perfect run that the sports I love are those that involve precise body positions and and an emphasis on body position - gymnastics, dance, crew, yoga, cross country skiing. Sports that are just about speed and covering distance don't do as much for me.
I will keep running, though, if for nothing else than to have more perfect runs and a space to fall in love with athletic activity.
(The picture is of Golden Ponds - beautiful!)
My sister, Clare, and I have been living in the same state now for almost three years. We have both had children the whole time. In July, Clare had an absolutely amazing idea - to trade off weekends with our kids. It was one of those head smacking moments. Why did we not think of this before?
The first weekend of August, my nephew, Jaden, stayed with us. This was great fun for all of us because we've missed Jaden since he's moved back in with his mom (while being so glad he got to move home after Clare came back from Iraq), because he and Asher are such good buddies, because he influences Asher to include Harper in playing, and because Jaden comes up with things that become stories we will laugh about for a long time.
This last weekend, we took Asher and Harper up to Jaden's house and headed back home for a weekend to ourselves. This was weird. This was a little scary. No children for over 24 hours. Just the amount of time on our hands! And the forecast was for rain all weekend. What would we do?
Michael and I had spent a good nine or so years together before we had kids. I felt out of practice as to how to do such a thing and, really, just a ghost of who I was/we were back then. But I was up to the challenge of being alone together in the new (and better) state of our selves and our relationship. I felt some kinship to empty nesters. While not feeling quite natural Saturday morning because two additional people and lots of responsibilities were missing, we soon relaxed into a great time together tooling around Longmont and Boulder, eating at restaurants, going to a movie, playing pool with friends. We could just take it easy, not worrying about schedules or naptimes or meal times or how to handle children interrupting conversations. It was wonderful. The kids had a great time tearing apart someone else's house, playing together, trying makeup for the first time (Harper only with her aunt who is much better with makeup than me), running like crazy, collapsing at night, traipsing around Ft. Collins.
We picked up the kids on Sunday and went to Grace Presbyterian Church in Ft. Collins, returning home after naptime. It was also wonderful to be reunited as a family while also having time as a couple. I am so thankful to have my sister and brother-in-law in town to exchange kids and to practice being a couple with Michael.
Me and sleep just ain't gettin' along so well these days. My brain is so tired I can't hardly type good. There's a combination here of too much fun stuff to read on TV (um, yes, I just typed that) - too much fun stuff to WATCH on TV, too many fun books to read (stupid books that can't be put down), too many children and animals making midnight prowls, and too many blogs to write. I just happened to get a wild hare (or hair) about starting a blog for beginning grant writers and maybe generating some income off of it. I got this idea at about 11:00 p.m. one night two weeks ago and couldn't sleep until I jotted down the 30 or so blog post ideas I had. And then I got in bed and wrote several in my head (so helpful, because I know I won't remember them).
Three nights ago, I made a really good effort to get into bed early . . . and then was up for two or three hours not because of the stupid blog (curse blogging!) but because I had antsy legs, the sheets had crumbs and dirt, the fan was making too much noise, the dog we are dogsitting was walking around and clicking her nails, the cat was sleeping on my antsy legs, the closet light was too bright even with the door closed (which stems from the fact that a. my house has only one closet, b. that closet is between the two bedrooms, and c. my children won't sleep without that light on), and it was off and on too hot and too cold. Two nights ago, I was awoken from absolutely delicious sleep (you know the kind when you are out, out and so relaxed and not even dreaming) by dear Asher who needed his blanket spread out, and then spread out again, and then spread out again and then ice in his cup until I threatened to turn out the damn closet light that keeps me up anyway. And I just wanted to sleep!
Last night, I started to actually get the blog up last night (redundant much? so many fun things to do - choose a name, choose a free blog site, rechoose a name, choose a template, find a header picture, do the about section, and then scrap it all because I chose the wrong free blog site), couldn't sleep and was up until 1:00 a.m. fussing with the thing and writing imaginary blog posts in my head (and, oh, they sound good after midnight). Oh, me and my brilliant ideas. When the heck am I going to find the time to keep up with another blog (I also got the brilliant idea to start one for work).
So today I am tired, tired, and brought my carafe of coffee to work, and then drank too much so that I have caffeine stomach. I have very little patience, especially for people with limited intelligence (as if I can really keep up with anyone with much intelligence), or for small children who just won't let me take a shower without it being a communal affair and encompassing the entire bathroom. I do have to say that it's nice for good things to be keeping me up and not some major life crisis. Tonight I shall seek some delicious sleep (please, please, please).
Note: Check out the bed I found!! I think I need a tree bed!
Way back when, I never dreamed of either being married or having children. I just didn't think it was for me. By the time we had Jaden living with us and we had Asher, I know both were for me. I love having children and being witness to and parent in their wonderment. I also love my work and having an adult space in which to create and to be a part of my community.
