Home Pieces

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.

Plexi, Plexi

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.

Prairie Dogs, Hikes and Sticky Children

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.

Worst Mother of the Day

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.

My New Favorite Personality Test

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.

Maybe I'll Just Pitch a Hammock

Even though I am often thinking about the future and future plans, I still don't have much patience waiting for things to happen in the future. Take previously described new garden bed - I know it will get better and better each year, but I want an instantly beautiful garden with big wonderful hollyhocks, spreading Russian sage and phlox that has multiplied all over the place. I can envision it so why isn't it THERE already! Patience, patience.

I am improving in my sense of things happening in the future. Owning a home has helped. While I will gratify my urgent desires by making lists of projects, I can also see how over time the projects will unfold through the years, how I can space the projects out and still be quite happy in my home (perhaps happiest in the spring when I can get out, ride around the gorgeous old town neighborhood under the spreading trees and past blossoming plants, getting out of rooms I obsessed about during cold weather). Patience, patience.

Perhaps it's finally being in my thirties, but I am starting to see the unfolding of seeds I planted or didn't plant many years ago - the resulting community that I live in. I get a sense that, not to break a deeply emotional and complicated human experience down solely to economics, relationships - how we treat others - are investments. Not karma but the results of how I've been with others. More and more I value and consciously nurture my friendships because like so many things in life (my the list is long, when I consider it - education, cars, houses, kids, pets, gardens, retirement accounts, anything with a future) what I put in now will directly affect what they are like in the future. Relationships are long term projects, unfolding over and through the hills, down cliffs, up steep climbs, beside the ocean. How clearly I see the consequences of choices.

While feeling this investment immediately, and the importance of now, I also am intimidated by the consequences of my choices and the power I hold in what I do and do not do. How much effort I put into projects at work - what I choose to push forward - may make a profound change in the future. I found at St. John's that my education was what I put into it. If I didn't read, didn't participate in class, didn't engage, I lost. I can feel now that life also is what I choose to make of it. Change is now (if you have a chance to see the "Great Debators" do so - I cried when Samantha debated at the University of Texas. I get chills thinking about it).

Maybe I should have better understood investments and choices earlier - I think several people tried to get me to really understand. I suppose I fumbled along fairly well. Sometimes the power of my choices is deeply energizing and sometimes it is deeply overwhelming to the point that I want to pitch a hammock in my new garden and stay there to watch it come to life. Swing life away.

Transplant

Wow - how this month as passed me by. I suppose it's the gearing up for the annual Reformed Youth Movement conference, the garden planting, the working, the time to enjoy being outside, the watching the weather to see if my town was going to be hit by a tornado (for which, I don't have quite a category for in Colorado - so common in Alabama but not here, though common enough that we have sirens and a speaker system which tells us to take cover and when things are all clear. I felt a little like I was in a communist country with a deep male voice broadcasting all over the city), the enjoying of my fascinating children, the sorting through requests for grant writing, and the spending of wonderful time with good friends.

I got it into my head to turn the back six feet of my backyard into a new garden bed, joining it with one already there. I have a great vision of a huge garden back there, that I can look at from kitchen windows. But classic Alexa - good idea but with little consideration of the execution (though I did plant low maintenance and low water plants so I at least thougth about my energy in the future). It's actually turned out quite good so far, but the time and investment was more than I thought it would be. A lot more. Perhaps, I should also step back from my perfect view of the garden and let it unfold some on it's own. Just relax!

As a part of the big plan, I moved a Russian sage from another side garden to the back garden to give it more space and sun. I put the dear, two-year-old plant in the ground, and within minutes (and I do mean minutes) it wilted. Oh, the shock! it said to me. Why did you tear me away from my cozy home? What did you do to my roots?

I have tried not to obsess about this plant, tried so hard not to anthropromorphize the lovely thing, tried not to let it keep me up at night. The first day, I checked in the plant regularly. I talked to Michael about my worries. I check on it daily. I've even stroked it a few time and encouraged it that things will be okay. I may have even prayed for it. Well, it's still not happy about the move, but I think it's putting up a fight.

The transplant made me think of a close friend who found out last Friday that she and her family will - baring a miracle - have to move out of state for her husband's job. They don't know where yet or when, and she's brokenhearted. Her family moved to Longmont with the intention of staying and minstering in this community. After seven years and with kids now in high school, they are facing a move again. Transplanting is hard, and in plant speak, there is actual shock.

How I pray that my friend will be able to stay in Longmont. Selfishly, I've had enough of friends moving away. I am brokenhearted about being the side garden who seens dear friends lifted from their homes to far away gardens. No doubt, transplanting can be a good thing - potted plants sometimes are ready to be transplanted, needing a bigger pot, outdoor plants sometimes need new locations, and organ transplants save lives (and, as I just discovered online, random, can give a person a new face). I pray such becomes the case with my friend's transplant.