whispering

i'm hiding in my room. whispering to the computer and crying while i type this. . .
my son's kindergarten class has 36 students in it.

knock my socks off.

I'm at a loss, and linking up...

Big Kid starts Kindergarten this week, the orientation for me and hubs is tomorrow.  I am much in need of some orientation.  I'm all a jumble, and feeling pretty quiet but exhausted and nervous.  I'm very curious, as well.  What sort of changes are in store for us?  What is this gigantic influence on C going to mean for our family unit?  I'm in a fall sort of mood, ready to make bread and cookies, wear pants and pile on sweaters, and the weather is still not cooperating with my internal system. . .

There is a world of suggestion out there currently, making it more and more plain to me that little insignificant distractions are keeping me from the bigger, more important LIFE.   C.S. Lewis has a book called 'the screwtape letters' and if memory serves, it is a conversation between the 'big bad' and a lesser demon about how to keep folks from the fairly easy and clear path to G-d. Guess what the big plan is?  distraction.

simple, tiny, irritating distraction.  When having a moment of silence, all that blather that your brain makes you sit through...

I keep thinking about this... as regards the phone you attach to your hip at all times, twits... heh, internet, tv, cable, tapeyourshows so you can watch them whenever, childrearing, digital/analog, etc.

There have been lots of articles lately: the Times, the magazine SUN, which focuses on an excellent interview with a man trying to

encourage more quietude in the section of Oregon where he lives... it is not in an online version yet or i would link to it... it is actually on paper. YES. paper. 

I'm also reading this book Radical Homemakers, and feeling personally challenged to feel better about how I live. 

I'm also reading about the Brow Chakra...  (so many spelling errors on this site, it is sort of remarkable and I enjoy seeking them out...)

I'm also gearing up to meditate on a regular basis and sort of spinning in my mind about how/when where to do it and what my space should look like and - see how distracting it is, when starting is the simplest thing?

hm. Everything seems to be pointing me in the same direction, wave upon wave. 

I am hoping i'm in the right waters. J is on board with me, and that is a nice feeling and a good beginning.

I'm going overboard internally on the need to simplify, get rid of, work harder to get back to 'enough' and not keep looking around for 'more'.  It can actually feel like some sort of battle, to spend days trying not to spend any money, especially when it is actually sitting in your pocket.
I have officially unplugged the cable box. It is in a heap of connecting wires on the bookshelf.  I am keeping the dvd player, though, our nightly 'show' must go on...
keep me in mind these days.  Soon the kids will realize the tv is no more. 'on demand' has gone the way of breastfeeding in this house...

Lucky

i've always struggled with thinking that i'm not good enough. always. not smart enough, not funny enough- or certainly not certain about what IS funny, not pretty enough, skinny, curvaceous, laid back, strict... what have you...
its been all the more difficult (read: struggle struggle strain struggle... ) because i can't find something to blame outside of my own self.  I have a distant mother, sort of, but I can't blame her or my ex-military randomly-raging father.  It just doesn't ring true.  Nor all the boyfriends, not them either. or the old girl friends who went their ways....
nobody to blame. 
damn straight.
except my loser-ass self.

imagine my horror at finding that stay at home motherhood does not, in and of itself, do anything to assuage the feelings of 'loser-ass self.'      nothing.      nothing but a fairly frequent rain of abuse from the children, and a radically different marriage than I thought I was getting.... They all love me and cuddle me too, yes, but often i get the other end of the spectrum, as kids are kids and slightly rambunctious and husbands are much more than the 'otherone' at the wedding.  plus, there is the constant need, THE CONSTANT NEEEEEEED.
nothing.
nothing but a fairly frequent rain of abuse from society. get a job. be productive. stop eating your bonbons and watching your soaps and get a job.

my son goes to kindergarten a week from tomorrow.  I am not going to get a job.  In the past two weeks his voice has been cracking with sadness at least once each day.  How could I let someone else be there for that? those conversations have wrung my heart and catupulted him into new stages of awareness. . . my god, i got to watch this kid metamorphose into another person than I gave birth to... same skin, new being. It is going to keep happening and I'm going to keep watching- loser that I am. . .

so damn lucky.

I am SO middle-aged...