I have been so fortunate to find a good balance between work and kids. I work about 35 hours for a local non-profit but spend only three days in the office, usually Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This week, due to Asher being sick last week, I also worked Tuesday. So yesterday, I woke up to a home that was the victim to my three days of being at work - a dishwasher full of clean dishes, a sink and countertop full of dirty dishes, little food in the refrigerator, no coffee, dust bunnies the size of baseballs, five loads of laundry (make that six after Harper's nap time maneuvers in which she removed her diaper and managed to poop mostly on the floor while staying in her crib), a stack of overdue library books, a toilet that was so dirty I didn't even want to pee in it, children who had not been washed in the last four days, and Asher's "bigger blankie" (quilt) that just may have not made it into the wash after a cat poop incident two days before. It was a bad scene. I spent most of the day making up for lost time and not nearly enough time with my kids. We were no longer at risk of having our kids taken away by social services for health violations, but I was sad to have spent so much time cleaning.
Weeks when I do work three days in a row or four days in a week or spend an extra day at home with sick kids, I am so thankful (and feel so spoiled) by the end of the week for my schedule and the time I get to spend with my kids, not cleaning, and in the office, satisfying my need to do things. My hats are off to all the moms who do work inside or outside the home full time (although, I have to say, as a mom, there's no way to be part time).
I was quite excited when the Olympics started. I dragged Michael along to watch the opening ceremonies (which, thank you very much, he ended up really liking). I stayed up late to watch all the nations march in, amazed again at the number of countries I'd never heard of and those that have a smaller population than the city I live in.
I watched at least three nights of gymnastics and lots of swimming and diving, but by last night, I couldn't watch any more. I still love the Olympic spirit and the competition drama and watching humans do amazing things, but I am absolutely sick of the commentators. I don't want to hear one more commentator try to guess who is going to win a freakin' gold medal or make another stupid comment about an athlete's mistake - just shut up and let me watch!! (I'm a little irate there - can feel my blood boiling again).
All that to say that I missed the individual gymnastics c0mpetition last night. I just had no desire to watch. I happened to catch the Today's show coverage of the competition this morning at my kids' daycare. And there was Nastia Luikin and Shawn Johnson with their gold and silver medals. I almost cried seeing them on the medal stand and then Nastia hugging her dad, who won an Olumpic medal some 20 years ago as a Russian gymnast. What really gets me, what amazes me again about our country is that our female gymnasts can compete against and win over (interesting that China won the team, and we won the individual) gymnasts who leave their families at age 3 and train their entire life in gymnastics. I heard an NPR story about former Chinese athletes, and the wreck their life was after sports without any other training or hope or career. While our elite gymnasts and other athletes may not have an entirely normal life (and no doubt they have priveleges not available in other countries and valuable things to learn from other athletes), they certainly have a better one, more opportunities with their family, opportunities for school and career, and, if they want to leave their sport, opportunities beyond being an elite athlete (China's lead gymnast once called her parents because she wanted to come home, and they told her to stay - because they new what her athletic career would do for their family). And they can still be major competition on the world stage.
I can berate my country and cry over injustices we have created, but once again, I am so proud to be a part of a country that has such amazing top athletes and platforms for athletes to excel without destroying childhoods.
(Note: Photo from www.nbcolympics.com, home of an elite band of annoying athletic commentators).
Not too long ago, I blogged about emotional capacity - both the capacity for feeling bad things and good things. The week after I wrote the entry, in counseling, our (Michael and my) therapist talked about building our capacity for positive things and what prevents us from either going after good things or really feeling the pleasure of life. I fully believe God, among other things, created good things for us to enjoy and take great pleasure in. Life is not to be puritanical and about deprivation but about fully enjoying our world - nature, food, drink, friends, our bodies, play, family, sleep, entertainment, books, art, crafts, hobbies . . .
I know and believe this, but I am still sometimes frozen by the actual feeling of pleasure, afraid of it ending or turning bad or something terible that I didn't know suddenly erupting. No doubt, all of these fears will come true, but I am working on being present to good and pleasurable things and to seeking them out.
In the same session, we talked about my and Michael's work and careers. I shared my dream jobs - working in education policy (I know, Aunt Moo - it's not the end all be all, but I just can't shake my fascination with it!), being a full time writer and working as a college professor. I have at some time during my life shot down each one of these dreams with nicely aimed, critical, negative bullets, including not enough time, not enough education, not worth it, not being in the right circles. I have started to dream about getting a PhD again and looking at some of the programs close by (can't be a coincidence that I got an e-mail the Monday after our session for a grantors' site visit and the person coming is the Communications and Development Director for the Center for Education Policy Analysis at teh University of Colorado in Denver!).
