Halloween Head

I have an old, wooden picnic table in my backyard. The origins of the table are somewhat interesting. It's a hand-me-down from a friend who got it from his parents. This friend has played a key, minor role in my life as keeper, purveyor and mover of significant furniture (Megan's, Michael's, Megan's again, Michael's again).

The table has been the site of many activities at our Longmont house - new feats by Asher and Harper in jumping and climbing; private and deep conversations; games and good beer and wine; family gatherings; and cookouts, brunches and low country boils with friends who are closer now than they used to be, who moved away, who turned out to be quite anathema to our family's first home, who have been part of the joy and pain of the last year or so. The table is a lovely gray and well used. This year, the wood on one of the benches had to be replaced.

Last Friday, after a movie, I got home around ten o'clock and said goodbye to our babysitter, Hannah. I asked her how she was feeling with the news that our church is closing, the last service being Easter. Her dad is the pastor, and, though we've been through the shock of this before, she is sad about many parts of the loss and worried about her brothers and friends.

After she left, I was uninterested in television or reading, teamed up with emotion and no way to relieve them. I went outside in the 40 degree weather and laid on the old picnic table. It was under the leafless silver maple that umbrellas our backyard. Above, the sky held the glow of snow clouds so that the dark tree branches were silhouetted against the sky. I could make out the leaf buds.

And there I lay, letting my mind wander over the evening, over emotions, over the history the table had been a part of, over the tree branches like I was on a road trip, just watching what was over the next hill. I listened to the few cars on Francis Street. I pulled out my iPod and listened repeatedly to Ryan Adam's "Halloween Head," musing on the idea of a head full of tricks treats.

Calm, high on new found strength in riding out my emotions without having to take rash action, loving the piece of time I carved out just to mentally relax, I went back in the house, took a shower, and went to bed.

Bare Bones

Last Wednesday, I was driving from work to pick up the kids at daycare. The house where they go to daycare is up and over a hill on the east side of town. At the peak of the hill, there is a wide view of the plains, houses and a small lake. On this particular day, the sun was low over the mountains and the light quite white so that it bleached the landscape, turning the brown hills a light beige and the bare trees white. Houses faded into the background and the white trees, like bare bones, contrasted against dark gray storm clouds that filled the eastern sky. Rather than desolate or hinting at impending storms, the landscape was magnificent and hopeful.

I feel somewhat that I am in such a place, able to enjoy the beauty of the bare bones of life, closer to the bare bones of myself (also assured that there are many layers to go). Rather than feeling naked or stripped, I feel the restoration of winter and the promise of spring colors to come. I might lay upon such words as openness, forgiveness, blessedness, adventure, and a sense of freedom.

Awakenings

I have reflected recently on things my children teach me. There are lots of lessons in multi-tasking, patience, overcoming my own emotional response, not taking their comments personally as well as playing more, laughing more, getting outside more, discovering old and new loves. There are three realizations that have felt bigger, the kind of mind altering thoughts that have changed my worldview. When Asher was first born, I remember going home with him in the crazy haze of just-having-a-baby-how-to-do-this-hormonal-uproar and being reduced to a sobbing blob thinking about how much I loved him. I was overwhelmed by love, and cried (in Alexa-type fashion) for all the little babies without mommas, for God's sacrifice for us, and for God's love for us.

It's no secret that Asher loves cartoons. He loves them like an addict - asking everyday if he can watch them, going into another world when he does watch them and having withdrawals when they are turned off. This later symptom is quite interesting to me. Not only is Asher upset by cartoons not being on, but he seems to have a hard time handling real life emotions because he's been able to tune reality. All of a sudden, he has to deal with being sad, happy and playing. It's also no secret that I hate television. Secretly, I have a big "Kill Your Television" bumper sticker across my forehead, and my experiences with Asher have deepened this dislike. Life is to precious to not only deprive ourselves of the time we spend in front of the television but also the learning and practicing to emotionally handle life. (My confession is that I also have quite the addiction to HGTV, Food Network and Sex in the City - horrors! Television is worse than french fries - the way it just sucks me in with great promises of feeling good).

The last realization has been revealed as Asher talks more and more, shares his opinions and thoughts. Often, when Asher is in the throws of threeness, I am reminded of an adolescent with his emotional swings, irrational behavior and absolutely unrealistic idea of how some things work. We will have discussions in which he flatly denies reality. Yesterday, he desperately wanted a doughnut but would not eat something slightly healthier, tatter tots, before having a doughnut. He explained that tatter tots don't have vitamins but doughnuts do. On top. At some point in the next year or so, I expect he will have an awakening to a new level of reality. And the awakenings will continue - new and new levels of understanding the internal and external world as he matures and also as he experiences the good and bad things in life.

