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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

what i miss, and why it doesn't matter. in hope.

i'm starting this post christmas eve, as we prepare the big meal to be eaten before we hopefully saunter over to Meeting for the Christmas Eve Service... this year my parents aren't coming to Meeting, as they found themselves missing their own church too much last year... so we go it with the in-laws who have no church and we will be fine, though i will miss giggling with my sister and tearing up when we sing 'o come let us adore him'... which is adorable in its own way, as we are 38 and 41 and can't stop giggling in public, with each other, and its been that way forever and ever.
and i miss it too, the masses of people in darkness and candlelight singing out to the skies our adoration and wonder at the birth of a KING in a humble stable.  ahg. beauty.
and our Meeting is so wonderful but so small, the congregation's tiny voices mass together, still managing to sound tiny, though they are a mass straining towards the skylight, for sure. the children will surge to the middle for their christmas story, their 'all things bright and beautiful'... and their families will look on ... we will look on.
there will be ancient lightbulbs on high, tall windows of wavy glass,  whitewashed walls without adornment, and we will sit together in community on Christmas Eve, waiting, waiting. 


what it looked like, two years ago.
and
now it is the 26th...
and we are so lucky, who get to wait and wait and are given the Grace of time to figure it out, hard as it may seem, long as the hours of wrapping and recriminations may be.  we are so lucky to have repreives from griefs, mistrusts and need.  we get to watch our kids struggle against exhaustion and excitement, overstimulation and more overstimulation, diets based on sugars alone... we are so lucky.
we struggle all that ourselves, all our dreams and wishes for our kids being almost inextricable with our dreams and wishes for ourselves, our own struggles and weaknesses coming to the fore... if we are able to see them. these kids are separate and not separate, all at once. and we are so lucky in this struggle, in this god-given time that we have. we are so lucky.

i'm off in my luck, to read a gigantic stack of books while the kids roll in their toy-wrapper-refuse piles, to nurse, to occasionally flinch at the sounds from the 'play area', which used to be my house...
we are so lucky. 

happy new year.  bless us all...

Friday, December 21, 2012

How'd you sleep? the cruelest question.

Most mornings, I can't remember what the story of the night has been.  How often did we wake? did we nurse for a long time? how was the return to sleep? did i lie awake in tears of utterly empty exhaustion? the long dark timmy-fell-in-the-well of an episode with no Lassie?
aoye.

fine, fine, i slept fine.
you?

Monday, December 17, 2012

St. Francis, with his dogs and all...

Seems so easy to get stuck in a place of righteous anger and blame when we are scared so deeply. laws, guns, illness, parenting...blame someone, something, to make it all more manageable. we are So scared and so fundamentally shaken.
So in my every-minute prayers for the families jolted into hell I am going to add this, that I might be a force fighting towards the light and in my very small existence, a proof of the Light itself.


Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.


O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

Sunday, December 16, 2012

theres just nothing

if adults can't understand, can't wrap their brains around it in any way, how can we make it a topic of conversation with our kids?
sharing my own grief and my own confusion is the only way i can think of, but i want them to have an answer, a sense of safety that lingers on and on and on. . . this is their childhood, for Christ's sake.

maybe in the profanity, lies the answer.  the light.  go towards the Light. go.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Opposites suck. Title eliminated because the world is too violent ..


what is the opposite of cold? hmm? well, if its the cold that hurts your face and makes you cry tears that freeze, then the opposite might be 'scorched'...
the opposite of black? well, do you mean the color of the darkest night? because that 'opposite' might be 'relief for the mother of a newborn' or... 'dazedly dawn'... or 'sherbert in the trees'... but white? i don't think so really. not even on the spectrum of light because frankly, its a circle. spectrum, linear, whats the opposite of linear? fog-ular? planar? blaroahgogular.
really.
peace? war? my ass.  tentative peace? no such game with tentative war? no such game.
right? wrong?  again, no dice. we're all too old for this frippery. you know it.  why are we getting our kids all fucked up at such an early age? shoot.
i want my kids to stretch and leap out.  with words, colors, ideas... not a rigidity that is easier than all the rest.  i want me to do that too.
we'll see. 

my middle one turns five tomorrow, goes off to his grandparents for a sleepover tonight and comes back a whole new being. 
boy, it is exciting.  I'm glad i'm not missing this because i'm hung up on up and down, or he and she.  hoowee, how do the nurseryschool teachers handle transgender identification?  HOLY LORD.  how do they handle that one?  heh. may they all get an extra shot of espresso in their cup when that one comes up.