Thinking about pleasure, I realize that I have one other fear of taking the next step, a strange, overwhelming feeling of responsiblity for making something good happen. At work, I have recently had a few nonaggressive and totally well-meaning occurrences of someone else doing my job. This spurred me on to take a few projects by the reins and make a few phone calls, send some e-mails, make connections to move projects forward without waiting for someone else to do it (maybe that's just doing my job!). If I look too far forward, I suddenly fear the weight of these projects, in particular a Latin American festival and fundraiser with a local orchestra. Holy crap! I think. If I do this and then this and then this (the power of an individual!). . . it's really going to happen. Part of me prefers the safety of my office chair, typing out grant applications, letting project after project quietly slip by.
I remember while sorting through the falling apartness of my marriage just taking the next right step, seeing the next branch in the tree - not sure of what the next branch or even the top looked like. I stayed sane in climbing deliberately one branch at a time without trying to guess or ask for what God's plan was. And branch, after branch, God showed me the way (with such grace). So I need to practice with pleasure and good things both being on the branch and climbing just the next one (whether it's in full, beautiful spring bloom or full of bugs and crumbling wood or even the wrong branch such that I have to back up and try again), knowing there will always be branches to support me and grace amidst the leaves.
This week is the annual Boulder County Fair, held at the Boulder County Fairgrounds in my fair city. I took the kids on Wednesday to "Kids Day," which was an interesting and quite lackluster day that may have even disappointed the kids, especially because we had to walk by all the fair rides which wouldn't run until 4:00 (you'd think they might have just a few running during the day on "Kids Day," of all days - sheesh!) and all the closed concession stands. At least I wore closed toed shoes.
We saw some large pigs and quite an array of goats being taken care of by 4-H kids. Asher and Harper gave the animals but a sideways look. Asher shrieked at the idea of face painting. They did enjoy climbing on and destroying some hay bails set up in one of the exhibit halls (an activity which was quickly outlawed by someone who looked semi-in-charge, at least he had a big broom), climbing through a string maze (I was amazed how much they enjoyed this), jumping in a bouncy castle, overseen by a woman who looked and acted like she was missing a few screws (I tried to "donate" - i.e. forcibly pay - for the bounce time, but she dismissed the donation because she didn't have change for a $20), and seeing some of the projects done by other 4-H kids (those kids are busy!), which they attempted to destroy in various ways.
As sad as the kids day was, I was even more sad to find out last Sunday that I had missed the Boulder County Fair parade on Main Street because I absolutely heart parades. I love every parade from the small, local Christmas parade to the big NYC Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade!! I mean, I really love them. I love the kitschy-ness, the homemade floats, the big balloons, the people waving, everyone lining up on the streets to watch other people go by, the parade princesses, the horses, the marching bands, the stuff people in the parade throw. I just love the absolute silliness of it all. I love to go to them (been to the Rose Bowl Parde and NYC Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade), to watch them on TV (and to watch one parade on several cable channels - oh, yeah). Some day, I dream of actually being in a parade. Now that I think of it, that could be good PR for the non-profit I work for.
I have a journal given to me by a college boyfriend. He wrote on the inside, "So that you may speak to yourself if not to me." I remember when I dated this particular boyfriend having things I wanted to tell him, having deep emotions I wanted to share with him and feeling a quite physical red brick wall blocking the words from exiting my mouth. After we broke up - for many reasons, including my inability to deal any longer with him pushing me to talk (because I just couldn't at that time, as if he was asking me to walk outside the dorm, place my hands on the wall around the campus quad and push that wall over). I wrote two stories around that time in which walls played a big part - one was a monologue in which the speaker built a brick wall as she spoke and the other was a short story in which three girls go out to play beyond a wall around their house and beyond the wall is a labyrinth of other walls.
When I met Michael, I explicitly remember feeling freer with him, freer in not only playing and hanging out and enjoying games and food and time together - a relaxing - but also freer in talking. I did not feel the pressure to speak only as if I had everything together.
I have not quite pieced out where my fear of talking comes from - some of it is personality (I am a green after all!); some of it is family circumstances in which there was not room for strong emotions and possible really bad consequences for such things; some of it is lack of practice; some of it is fear of scaring people with my past and with my authentic self; some of it is being self-consumed, so in my head that I can't get out; some of it is perfectionism and always wanting to say the right thing; some of it is not realizing just what is normal, especially for women (for all those women I know who have told me or written about how they feel overly-emotional, overly-complicated, a basket case - thank you).