I was in on a conversation with some adolescents on Thursday about ethical dilemmas. One of the young men in the group said that adults keep telling him about the future consequences of his actions, and how he didn't believe the adults. Why do adults believe that he asked? That we'll be hurt by the consequences of our actions? An adult answered because adults have seen friends hurt by consequences. I was struck by both sides of this conversation - what adolescents believe about the world and themselves and about what how our minds are changed as we get older. So many awakenings we experience, from a very young age until the end of life.

Colorado Weekend

Yesterday, I drove up to ski for my second (yes, second - quite inspired by the first) ski day in Colorado. It was an absolutely lovely day, 50 degree weather on the mountain, clear, blue skies, a view of the mountains upon mountains, not so many people on the slopes that I couldn't get some good runs in. I was by myself and enjoyed taking advantage of the singles line for the lift. I left the mountains at around 2:30 and hit traffic as I drove through the canyon of Highway 6 between Golden and Boulder because there were so many people out enjoying the weather - hiking, climbing, motorcycle riding, walking dogs. I still had my ski pants on as I got out of the car in 80 degree weather and returned my skis at the rental store. An hour or so later, I was enjoying a pint of beer at Lefthand Brewery, outside, in my jeans, t-shirt and flip-flops. As the weather cooled, I put on my fleece jacket and was warm again. This morning, we woke up to a dusting of snow, wind and 30 degree temperatures. At church, I talked to a friend about finding a day to go snowshoeing. Ahhh . . . quite the consummate Colorado weekend!

Eidos

One of the things we discussed at St. John's College while reading Plato was "eidos" or ideal forms, abstract models of everything that exists. We know a chair is a chair because our eternal soul knows the eidos of a chair, an eternal form that helps us to recognize a chair as a chair. Having children, watching them pick up languge and so easily categorizing things, I have become quite certain of eidos. I remember Jaden learning his first words and how he could name a live dog animal as well as a calendar picture of a dog as "dog." I have watched Asher understand the catgories of colors, shapes, numbers, letters, toys, weapons. I remember playing cars with Asher before he could identify colors, and he made up color names for the cars - he played with the brown truck while I played with the red truck.

As Michael and I have gone through changes in our relationship, people often ask me how the kids are doing. Harper is much harder to read - she's been so young and nonverbal that I have hints only in changes in her mood, her health, whether she is reaching developmental milestones. She seems to be as resiliant as we can hope and developing normally (and quite outspoken in her new found skills). Asher gives us a few more clues in his speech and emotions. He also seems quite resiliant and adaptable to his parents' new relationship. His categorizing ability comes into play with his parents - we are similiar to him and in that category should also all be spendign time together. In talking to me and telling stories, I hear his heart wanting us to all spend time together. Parents, family are a known eidos.

One morning, as we were lying in bed, and I was trying desperately to grab a few more minutes of sleep, Asher told me a story about a young boy. The young boy's mommy and daddy were swallowed (together) by a T-rex, and the young boy had to rescue his mommy and daddy before lava overcame the T-rex. The young boy succeeded (I write this and wonder if Asher feels like he needs to rescue us). This weekend, Asher told me he was sad when his daddy went home and that he wanted us to all be together to play Berenstein Bears - I would be Momma Bear, daddy Pappa Bear, him Brother Bear and Harper Sister Bear. Often, Asher's baby dinosaurs spend time with his mommy and daddy dinosaur. Asher had a little under two years when Michael and I were doing well together, so I am struck that with so little visual memory (certainly emotional), he understand mommy and daddy are in the same category but also that he wants us to spend time together.

Knowing Thyself

This is how it started. Checking friends' blogs one day, I came across an online quiz to figure out which Jane Austen heroine I am on one of Allison Eddy-Blouin's blogs. What fun! (For other Austenophiles, see www.strangegirl.com/emma/quiz.ph.) So I took the quiz and turned out to be Elinor Dashwood. I sent the link to Gillian, another professed lover of Austen, and she took the quiz, ending up another heroine. Unlike me who can barely remember the character Elinor Dashwood, Gillian clearly remembered her heroine and what she disliked about her.

I thought about conversations I had recently with my boss, with old friends, with close friends, sitting down with them, putting work aside and talking deeply about personal struggles and joys. I am so impressed with the importance of putting the public face aside, of really getting into another person's character. And I realized that my tendency with books, movies, my fictional writing, real life events and friends is to skip over the characters (as if they were secondary and not, as so many writing teachers have adamantly stated, primary) and wrangle with the big message, the overarching theme. I didn't remember Elinor Dashwood because I wasn't interest in her - I was interested in "the point" of the story.