AND, that cute little first trip to the dentist set us back a cool six hundred dollars.  OH YEAH, did i mention that my kids may never see a dentist again, ever.  way to go, doc... their rotten and dysfunctional mouths are forever in your debt, from here on in. 

i need a booklist, buds.  I'm thinking of making a sojourn to the library but I need there to be a pile of worthies sitting there with my name on them, to make this trip worthwhile.   tell me. tell me.  nonfiction, fiction, fine.  i'm not superhigh with needing to read a book that rips my heart out, but I do like the well-written of all genres. i do.

one last time, opposites are killing your babies... let them run free, mamas... let them run free. 

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Yesterday, bulletry

the baby hit the month mark yesterday.  it is amazing how sentimentally i feel about everything now that we are filled with 'lasts' and 'firsts' in a more tangible, easily remembered fashion. . . its easy to be mindful of how fast they grow when they grow so fast RIGHT IN DAMN FRONT OF YOU!
shoot.


*tonight we go to the second parent teacher night of the fortnight and this one will be less smooth but I may be imagining... we'll see.  i'm planning on having a hamburger and fries beforehand so i'll let you know how both go down. 

---
well, it was smooth as silk, and much more so than the tepid hamburger and the waitlisted-under-the- warmer french fries, but i'll take it.  my kids are deleriously good with school and the curiousity factor and i love that and i'll take it every day . every day. 
*i had to go out into the darkness to find this spark of goodness, which always sets me off in a funk of 'i think i should live in a cave, i need to go to bed because it is dark and/or i need to fight off the wildbeasts at the edge of my fire.'
right? who's with me?!

yeah, i know. alone by the fire, i am...
*the baby has hit her first real fussy time and i'm sort of wonky with it.
*carol came here, i got my therapy, did not lose my serenity but also in the wonky, didn't find my answers ...
*the kids are going to the dentist today for their first visit, 7 and almost-5.  hubsJ is here to take them as i've got the wonk-maker and claim defeat already. can't wait to hear how much they like the whirrrr .  oye.

thats all i've got .  and score one for keeping-up-with-the-jones' on dentistry and posting per week. 

Friday, December 7, 2012

In which I am reminded

this is the post of the unslept unkept mother. the one whose husband has the carseat base in his car dis-enabling the run to the bank and the almost five year olds special food/lunch treat.  this is the mother who spent time in a Target and a Toys R US yesterday, who came out of that experience like a bat on fire. yes, i did type that... bat on fire.  imagine those swoops and loops all alit with excruciating burn. BURN.
please please, remind me, next year, how overstimulating and heartaching and painful i actually find the shopping madness that befalls me ... the certainty i feel in disappointment... yes, that is a certainty that drives me completely insane.  and i look at all the other shoppers and what they have in their carts and how much i wonder about their money life, their consumption, their wildly Enormous boxes.  Is this their only shop of the season? is it? are they done now?  Are their kids more happy then mine? If i get them an enormous box, will they be safe and happy for the rest of their lives?  I'm not even being smarmy or sarcastic here... I want these things for them, and I want the box it comes in, no matter how much money or space it takes.