At our Wednesday counseling session, which was one of those sessions that started out innocent and with some joking and too quickly came to the edge of thereallydifficultImightfallapart, I realized that as much as I talk more now, as much as I have opened up my life to others, as much as I have pushed that wall over, I still suck at talking, and particularly with Michael. Too often I am not present in the moment but lost in my head, thinking ahead, having followed a rabbit trail of thought and let hundreds of extraneous things enter a conversation that only I can hear. Too often I don't mention things because I don't want to talk about them (refer to top ten lessons learned in last two years - hiding doesn't make life better) or am afraid to talk about them - letting the emotion overwhelm, letting another see me overwhelmed, possibly hurting another with my emotion (side note - somewhere I picked up that emotions can be weapons), and, especially now as Michael and I work through things, I fear talking too much about hard things.
During one of my Tuesday nights with Ardis and Shari, we shared with each other strengths and weaknesses we see in each other as friends. This was a good exercise in vulnerability for all of us - being truthful with each other and receiving truth from close friends with openness. Shari and Ardis said that I can come across as too independent and closed off, not sharing more of my life with others. To them I asked what that sharing looks like because I am only beginning to see.
Because I thought I worked so hard on talking more, I am partly devasted in realizing that I have only climbed a small portion of this tree. I want to be able to look up with hope and gratitude, realizing how much of this tree that I had not seen in the past, how many of the leaves, the branches, the way the tree shades and shakes.
(The picture is of a Roman wall built 2000 years ago in England. Walls can stand for a long time, testiments to protection, boundaries, human achievement or privacy, inequality, war. As I have been encouraged to do, I need to gently accept this part of myself even as I want my wall to just freakin' fall down already).
It's nice when a city meets all of my expectations. I was in Boulder Wednesday for an extended time between counseling and coordinating some video taping for the non-profit I work for and was buoyed up during my visit by all things Boulder. I entered our counselor's serene office to the tinkle of a small wind chime and briefly enjoyed the Buddha saying on the wall hanging before Isabelle met with us and channeled some of her body language/energy work throughout our session. Michael and I parked our cars at Michael's office at the far west end of Canyon, and we walked down (passing the kids at a Renaissance camp learning to battle with foam swords) to have lunch at Centro, enjoying fresh avocado salsa and tacos. Michael headed back to work, and I walked over to the Community Foundation, housed in an historic Boulder mansion, to meet staff, board members and a youth for the taping. One of the Foundation staff members gave us fresh cookies on our way out.
Walking back to Michael's office to pickup my car, I passed Bodyworks, voted Boulder's best chair massage place and got stopped by a young woman with long blonde dreads, a nose ring and knitted bag to sign petitions. Feeling somewhat sorry for her working in the summer heat (it was over 100 on Wednesday) and not opposed to the issues, I signed the petitions. I looked up and saw the Flat Irons rising above the Pearl Street buildings - still a surprise to me, these mountains right there. I stopped at Spruce Confections and picked up two iced teas - in compostable cups, no less and of course (this is Boulder). Halfway to Michael's office, having walked past cute houses, offices in houses, beautiful gardens, one of Michael's coworkers saw me and picked me up, and I enjoyd a cool ride the rest of the way. At Michael's office I greeted the threeoffice dogs and, as Asher would say, their humans.
Boulder is many things, and what often strikes me is what an interesting hot bed of liberalism, generosity, tradition, new agism, environmentalism, self-expression and beauty it is. I am rarely disappointed on my visits.
I caught up on a friend's blog this week and had a great time laughing along with the stories of herself and her family. She started blogging in September last year, rather tentatively, and is now an avid blogger (26 posts so far in July!). Her writing reads easily and with much humor and openness these days. I just hear her saying, here it all is, warts and all. She had quite a funny entry titled "You Know You're Fat When . . ." in which she bravely discloses some embarassing facts about being over weight. This got me thinking about the embarassing fact of how hairy I am for a woman.
Way back when I was in third or fourth grade, I was at gymnastics practice (at the gym where I first did an aerial - oh, the feeling of flying!), and one of my coaches said something to the effect of, "You have legs as hairy as a gorilla." I remember where I was standing in the gym, who I was with, and being absolutely mortifiedopenaholeundermeandletmedisappear. I started wearing some stunning hot pink leg warmers to practice. Yeah - you're definitely hairy when you're called a gorilla at age 9 (a trait I most likely get from my dad).
Ever since, I have been a wee bit shy about how hairy I am. I have dark brown head hair and dark hair on my legs and arms to match. I have for some reason lost some of my eyebrow hair since high school (what a blessing) and still pluck a little, but I used to pluck and trim a lot more in high school and college. One of my most embarrassing moments in high school was walking out of a makeup session before a silly fashion show my high school put on each year with seniors, and having my larger than normal eyebrows made even larger by the makeup artist - who had them standing up on end like freakin' feathers! Fortunately, my sister was there and oh so bravely defied the makeup artists and smoothed them down for me (duh). I remember my boyfriend freshman year randomly asking me if I plucked my eyebrows, and I flat out lied. (I still want to clear that up someday because I keep thinking about it, and I just don't give a crap now about it). Michael once mentioned that I need to trim my nose hairs, and I was about mortified. At some point in high school and maybe college, I bleached my arm hair (when summer sun and pool didn't do it fast enough) and upper lip hair, pluck a few random chin hairs that have shown up, and once tried home bikini waxing (I highly recommend not trying that at home) and Nair (not all it's cracked up to be but the TV ads are so seductive).