When i was in my twenties I was in a bible study group that met once a week, it was an Episcopalian thing called EFM, Education for Ministry. It was roughly four years long but I made it through two years, and a bit,  before I up and married.  Anyhow, I loved it, loved the variety of the people in the group, the changeability of the personalities and the solid read of the Bible that I got.  I learned to look to the Bible on an almost spontaneous basis, as a reference point, daily meditation type thing.  Several of the people in the group have now died, from age and poor health, some have divorced, re-married, moved to far flung locales.  But it still is one of my most favorite groups in life.
anyhow. 
Its been a long time since I've read the Bible that way.  I picked up the Gift from the Sea yesterday, after a long week/time of marital strife, and I read about 'intermittency'...
hold on, let me go get the book, so I can authentically reproduce her words. . .

"The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even.

Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now.  For relationships, too, must be like islands.  One must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits-islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, continually visited and abandoned by the tides.  One must accept the security of the winged life, of ebb and flow, of intermittency."

in other words, ride the good AND the bad, stick with it, hang in there... there's always an upswing to the pendulum, as long as its moving. . .
funny what the universe gives when you look around, aye?

*edit, the connection between Bible and current book may just be method... but that was my point and i didn't actually spell that out... felt wierd upon second read... hence, edit #3? ... i should probably pick up the Heavy again, but will go with the flow i am in...

expectation

this morning i committed to not checking email.  i lasted through 8 am. still had a sleeping child and was willing to walk by him to check the email.  there is something about this expectation that has a dirty tinge to it. this is what i wrote, on real paper, yesterday, to be posted here... real paper!!

Expectation, as regards connectivity, the constancy of communication, the raised stakes of our emotions when we are always, no breaks, expecting a call, an email, a 'ding'... We keep our phones ON our bodies, how can this not have any affect? we wear sunscreen, eat organic but wear something which 'talks' to the satellites? hm. i digress. our hearts are racing, even at rest, because we are always 'on', the stimulation of expectation..

how crushed can i be when i don't get thoughtful comments instantaneously upon writing? calls? emails? one day with no contact can plunge me into what now seems a sort of false depression. at the time it isn't less real than another, but with distance? i wonder at the completely unreasonable expectation /desire . i don't think that i would want to be busy with phone calls/emails/contact all day,( the realm of the work-for-pay people or the avg teen...)  so why the emotional connection?
There is something in it which is an addiction, some hook beneath the skin which keeps us away from BEING more. more full, more Actually connected, more devoted to what IS.
On the camping trip, both men checked their messages, returned calls and booked appointments.  I think there is something sort of terrible about that.  Its expected of them... they expect it of themselves, but there is still something wrong with it, this ability to 'communicate' in the middle of the woods.  Just because you can doesn't mean that you should.
I understand responsibility, in a painfully overwhelmingly parental sort of way.  I understand feeling responsible for all the details, the hopes, the personality developing occasions, the feeding, the growth, the happiness, all of it. Understood.  I also know, that as I age, and the kids do, that I need to adjust, quickly, an erroneous belief that I am actually responsible.  I give them good love, a good childhood, and how they react to the wildness of life will be something that I am Not responsible for. I will react to those things as well, but will not be responsible... Its not good for me to be available all the time.  I have to shift priorities. 
Its not good for me to be 'hooked' into something so inorganic. 
What happens if we just change our approach? We expect less from others? We don't need to order our pants at 3 in the morning because that means that somewhere someone has to be working to get the order... we don't need instantaneous cell phone connections because what the hell is so important?  I don't need to have my phone on my body, or even in my car because if i were in trouble, 95 people on the highway would call the police as they drove past... help would arrive.
Maybe i should get a land line, with an answering machine, so I can just let loose when I leave the house, fly free without any hope of 'being reached'...
forget wifi. hot spots...
just forget it.
I'm going to start treating this writing spot as a second edit.  I'm going native. real paper.
real paper.

One time ...

when i was pregnant with my first child, i went to the grocery store to get healthy food, for us, the newly beginning family.  i came home with a pound of beef and a carrot. i was thoroughly overloaded and about as indecisive as i think i ever could be. 
J still laughs about that. 
today is hot, i dragged my two out of the house and away from a neighborhood playmate to the postoffice to mail out an overdue birthday present which is made irrelevant by now, ho well, and then to the grocery.  i bought a melon, some carrots, tofu and a bag of peaches.
this is the space i am in. 
i am so longing for a snowday, i cannot even tell you.
i will miss the peaches desperately.
but the quiet stillness of a room without fans humming is something to inhale.  and then, there are the sweaters.

ah.
i need some subject suggestions, because of the melon shopping expedition. i am clearly adrift.