I've done more this year online, because of the baby and things like the carseat- which, if it had been filmed, would have sent all sorts of doctors running to my door, i am a loose cannon of disastrous weep. -  i barely kept it together for the almost-five sentient being who lives here, explaining terms like frustrated to his vocab-loving self.   learning learning, always learning... these spongy chillins.

i like the mom and pop experiences of shopping much better but i'm clearly having a difficult time getting out of the house.  there is a birthday here before the big fat redman makes his way to emasculate the tiny boy Savior.  and i am upset over so many things and today is just a lot of fucking weep to handle.  so i am working on it, and reminded of my need to seek out quietude and calm and maybe expect less and get my mind out for a cold and long walk, even if my body and mothering self cannot.

chakra carol wants to come to my house. do you think she saw the video? maybe the weep went viral.
maybe she heard that we're going to chuck e cheese next weekend and she needs to save me from myself.  maybe she doesn't really work that way, but I think I'll take her up on her visit, so I can save myself from me.  the work is always mine, and i'm just fucking tired of it today.  

wmx

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Oh CANADA!!

to the beach!!! must go.
 
 
unwittingly i have collected some Canadians in my 'stuff of legends' following.  and i have followed them, as well... enough to recognize that I don't know all that I'm talking about, really.  I don't know what a toque is, for goodness sake.  I get that it goes on your head, but really? toque? fill me in.
One of the things I have done during this pre-winter time of expectancy and delivered goodness and respite and refusal to get up for anything is,  read.  I have read most of an entire series of mysteries of Louise Penny, set in Quebec.  and as I understand it, Quebec is iffily Canadian, and eerily, tenuously connected to earth as a whole- in its beauty, its darkness, its winterly chill.  is it so, my canadians?
The series is fantastic, written by a person with skill and an eye for beauty, literature, poetry and the complexity of people.  and the endings are not pat, not easy and not formulaic.  what connects them is the Inspector, and a continual revisiting of a small town nestled in idealia amongst the regular mayhem of dirty life, a brigadoon of sorts, although it does not do the disappearing act.   go look up the series if you don't know it already, the first one is called... Still Life... you should read them in order to get the nibbles on the characters you will want to know, i wish i did... really.... although my rooms are crowded with the people i wish i knew, i wish i could see. . .

so that is where i am at, my mom gave me a copy of the latest and last of the series so far and i am nibbling so as not to have it end... like the last good cookie, dipping into the tea, morsel becoming the biggest word of the day.  morsel, please, morsel.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Oh, good goddamned. . .

so, there is this here blog that I don't really write in anymore, right here.  and i am constantly wondering why the blogworld has suddenly all slowed down and most of who i read when i began are not writing anymore, and boy, do i judge? yes, yes i do, in  that sort of middling way of not much but a little judging, you see? just a smidge.
and then i look around and see how much i don't do it anymore me'self and while there is a not crying baby in the other room and my boys are wound up and doing crack with their cousins, i am here to tell you that i am committing to a month of twice weekly postings, just sos i can see if i can still do it... and i am trying to give myself something i can achieve with the two a week strategem, because my heart doesn't feel that into it, but my brain certainly remembers liking the sensations of expression, connectivity and so on and so forth. plus, there is a reason to the season wherein i can take pictures and make someone look at them, you dig?  so, thats my one post for DUODICIEMBRE.  I don't think my catchy name is really going to catch on but maybe if i give everyone a free gelato with each post they read, (in spirit), we can all feel mildly italian together... si?
Andiamo!!

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

No, an homage to the boy who simply says No.

No, I don't want to.  No, things have not changed, no they haven't.   the die has been cast, and the figures are making their turns.  No, I don't think the rut is passed. No, I think repetition is not holy, nor necessary for learning.  No. The adults and the children have not been irrevocably changed by the baby in our midst, but I am waiting, for I have been changed.  I have.  I am waiting to see what will be, and looking carefully at what is. 

We are not learning our lessons over here. We are un-learning.  We are four going on toddler, and we are NOT pleased with the state of affairs here.  No, this baby is 'so cute' but only for poking.

No, this baby cannot be used as a bartering chip, a brokerage between adults and children.  No.





yes, she is adorable.  yes, yes she is.  she has 9 days under her belt now, and she shows her wisdom regularly.  yes, she does. 
ah.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

News!