My favorite cosmetic tool that I've bought EVER is an electric personal razor that includes a nose hair and bikini line attachment. YES! I own three pairs of tweezers and highly prize the pair that works really well. And if there was any cosmetic procedure that I would have done (outside of laser eye surgery), it's electrolysis of my arms, legs and bikini line. Maybe I should title this blog, "You Know You're Obsessed about Being Hairy When . . . "
Note: The picture of scissors and razor came up titled "Mistaken masonic symbols." Hilarious.
In one of my therapy sessions with Rhonda, she forewarned me that when I entered a new relationship with a man, I would experience painful emotions again as the new relationship triggered old wounds. I was no where near a new relationship when Rhonda told me this, and I filed the idea away.
For almost two months, Michael and I have been seeing each other and going to couples counseling. Our new relationship and time together brings up so many emotions - happiness, joy, fear, distrust, sadness, excitement, anger. As we work through our individual and combined issues, I am partly fascinated by what I am learning about myself and partly (because of that perfectionist in me that I really thought I had dealt with in a perfect way) mad at myself for not seeing them and contributing to them.
One Saturday after returning from California, I was driving back from Boulder with my friends, Shari and Linda (Ardis' mom), and Linda was talking about the kind of care facility her mom, who has had Alzheimer's for 10 years or so, is in. I shared with her how hard it was to find care for my dad when he got really sick because many care facilities didn't want to care or didn't have the capacity to care for Huntington's Disease patients. This conversation, having visited my grandmother's house and catching myself looking for my grandfather who passed away six years ago, and having put my dad's ashes in the Pacific Ocean with my sisters during tht visit triggered a snow ball - well, maybe, avalanche - of emotion. Michael was in Alabama, and one night as I tried to fall asleep (in my bed, which seemed to be cursed for a few days by the gods of no sleep), I began to cry and then wept and then wailed. Great pain of the last two years sits my chest - the day Michael told me he wanted a divorce and the first night I spent alone after Michael moved out the second time. Crying in bed, the pain returned as I grieved not my dad and grandfather's death, but not having Michael with me through my dad's passing and handling his estate. A new relationsip had indeed triggered old pain.
In our counseling session today, our therapist again reminded us of the importance of letting difficult emotions out, unfreezing them in a way, and having them witnessed by others (my dear friend, Maraiya, might like to hear she's not the only one who thinks of memory as being lodged in the body, remembered by our cells). They have to move through us for us to heal, that familiar idea of feeling it to heal it. How overwhelming the hard emotions can feel as if they will overtake us and just never end! I have had to build my capacity for feeling deep pain and trusting that when that wave comes, it will roll over me, might knock me down, but I will stand again (Jesus, heal me now).
I was curious today, sharing this with a friend, why we don't have the same fear of joy, of joy never ending. When I am happy, I fear being happy because it might end. I read in the book Conscious Loving how we have to actually build up our capacity for happiness and joy in levels - really feel joy, then more joy, and slowly learn to trust joyful feelings. It might just be harder for me to build up a capacity for joy.
Since I was young, I have gone through periods of time where I am seized at night by thoughts of death and imaginings of death leading to nothingness - manifested in my mind as sightless, soundless, feelingless. It's frightening and overwhelming and constricting. Everything screams, "I don't want to be nothing!"
With my dad's passing and discovery that he had Huntington's Disease, I have recently lain in bed and thought about what it would feel like to have Huntington's and to progress through the illness, losing physical and mental capabilities to the point that my body one day can't function and wondering if I would mentally understand what was happening (when my dad was quite sick, he told my sister, Lesley, that he was part bat to explain all his movements. Did he know he was sick and ailing?), if my dad knew he was dying at the moment. I imagine death like a relief but also as fear, an end into nothingness. I worry about my children losing me too soon.
I wonder at times if I lived in another country or earlier time where or when death is a bigger part of life, a daily part (and not in a sensational news - fear this - way), if I would be less fearful of death. I haven't been to a single funeral, which feels like a blessing.