Things I love to look at...

Here is a blog called Habit, each day different photos and comments, brief and usually beautiful and well worth spending time visiting.



Also, what led me to Habit, was this: Are So Happy .

They are generally quiet, beautiful spaces, but not without reality, in all its glory...

be well.
take a vacation from your anxiety.

advice for the adventurers...

so. you think you'd like to go sailing? camping? bring the kids along?
let me give you some pointers that I have realized in the past two weeks.
1. make sure trucks don't break down at the grocery store before you go. make sure of this, as it is a bad starting off point and forces a long two mile walk in the sun before you even begin, giving the dog heat stroke.
2. make sure boat motors work, when asked to do so, so that you do not need to subsist on actual skill.
3. anchors need to sink deeply into mud, otherwise boats drift into other boats and you need to use your feet to avoid hideous damaged sinking things.

4. when camping, bring rain gear.
5. try not to alternate between terrors of... 'the baby is going to have hypothermia if he's cold and wet all night' and 'i'm going to smother him with the blankets.'  (envision, blankets on head, two minutes, blankets off head, two minutes.... and so on for HOURS)
5a. be willing to throw your children under the car to keep them dry. (i wasn't.)
6. don't forget to bring coffee  -don't forget to drink tea or water, so that the migraine which causes you to huddle in a ball in the middle of a tent will not arrive at all. at least six hours of huddle and vomit.

thats all, thats all i've got.
and I went to a high school reunion, which, although tiny and shorter than i thought, was well worth the crazy of the babysitting plan, which is entirely separate and just as nightmarish.
so . thats all. take my advice.
all of it.
i am your rockstar.
signing out.

Who comforts you?

or what comforts you? i suppose that works as well. but i look for whos when i'm in/at a crux. the 'gift from the sea' book tells me that we are all alone, and we'd probably be happier for it if we could all just accept it as the way it is, the singularity of our experiences makes us part of a larger whole of experience, the familiarity as we look at each other is the thing, dig? assume the familiarity position.

i still seek comfort from others when i feel like this, this midwinter blue in themiddle of wildly humid summer, this feeling of blank in the eyes. . . maybe i'm just not evolved enough.  i want the right words of comfort, the hot cup of tea with sugar and milk, the hold, the right action, even a shoulder grab... it is crushing when it isn't there, sometimes. but it goes back to previous conversation about allowing that things have changed, do change, are changed from what we think/remember them to be.  and nobody knows what the hell the 'right' is- is doing, where its going...

(insert undeniable jokes, the right is so far right these days, its left, etc, etc... )

I think there is part of me that still holds on to the illusions of pre-adult romanticism, where there is an undeniable lust for the unobtainable... maybe it is a denial of what IS obtainable, because it is frightening... ?

-but honestly, i think i'm just too practical for that pre-teen stuff now.  I choose 'practical' lightly, and wonder if, in fact, it is correct. what loss, the hope of those early days? the naivete which allows for all that possibility and yearning...

-once i wrote an extra credit paper for a philosophy class and showed it to a philosopher friend and he said, 'but. it doesn't say anything, actually. ' and i said, 'exactly'.

i didn't get much extra credit for it, as i recall, i think it was a fairly shite piece of work.  not a natural philosopher, you see. it shows here, today, twenty years or so later. . . oh hell.

i'm too tired today.

what makes it all better? this struggle we all have to get out of our own way ?