Had me a baby girl yesterday, Harriet Rose.  IT was a long and trying story, full of homebirth midwifery and hospital regalia, regulations and wonders, all.   She has a full head of hair and all her parts, as do I.  We are both happy and healthy and will get back to you with more after a bit of sleep and (really, who am i kidding about the sleep? sheesh.)  some more food.  I am HUNGRY. 
love to you guys, thanks for waiting with me and reaching out.  . .


wmx
kate

Saturday, November 3, 2012

maybe baby.

I'm sorry i've had no bambino, I've had no bambino today!  (bananas work too... )
and we also made it through the hurricane of sandy just fine. glad to say i had a mini panic attack when i thought the midwives might not make it through the massive winds and waters and that i might have to do a delivery all by myself or while endangering the many that i love. glad.

I'm also sorry that I'm not on top of the NONOPOMOWRIMOPOPPOPO this year, after having written November's 30 days for three years, this is the year I most definitely skip.  I think I was figuring on... 1. having a newborn already. 2. a newborn. 3. some kids who are bigger than newborns and 4. some issues with time management.   and while i have only two of the four items above, I most definitely dropped the ball if not the baby and am running significantly behind on much of my planning. because the babe is past due, hubsJ's time off is running out and while I love having him here now while we wait because it soothes me and gives me something to hang on to when I get scared, it is too bad that he'll miss some of the sleep with the newborn who actually sleeps phase.  (i think it lasts about three days, when all the world does sleep to wake anew and all that... )
but we're fine, we're waiting, tonight we watch christopher reeves be his badass sweet superman with my folks ... and we wait. 

and we love that you are checking in.  really, we, the me of extended belly, love it.  wish me luck tonight!

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Marching on. . .

still no baby. due next tuesday, which, when midwives are in charge? doesn't mean much.  we'll go til the baby is ready, they say... so its possible i could make Guinness Book of World Records by being the most pregnant person EVER.  maybe i'll be like the elephants and make it to 12 months.  boy, that would be something. 

otherwise, life is startling in its ability to keep on keeping on.  Its the opposite of that blank feeling you get when someone dies, that negative space gaze that you turn out onto the world of people who have 'not' just experienced a death, or trauma.  there is so much life here in me that i am struggling to be its containment. 

I've (still, and again) turned inwards. and am amazed and startled by the things that bring me back to the outer world.  at this point, there is not much my kids can do to startle me, i've become flinch-desensitized, could rush the bus with my eyes closed and my hands packing snacks.
 but adults, habits, repetitions, sameness?  i confess i rush to judgement.  oh goodness. i can't believe the globular sensations i have don't spread! how can this slowspeed push through gelatin that i am living not apply to all those around me? how?  is it not in the air, this 9 1/2 mos of swimming in fog?

oye.  we prepare for halloween in our fashion.  zombies, zombieme.  dry ice smokes me out, i hope. we will see...

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Tell me i'm a genius. all the time.

I posted something on facebook which was political, and was basically calling the Romneys out for being part of the package which has caused our countries economic crisis.  and i meant it, not really specifically that one family, but as far as they are part of the bigwig establishment which actually CREATED the terms 'entitlement' and 'offshore tax havens'...
And I got responses which disagreed with me.  And they were cousins' wives, and they were very polite about it, and pointed and intelligent in their disagreements.  I don't mind that they did that at all, and I wasn't surprised because I have long known their tendencies towards the 'other sides'.   But what did surprise me was how uncomfortable it made me.  I wanted to take my comment down immediately upon the first disagreement, and I didn't, because I thought it would mark me cowardly in some way.  And I spent an inordinate amount of time crafting my responses, checking to see if there were more comments, etc.  I didn't sleep well that night, either, thinking about it. . . (and i am in desparate need of a good nights sleep, because my belly is the size of your largest pet. -hamsters not included, i'm thinking Labradors..)
what i came to is this, not shockingly, I do not like disagreement.  the suggestion that someone might not think me totally brilliant is upsetting. its not that i think everyone has to think the way i do about the Romneys and the direction our country should move, I don't.  But the thought that someone 'out there' might think less of ME because of my views is unsettling.  I think I ended up feeling less because of it all.  whaaaa?