In February of last year, I was still breastfeeding Harper. I was at a women's Bible study at my friend Megan's apartment, sitting on the carpet and listening to a discussion about heaven and different visions of what heaven will be like. In the midst of the discussion, I imagined death as another part of living, a next step, and I felt this physically as the sensation of milk being let down, a fullness and and then release. This seems to match with what elderly people sometimes say, being "ready" for death, welcoming death. I am still forming a vision of heaven and struggle with doubt of it's existence, but the sensation of death being part of the fullness of and release in life felt real and comforting.
This Father's Day, we attended All Soul's Church of Boulder, and the pastor - love when this happens - spoke about death, describing the deaths he remembered on this Father's Day, his first marriage and a baby named, Sarah, who he and his wife adopted and who died in infancy of trisomy thirteen. He was a father for a very short time. I cried during the sermon, and my friend, Shari, asked if I was thinking about my dad. I wasn't at that moment, but it was probably part of the emotion of the day and the vision of losing a child young, of having "lost" my marriage, of the fear of my children losing me.
During the sermon, the pastor quoted C.S. Lewis (from Transposition and Other Addresses), "We remain conscious of a desire, which no natural happiness will satisfy. But is there any reason to suppose that reality offers any satisfaction to it?... A man's physical hunger does not prove that that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely that man's hunger does prove that he comes from a race that repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. I do not believe that my desire for [heaven] proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will. A man may love a woman and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomenon called 'falling in love' occurred in a sexless world." I hunger for something beyond death, a next step after this life, a rich something that is far beyond the fearful nothingness, regardless of how my life ends. I find comfort in the idea that this longing is an indication of heaven's existance.
I believe in God's love for me (even as I wonder how to interpret it in this life) and felt it deeply once during a therapy session, felt it as pressure in my upper arms. How I wanted to hold on to the strong, loving sensation and walk every day of my life in that love. I came to realize one night, talking to Ardis and Shari, that if God loves us like that and even more (how much can we feel it even at the best of times), no doubt He has amazing plans for our death. No doubt He will be there, and as in all things (a hymn that can make me cry at church - I have done a lot of that), "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, And the waves will not Overcome you. Do not fear, For I have redeemed you, I have called you by name. You are Mine. . . . When you walk through the fire You’ll not be burned, And the flames will not Consume you. Do not fear, For I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, You are Mine." (Isaiah 43)
A few posts ago, I wrote about not feeling like I have a family home to go to and how my maiden name feels like a homecoming. On my recent trip to California, I found a few more pieces of home.
My kids and I flew to the San Jose airport and spent the first three days of our trip in Portola Valley. My mom has worked at Woodside Priory School there for over twenty years (this is mind boggling to me). We moved on to the campus when I was ten, and I lived there until about my sophomore year of college. My mom still lives there but in a new location so that I thought certainly my home is no longer there. But watching my kids walk around the campus - like they owned it, as kids will - swimming in the school pool with them, tromping the big hill, playing outside in view of Windy Hill (pictured), smelling the wonderful smell of dried grass and oak trees, I felt home. I felt that sweetness of my kids walking where I walked, discovering warm steps and walkways that I walked in the dreaminess of childhood.
On a run one evening in Portola Valley, I found my way again along familiar trails; crushed the golden dry grass that reminded me of playing light and dark games with Jen in the hills behind her house; ran past the pool where we used to swim in the summers (me off and on trying to avoid the adolescent boys when the Priory was an all boys school and where I once sat on gym roof overlooking the pool eating fresh doughnuts at midnight with my best friend, James) and a one room apartment over a garage on the Priory campus where my mom and sister Lesley lived for awhile and where I once raked leaves for woman who worked at the Priory and had been severly burned in a fire on the campus started by an electric blanket (I remember her disfigured face and the smell of medicine and damp in her house when I went to collect the money she paid me to rake). I continued down the gravel path that I used to ride my bike on to school, where once, in fifth grade, two boys had blocked my way with their bikes and teased me, where I used to walk when my parents fight, where there used to be two blue healers who barked viciously at passersby. I ran past the elementary school where I attended fifth grade and admired the face lift. I remembered where to turn to continue up a hill, past a house where my friend Katie Collins used to live, down a hill and past a house where Darcy used to live (Darcy who was obsessed with "Gone with the Wind" and named her two golden retrievers Rhett Mutler and Scarlett O'Hairy) and to a trail that led past blackberry bushes and back to the Priory where I one walked holding hands with my first boyfriend.
I don't have a home structure to return to in Portola Valley - though my mom's apartment is quite lovely, and I could sit all day in her living room listening to her fountain and watching the humming birds in her garden - but there is home at the Priory, the memories of childhood and adolescence, the familiar paths and smells, a place where my life was built and where I love to watch my own kids play.