I went to graduate school with the - mostly - unconscious goal of saving the world through education. My great plan was to finish my degree, enter the world of education policy, and become a great pioneer in education reformation. Near the end of my studies, I realized that as important as policies can be in a framework, what really matters in education is what happens when a teacher enters the classroom, closes the door and leads the class - it's the one-on-one, individualized, person-to-person interaction that is most important. Six years down the road, I'm still puzzling this out, finally starting to focus less on the framework (what does it all mean? what is the theme? what lesson can I draw?) and more on my friends' hearts, who each person is today, now.

There are so many reasons I tend toward analyzing and synthesizing stories (realy and fictional) - my Myers-Briggs personality (INTJ), my family circumstances, my desire to get a message to learn from, my college training, my community, my fear of big emotions. For quite a while, tending towards the intellectual rather than the heart was a survival skill through times when I was not yet equipped with emotional skills to do anything else. And like so many bad habits, I just wasn't ready to do otherwise. Sometimes it just takes a crisis (or four) to knock us over.

I find great joy in what I've termed my new addiction - getting behind the public face to hear my friends. I also have great sadness in those friends I've had and who I passed up this chance with. There are one or two in particular who tried so hard to get behind my wall, to call me out, to give me the chance to be emotionally naked, who I rejected. I wasn't ready. I have been blessed recently to have the chance to talk to old friends and those friends I've known for some time and to deepen our friendship, to take the wall down and meet in familiar and foreign places.

I have been so surprised - now at 33 years old - about how much there still is to learn about myself. How much I thought I really knew me!

A New Addiction

There is an insurance ad on television in which a woman pulls a man back from crossing the street, the man helps another person, and that person helps another person and so on until the orginal woman is helped and she again pulls the original man back. The premise is the same as the movie, "Pay It Forward," the possibility of making the world a better place by responding to a good deed by doing a good deed to someone else.

In the last year or so, I have been interested in the power of paying forward something provided to me - an incredible friend, so good at being present, who sat with me, talked with me, asked me hard and intuitive questions to draw me out. A few Sundays ago, a guest minister spoke at my church on the Bible's injunction to be perfect like God. He described his own efforts as a child and adolescent to maintain a facade of perfection, perfection itself being unattainable, even as he routinely made mistakes. He said that 91% of 18-21 year olds describe the church as hypocritical. Interestingly, the word hypocrit comes from the Greek word for Greek actors, those who act. We wrestle with how to be perfect when we are so insanely imperfect and a defense mechanism of pretending things are perfect when things are so insanely imperfect.

I have a natural affinity to southerners - I married one, I hung out with almost solely southerners in New York, of all places, and three of my closest girl friends are from or were raised in the South. I'm not sure what it is I love, but there's something there. In the time I lived in Alabama and Mississippi, I certainly came to understand the invisible boundaries among individuals and the unspoken rules about how close to become with some people. On my trip to Florida last summer, I was again immersed in Southern culture and came across one type of Southern mother - the unflappable, beautiful, perfect mother who wants to know where I'm from, what church I go to and how old my children are. And absolutely nothing else, thank you very much, would you like some sweet tea?

Our public face has an interesting effect on people. It protects us from others getting in but also protects us from having to go there with people. When we can take this mask off, when we share intimate emotions with others, - that can seem so scarey and big to us - when we are real and authentic with others in all its bright goodness and badness, it gives others permission to take their mask off (the power of this on our children!) and, sometimes felt as a threat, asks others to take off theirs. We put up a huge welcome sign. And when others can take their mask off, know they have a place to perch, what amazing things come to light - new dreams, goals, revelations of tormenting events and brilliant moments . . . a better understanding of ourselves.

My good friend helped me to take my mask off - a scary process that started when I had to sit with friends, though not close friends, from church and discuss my marriage as a part of church discipline (perhaps I could have resisted but really, I was ready for the mask to come off). At first, being that honest was felt violating - not because it was but because of my fears. Good friends held me up, and I've found taking off my mask to be infectious and addicting. In the right place, a mask is protecting (it's how one survives in New York City) and in the wrong place, a mask can be a death mask.

I have never read Ayn Rand (through a strange twist of logic, because I was once told my a teacher that I have to read her when I'm young to understand her, I got to be older and belived I was suddenly too old. So I never read her. Pshaw! What kind of book of any worth is that?!), but recently read this quote by her, "Civilization is the progress of a society towards privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men." We are never in civilization free from other people, and I don't want total privacy - I can hide so many things in privacy and can turn quite prunish and self-slaying in my own closet. Certainly, I want reasonable privacy (I don't want my phones tapped!), but I always want to have those friends with whom I can be emotionally naked, those friends who invade my privacy to check on me and to show me their hearts, those friends who are my protection in a storm that tears away many of my leaves, those friends that show me the new leaves I hadn't realized were there.