I have a feeling I've got some work to do on my self-esteem. 

I also feel the burn when it comes to my own defensiveness, my flash to judgement of 'them'... none of it comes out on paper but it certainly roils its way around in my head for too much time.  how dare they not believe me to be a genius, all the time?  how dare they, with their lives of priviledge and success, not have formulated all the same opinions as I ?  how DARE they?  burn baby, burn.  the judgement is yet another work issue that i've got going on.  thank you.

9 mos pregnant and really really looking forward to the baby, so i can focus on something besides myself for a little while.  i think the break'll do me good.  sheesh.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Trust and No Trust

a snazzy name of the game, aye? trust and no trust.
probably should involve some sort of rope, and a helmet or a belay system.
for oneself, for one's mate, for one's friends, the moment-to-moment nature of the insubstantial, repetitious doubt, the self-recrimination for belief...

can one remove the subject and still fill pages with writing?
the attempt will be made.  has been made. could be shared, but can't be ...

there is writing that i love that is so imagistic that i cannot imagine the life of the writer as anything other than a series of fall leaves and salt water tears, periwinkle blues and painted landscapes...  i crave the expression in image. crave.

jealousy springs from nothing less than a lack of trust, in oneself's own power and self-sufficiency.  its not something i've really had to deal with in my life so far, but with a collapse of trust comes the inevitable comparisons, the ill-fated old-feeling of invisibility come back to haunt.     what does a wife and mother do when she realizes that others define her even more narrowly than her struggle had allowed?  what does this matter, its my own definitions, yes? orgh.

i'm in a rut of despondency, feeling the enormity of my situation in so many ways.  the substantial problems of moving something of my girth through the aisles of the grocery store.  taking hours to complete the shop, having to rest in the car before the drive home.  wanting to take a bath but somewhat exhausted-in-advance by the thought of climbing the stairs to get there.
so much hope for 'this is the last time'... waiting, waiting. . . the clouds dispersal...revelation awaited.

i want my mom.  i want my pammylala. i need some comfort and hand-holding, something to get me out of this grown-up loneliness which i have built for myself.  its own periwinkle shell on the winter shore.

Friday, October 5, 2012

i have no idea how i am.

spring at the homefront, just needed an image upon which to rest my wearyeyes.
 
 
getting nerves about upcoming labor. normal.
still in my pajamas today and spent a whole day in them earlier this week. not so normal.
off to the left of the computerscreen is the phone list, in case of emergencies, (um, just one in particular actually, and its not really an emergency, but a given event coming down the pike, pun intended!) midwives, families, etc. it makes me nervous too. 

other than the nerves, i am looking forward to the change... painful contraction though it may need.
i think that i'm looking  towards it in a fairly abstract way.  i feel like i've been put on hold for the last few months and I am ready to move on. I need the action to spur me out and onwards.
who knows what the next months will bring? it is better than believing what is 'to be' as a ceaseless repetition.  it is much much better.  and although the belief is make-believe, as much as what one believes of the future must always be make-believe,  it is common around these parts, around my brain. 
there is also the resolution of the mysteries coming... who the hell is this kid in my belly? a boy, a girl, a gymnast, a contortionist? will they be a good sleeper, a wild weeper? will hubsJ be at the birth?
how will the boys handle the sibling growth? 

the kids have been doing wonderfully lately, growing, leaping, bounding, playing with one another as if they enjoyed it, even.  i regularly lose my shit with them between 5 and 6 in the evening but i am going to both blame AND discount my pregnancy gigantorama for this situation.  at that point in the day i can hardly breathe, much less find the rational part of my brain. it is not alltogether unfamiliar, that timeperiod beast.

i wish i could say that my lame-ass posting record of late was because some things busywonderful were going on, but no. just regular, laundry and puttering... childrearing and bellyswelling.

who-hah. 