I remember some time in high school my mom commenting one morning before school as i took my time in the kitchen making breakfast, eating it standing at the counter, packing my bag, that I don't like to be rushed. This was surprising to hear but so true - I don't like to be rushed. I like to have the time I want to think about what I'm doing and to do things in a calm manner. Calm. Peace. They can be idols for me - peace above all else. But there are times when I don't have the time or the peace I desire, and I have to force myself, dig in and speed ahead - usually with tears and a scream of, "I don't want to deal with this." Maybe this is why I hyperventilated as a kid when I swam in a race (not a pretty sight).
I've been flirting with the idea - like a bee looking for just the right flower - of getting back into some kind of regular exercise. I get lots of sprinting exercise - to the kitchen for food or milk or towels for the kids during meals, to different places in the house and yard to pick up a screaming child, and between the car and the house in the mornings (to get milk (check), a spaceship, ninja, and Lego man (check), blankets (check), another blanket (check), my sunglasses (check)). But after my lovely hike up Twin Sisters, I realized I wanted to do more and to get this body I've been given into action. I was waiting for just the right time, not rushing into it (maybe waiting for an engraved invitation), and then - spurred by Michael starting to ride his bike to Boulder and by a beautiful evening - I made a quick decision last Tuesday to just get out and, well, just do it. And it was lovely, and I went again on Thursday and can't wait to go this evening.
One of my other idols/obsessions is education. I can get sucked into a report on what works in schools like Asher gets sucked into cartoons. So as I started to look at preschools for Asher last fall, I laid out a possible plan for him and Harper - when they might go, options for them (I have to say that as much I look for the right timing and want to take my time, I do have the ability to change my plans - I love plans but can be quite flexible. So when I found out last month that a Montessori charter school may be opening in Longmont, I jumped on the bandwagon), how we would decide where to send them, backup plans (yes, Asher really is only 3, but this is an obsession). Part of this plan was for Asher and Harper to stay at the daycare they attend until fall 2009. Uuuurrrr (tires screeching). And then I got an e-mail from our daycare provider that she is closing and her family is moving to Texas - in three weeks. Not the right timing - tears and a cry of "I don't want to deal with this" and denial and disbelief. I told a potential daycare provider as she was trying to make an appointment with me for an interview that it was all just happening too fast.
"Plexi, plexi bend don't shatter" sings Jack Johnson in his word fun song "Sexi Plexi." And so it is that I learn when to bend, when not to, when to take a step back or a run outside to return to a problem or emotionally charged situation at a later time, when things don't seem to be moving too fast or when I can take my time with them so as not to shatter.
When it's been too long between writing sessions (and work writing, as fun as it is, doesn't count!), my brain gets a little antsy with all the ideas and words floating around. Eventually the ideas and words congregate, form a swarm and start beating ever so more insistently on the inside of my head. And my head, spurred by the swarm, craves to enter the space of letterings. Back in the saddle for a short blogging stint.
I have been absent but for good reasons (yeah!). I spent the second week of June in Estes Park directing a Christian youth conference - without my kids. It was a wonderful week, and my soul was fortified in different ways by
how God helped to work out the details even as I panicked every day about something or other. On one day in particular, I had several activities to coordinate and no good way of either contacting people or having a central place to find people on the expansive YMCA ground with limited cell service, but the people I needed to find either showed up at my room door or were easily located walking near the lodges.
the hilarious incident of the prairie dog in the lunchroom and coaxing the poor, diseased thing out of a corner with a cardboard box while Ashley Rieves stood on a cooler and shrieked (we are forever bonded) and praying no one came down with junta virus.
watching incredulously as a young man who had strayed from his group on a hike to rock climbing ran down the trail breathlessly, so happy to see us and his dad and explaining that he had taken a turn on what he thought was the right trail BY HIMSELF.
a hike up Twin Sisters, a 11,400 foot peak with a group from Independent Presbyterian Church. I stood at the top peak with four men (me, the only woman - that's the group in the picture) feeling victorious, feeling scared for my life that I might be blown off the top, loving the adventure of knowing what I wanted to achieve but adjusting at every step to the trail (dirt, roots, rocks and finally large, rough boulders), the weather (sunshine, overcast, snow, wind), my thirst, my hunger (M&M cookies satisfied low blood sugar at the top), my aching knees and the group. (Much of the way I contemplated how much life is like a hike - an idea of where we want to get to but know idea of what that trail will really look like and needing resources and friends to help us navigate directions and the trail, and needing to adjust to new discoveries).
laughing hysterically with Rachel Rieves and Frosty Howell - a table will never mean the same thing again when I see Rachel (wink, wink).
watching 270 high school students and youth leaders worship together each night.
calling my mom on Wednesday and her asking me, "Alexa, are you high or relaxed or . . . " and me replying that I was hanging out with friends from the south (how my adopted accent resurfaces!). My southern friends thought this was quite funny.
spending a late night with new friends and old friends (Amy Lowe!!) swapping stories and other fun things (wink, wink).
having a week of going and going and going without children but still not getting enough sleep.
calling home Friday evening in tears because the last dinner was near disaster, and I was exhausted and so homesick and being able to hear home.
feeling like such a woman Friday evening, having kept it together all week and then needing to just sit down to have a good cry and to talk to those I love and then getting back up to finish the week (Rachel and Frosty assure me I was just being human, but I felt a little wimpy at that low point).
ending the week with brunch with the Lowe's by the river and coming home to my sticky, half naked children watching cartoons and spending the day with them and Michael.