Connectivity

the week with C in camp has flown by.  I have probably gained 4 or 5 pounds in nervous drivethru energy.  Who knows how many pounds the two year old has put on ... jayz. not to mention the downright stupid of too many mickey episodes. (mouse, you crazies. )
I did a lot less than I thought I would do, my god, the world of ease of just one kid.  the world!
It was hot. I kvetched. We made some drawings, sliced some tomatoes. . . fed the dog a few times. itched.
I spent much time here, on the computer, again.
One of the things that was nice about that vacation was its low tech lifestyle.  I wrote, but for a nonexistent audience.  One with no feedback option, although i did make my husband read it all, mostly, i think to check for lies or complete crazy misconception in type.  by lie, i mean overexaggeration or manipulation of the data.  I do like to think that my off the cuffness is at least some variety of true, for me.
But it was good, and it Was an adjustment, part of the reason i wrote there in the first place was that I have really gotten used to the exercise of it, the sensation of 'sending OUT' something.  starfish man again.
-It made me think a lot about how much we are all in touch with each other.  For instance, twitcher? twitter?
what for, twitter?  why in the world would i want to be so in touch, with you or anyone else? in such a generic fashion?  don't we all have enough of that?  I can't even process real live human beings that well, why do i want to become proficient at reading faster?
I thought maybe i could go for it if i had some sort of mentor, who upon walking in the woods discovered some illuminating insight (redundant?) into the world and just had HAD to share it immediately.  and here i would be, ready to receive the illumination... okay, i see that.  but why would i want john mayer 's tweets?
why?
- i signed up to go to a meditation retreat, for a day. how do you like that? i have been trying to get up before everyone and sit for a few minutes without moving and without judging what goes through my mind, just letting it all flow through, noticing but not paying attention, if that makes sense. . .
if i dare to make coffee, someone arrives instantly, so i've needed something else to do, hence, meditation!!
coffee or inner solitude, sometimes the choice is unclear.
sometimes the little old lady who can't work the cellphone but knows how to knit and make pies is the better for it.

-all sorts of connections, J was away for an overnight sail and called on the cellphone .  that is crazy. on a sailboat anchored at Cuttyhunk.  on the phone.
crazy.
too much.
stop.
be alone.

away

i feel like i am out of my body, the universe has gone sort of schizophrenic on me and I am still doing the same thing again and again and hoping for the change to happen without me in it, co-dependency being all the rage over here.

i've been writing in a journal, something kicked off by the 'vacation' but continued hereafter and i haven't kept one since i was in college, and i have never kept one for longer than a month.  i think that i bore myself.

my kids are growing, the 'baby' is talking and developing some serious two year old issues not the least of which is a fully functioning, independent of mine, system of wants and desires.  damn personality. here he climbs on top of the piano to make music. winner. (and he did make music up there, while his cousin actually used the keys...)

life experiences are being had. . . big ones and little fly in the ointment ones. . .

i'm thinking alot, which is nice, but i seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time putzing. . . sweating and putzing.  i do wonder if there is an actual definition for 'putz'. o, you out there? your kind of job. :)
i have a reunion coming up and while it is very strangely the eighteenth year since i graduated, i had been really looking forward to it for all of those 18 years, and now, as it approaches, i am not happy and contented like i always thought i would be, and like how i thought i just generally WAS.   how, then, to go? i know, i know, i could, of course, go for the thrill and satisfaction of seeing so many old friends, those whose lives intersected with mine and then flew off in such a wild pattern of spray.  i know.
i am sort of tired of observing, you see.
huh. whing, i am whining again.
damn it. 
huh. i am going to have to start editing out my whine. and that would involve a giant highlighting blitz on the laptop, which means no good. there are too many expenses as it is.
maybe i should just go and hope that someone is waiting in the wings like cusack, to flatter me senseless so i can go back into my life with a renewed sense of self-worth, based on high school.
.

.
do you think i should pin all my hopes on that? do you?
i'm still waiting for my damn voice to show up. me, too.

Stung

what a tiny little prick can do, aye?
You think size matters?  ask the sucker who stung me.
ask the ants.
ask the Kindergarten registree.
Five is the number of the day, and five is going to camp full days this week to see if he can handle it, the impending Kindergarten fullday, three weeks from Now, and he can.  He loves it, he is tired and pissy, but he loves it.  His mother, on the other hand, is completely fried.
His brother, however, will have fatkid-itis and will watch more television than anyone else on the planet, while this mother tumbles around her empty house, moaning for a kid who is growing up.  Someone tell her that there is more than one, at your peril.
There is always the ceaseless repetition of marital difficulty.
She signed away for life insurance today as well.  There is money well spent, if, of course, one of us goes and dies. 
this is hard to process and hurts a little bit on top of an already large list of whinging whallopsing why.me's...

until of course, the swelling subsides and I realize that I am not deathly allergic, just annoyed and in adjustment.