Friday, September 28, 2012

Grey, and its Raining in Providence.


my toes are cold, my nose is chilled.  my fight has fled.  my knuckles are healing over, i can't even explain the choices to 'not-fight' and 'not-judge' that make up my internal dialouge at three in the morning when six drops of urine have awakened me.  i can't do the five-minute friday blitz today because i just can't be bothered to figure out linkages and the photo inclusion just about topped me out on my energy for the day... and i don't want to read about a lot of faith and handholding that i can't feel today. . . and i'm in a morning noon and night fight with the comparisons between myself and others and a disappointement in myself that i am not overcoming some of my adversities just by my own sheer will.  i think that should be possible but it has not been this week. tired of myself and my swollen fingers.  what is my shape? what shape am i changing into? what will my shape be when this babe rolls into the world? will it be a good and safe shape? am i shaped at all, or formless entirely?

my mother left yesterday to go to germany france and italy with her friend for 15 days. it was a surprise opportunity and i am happy for her wildness in her new retirement. .. i am also nervous that i will be without my mother during the birth of my child. but i am trying to focus on what i am doing right this second, and today, and so far, it isn't a laboring sort of day. i still have several weeks before the due date, but readiness and tunnelvision have arrived. mothers are tricky. 

what i have to talk about is weather. drear. wuthering heights.  wuthering.

i had 'coffee' with a friend josh of fixing the bathroom fame yesterday. it was very wonderful to have conversation be so easy, like rolling marbles down the ramp. 

i had an essay published from this here blog, by a high school friend that read the blog. go figure. but i don't know if there is any way to see it or look at it other than buying a magazine and i also am waiting to see it in print, so that i know it is real.  it has a surreal and unlikely feeling to it all.  the essay was a mashup of bits on kid fevers, so maybe this is why i feel it so lightly, it may belong to experiences past, amorphous fever nights. . .

and i am off, to watch my cats watching the chickens through the glass.  to watch my kid watch the tv through the airs of the overlarge room.  to watch and to wait. 
maybe the providential rain will move this way, and other things will slide into the space. a new shape.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Quirks

this is a meme... wherein i talk about myself ad nauseum. . . because i figure it'll be illuminating, perhaps even to myself, my most voracious reader. and i'm getting annoyed at my lack of posting. how can i feel more connected? i have not a clue. but here is a self-centered list of blahblah.
really.
1. when my husband brings me flowers, i ask him immediately, 'are you having an affair?'.  he laughs, i don't... but i take the flowers.
2.  my neighbor nancy had her first kid when she was 16... she was already married but at the age of 66, she has several great-grandchildren that she can play with.... she is outside on a rider mower mowing my yard right now.  really yo.
3.  i smell like pee all the time and i can't tell if that is true or not because my sense of smell has gone ballistic on me this month. 
4.  i can be really sweet and like fun mom all day until about four o'clock and then i lose my ever-loving mind. ... at which time oldest child and hubsJ walk into an untenable situation.
5. i made a crockpot meal this morning, if it is not  eaten with perfect abandon, i will probably cry in the bathroom.
6.  today i went to the store to buy short socks (long socks are WAY too tight on my calves these days- purple skin, i tell you... ) and big ass underwear (basically, same thing.) because these are the products i currently need the most.  i also bought toothbrushes for all.
7.  i've been told i take too much responsibility for the struggles of others.  i am working on it. 
8. i wish my fears didn't metamorph into angers all the time.
9.  i still haven't finished the quilt for my brother's baby Jordan yet, and the kid is like three and a half months old. shit.
10.  HubsJ is getting (hopefully) all the babystuff from storage today, so i will have laundry to do, and a crib to set up and maybe even a carseat.
11. did i tell you i plan to have this one at home?  we all know how plans go, but that is the plan, stan.


audi, 5000. 