I thought I'd just - for the heck of it - throw my hat in the ring for this one. After all, I let my kids play in the street water after it rains and in the hail (but it was small hail, fun to eat and I didn't know there was a tornado warning yet). Today started out quite good. Asher didn't get up until 6:30, but then he self entertained. And Harper was happy in her crib until around 7:30. But shortly after, Asher decided it was THE day to be bandito Asher, aka big, bad brother. So for a good two hours, I attempted to do a little bit of clean up, breakfast making and feeding, and dressing while Asher was a bandito, perching on the living room chair and darting out to steal Harper's baby and blanket ("gengki" as she screeched it) while also serving a good dose of hits, kicks and whips with Mardi Gras beads. I lost count of how many time outs Asher had and how many toys he lost the privelege of using (don't even ask me about the foam swords he can't use for a few days).
I decided it was finally time to take the two bags of bread heels I'd been saving to the duck pond and feed the birds there, something new and exciting, and the weather was beautiful. Oh, yes, I was thinking, mother of the day, right here. Innocently enough, I made two phone calls on the way and found out that I had a slight emergency with the youth conference I'm working on - a surprise extra 10 attendees!
We unloaded at the duck pond and had a good time chasing geese, not worrying about all the goose poop on the walkway, throwing bread willy-nilly, watching the stork float around the pond, eating bread willy-nilly, watching for more geese and ducks to feed. Shortly after we arrived, the geese started to migrate to another part of the pond, so we started a nice walk around the pond.
We stopped at an inlet where Asher wanted to walk down and see if he could find any more birds to feed. "Careful," I told the kids, urging them to step back from the water. I snapped some good pictures of the kids, the pond and the Rocky Mountains to our west. It was gorgeous! My phone rang, a call back about the surprise emergency, and I answered it. As I was hanging up, I saw Harper f a l l i n t o the water - threw my phone down, tried to reach her from the shore as she started to sink face first, yelled s*%! several times, water closing over her back, stepped in, grabbed the back of her overalls and hoisted her up, wondered if I could remember CPR, checked her face to see that she was surprised, soaking wet but perfectly fine. THANK GOD. I was shaking, and a woman asked if she was okay. No thanks to me, yes. Harper burped, and I wondered how much of the filthy pond water she had taken in. Sweet Asher looked at me and said, "Harper almost floated away." Again, thank God.
We enjoyed the rest of our walk, my shoes squishing and my clothes almost completely wet and Harper drying slowly in the sun, and almost two more hours together at the pond. I was so shaken at one point that I wanted to verify with someone that Harper was indeed okay - was I imagining her walking beside me? Thank God I wasn't. Needless to say, I didn't let either Asher or Harper get closer than three feet from the edge of the bank, and I learned a valuable lesson about multi-tasking.
The Myers-Briggs typology will probably always be a favorite personality test of mine - as an INTJ, I love systems! and gaining more knowledge about myself and my friends - but recently one of my co-workers introduced me to True Colors, a personality test with four categories that are color based. We spent one of our staff meetings learning what our colors are, what each others' colors are, and the strengths, weaknesses and ways to communicate with each other. We all had fun during the meeting.
I am green and feel so at home with systems, knowledge, deep thinking, efficiency, analyzing and not following rules that don't make any sense (this may have been the biggest ahha for me - I am typically a rule follower but how irritated I get by nonsense rules!). It's always fun for me to understand more why I act the way I act and how to communicate better with other people. As a green, I tend towards information and shy away from emotional, people interaction (so don't ever be shy about calling or e-mailing me for purely informational reasons); although, life has taught me the importance of friends and taking the time for emotions and sharing emotions with others. You can join the fun by taking a free test at www.truecolorscareer.com/quiz.asp.
I last posted on October 13. Can't believe it! Where have I been? Somewhere between Halloween, working, getting office ready to move downstairs, getting ready for a trip to Alabama, thinking about kindergarten for Asher, working, volunteering grant writing services, beginning in a book club, going to Alabama, coming back to blown up (figurative) office in which I could not work for a week, coming back to office that sorely needed my organization skills, getting ready for Christmas . . . and now, here, sitting in my lovely office (all mine! I used to share).