Friday, September 14, 2012

Focus Pocus

Five Minute Friday: Focus


I certainly don't have much, but what there is ...?  this leaping lumpy babybelly and my weird tunnel-visions of where i am and what i am 'entrapped' into... these things my husband can/not do, the growth and hysteria of the two boys learning and leaning out and away from me as we sail in rough waters.  scattered focus, wondering if that is even the definition of focus or if 'focus' is meant to be more, em, focused, more slow, more still... mine is a ranging focus, a momentary capture.... and release...
I am ready for this baby, mostly to discover what it is this new family life will contain... and i have just barely enough life experience to know i should not rush away from the moment, the focus that is 'now'...
of course, what one knows and what one does are almost always split from one another. unfortunate humanity.  another issue of focus.... i have heard it said that what one focuses on will thrive.  that grass you tend in your mind, on the 'other side'... is the one that gets the lushness and the cool morning dew... the one you leave to the sun and the chickens?  gets just what you think it will...
and in any case, maybe thats the way it was meant to be... until we learn to turn our focus in to the closer greens... the longer minutes, the 'now' that leans away, and in. 


* i really didn't edit it, so ... there.







1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Too hot in my sweater, but I refuse to take it off.

Its the end of days... again, i know... i'm repetitive. . . but I've hit that not-sleeping-so-well stage that will last right through til the kid is roughly three. and so i'm cranky.  the heat was on in my kitchen when i came down this morning, and that would mean that it was in the 40s here last night.  I'm going to presume my heater/thermostat is not broken .
so i'm wearing my sweater, even if it gets to be 80 degrees today, because the 40s were here last night, and i need to be comforted.
i'm pregnant, i'll sweat a holy hell either way, so whats the point of taking it off? aye?

Little mr. went to his first long-day of preschool yesterday and it was pretty much okay, no crying on anyone's part and a quietly subdued approach to the arrival.  the first thing he said to me at pickup was a whispered... ' i didn't have any fun'...
OYE.
turns out, the lion aslan stuffed lovey (the one that he forbade me to pack in the 'rest' bag?yes, that one.) was the thing missing from his day. 
and there's a boy with the same name in his class, so that is pretty exciting. i think it's allright, i think i loved having so much time to myself, even had lunch with my mother and godmother in a mostly leisurely fashion.  also, banked, groceried, etc. 

somebody make me some macaroni and cheese, would you? please?

Thursday, September 6, 2012

waiting. dithering.

Me and He
lots of neck, and all...
Swell.
 
i'm waiting for the principal to call me.  its not a cat scan result, or a possible suspension.   just need some advice on where to place my four and a half year old so he can have the best experience possible this year.  (while i handle an impending newborn, too... i am selfish, and that worries me. )

he's currently enrolled with the same teacher he had last year, who is fine, but lame. and its just 8:40-11:15... shortie. the other option has a new teacher, new-er... and it runs 8:40-2:30.... longie. he'd have lunch there, and a 'rest', ha, i say, rest. pbbbttt...   it might be too long for him, i don't know. . . but when i think about having three days a week home alone with just the baby, it seems manageable and the winds blow favorably....  but when i wonder if he's really ready for the longer day, i don't know if i'm missing my last opportunities with him and the freedom of not-being-in-school. and then i vaguely remember how tired i am going to be in the next few months. . .
he's also going to kindergarten next year and maybe learning how to handle a longer day now will make that adjustment easier.

because i am waiting for a phone call, because i don't know this principal personally, i am just about ready to chuck it all out the window and run away... its partly a hearing issue, so doubtful that i'll present confidence when doubting every single thing i've heard... and i'll probably make mistakes and have to explain my own disability. . . i hate that sometimes really. and i'm not sure what i want, so what kind of confidence does that show?! aye?

so? dealing with questions ?  running away?   dealing with the unknown of 'whats best for my kid?'?
blahblah blah and more blingityblahblah.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

School breaks the spell...

yesterday:  
today we sent the big one off on the bus.  this afternoon we will hear all about the four details that he'll remember after all the newness and exhaustion of 'behaving' for six hours.  and then I'll spend two hours looking through all the paperwork he arrives home with... and the monies will need to be dispersed- for lunches, afterschools, donations, supply drives, etc and etc.  (redundancy of etc, and, i know... )
the younger is watching tv and while i wait to find a non-fighting moment to get our asses out to the grocery store .(one child is like a miracle of ease i tell you, but it is not worth it to me to struggle to get out of the house... i wait for franklin to end his peace-making ways.)

i've been sorry to have summer ending, for the first time since being a mother of a school-aged kid. its a nice switch, and surprising.  i am going to miss the routine-free days of summer, the wide range in wakeups, the flex of bedtime...
i am going to like going to the grocery store and acting all prepared-like when suppertime rolls along.
i am going to take one nap a week when i find myself without any children at all three mornings a week. 

today: 
i am going to have to figure out how to fit in some nesting before this next-born arrives.  maybe on one of the days i am not napping.  its a waker-upper, this school time, realizing that the babe is in fact, on its way.  I've survived the summer and fall has arrived (in fits and spurts and a two-day rain, but nonetheless... here).

i've asked a woman to come in and vaccuum and clean the bathrooms twice a month.  good lord, i've tried this before, and hated it ... but this time it is more neccessary as the house is more MORE than the last one was and my belly makes it harder to take action on the areas at the back of the toilet base. hello boys, can we talk about aim? really?
it makes such a nice difference to have the basics done, so i can focus on sharpening the pencils for school and throwing out the fifty without erasers, which make all homework much much more difficult.  and yes, i just threw them out, didn't recycle or compost. (noone wants them and they do not compost.)   i am growing.  meh.  sometimes its even a daily thing.  growing.  both physically and all the other ways and means.

hard to stop it. this flow. just.can't.do.it. 

:)

Friday, August 31, 2012

FiveMinute Friday...

Now, set your timer, clear your head, for five minutes of free writing without worrying about getting it right.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.  Gypsymama...is the link...
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

Oh and Ahem, if you would take pity and turn off comment verification, it would make leaving some love on your post that much easier for folks!
OK, are you ready? Please give us your best five minutes on:::

Change…

My goodness, what is there to say about change? inevitable as the weather, the sky, the water? There are many things I have learned in the past years of becoming a grownup and the absolute consistency of change is the one I have held onto most dearly, even when it is a terrible pain or loss... there just isn't any choice.  My resistance is futile, as the trekkies might say.  

Its not just the terrible changes that await... its the hope there that the things that are terrible are just fleeting... that this too will pass... that people will find ways to unite, to be compassionate, to build something rather than destroy.  saying no is not the only solution ...

was listening to a bunch of mothers complaining about buying school supplies for the schools.  was wondering how i turned out so differently... crayons being on sale for 25 cents, i bought extra .. for the kid who forgets or comes from foster care families stretched beyond beyond... natural, small, simple... and the other moms were livid that their supplies might be shared.  boy.  what is there in a little spare change that makes us all so squirmy? so afraid?

i guess its perspective, hope and faith being stronger for me right now than fear and grasping.  i know this will change sometime, as it has before and will again.  but for now, i choose change, i look for it and hope for it. 

 

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Trees and Windows

"One measures the age of a tree on a cross-section whose rings show the amount of growth which the tree enjoyed each year.  There is a wide circle for good years, and a very narrow one, sometimes almost none at all, marks the years of drought.  I know that we show no physical proofs of our experience, but I think our lives are not unlike those of the trees.  Some years are good years and we expand in them; some years are bad ones and the most we can do is to hold our own.  But good or bad, like the trees we are still ourselves, growing out from the heartwood of our youth which I believe is a combination of our inheritance and our upbringing.  Like the trees, we may be able to correct a bend or knothole which shows in youth; we may cover over the scar of an injury which however will always be there, though it may be hidden from sight. " 
- Elizabeth Coatsworth, in her 'Almost an Autobiography: Personal Geography' from 1976.

I'm in a narrow year, and I've forgotten my humor, become so serious that I'm always as behind a window pane streaked. 
Its true I still have moments of levity, thank God, or I'd turn into that pane of glass literally.
So its been hard to write, having lost that voice and ease that I hadn't known I had taken such pride in.  But even in the long and narrow, things keep happening that I know will have long and wide repercussions, and I do wonder what they will be. 

Coatsworth trails towards the end of this particular essay with this...

"All these things and a thousand more are embodied in me, the good years and the bad, the wide rings of growth and the narrow.  One's past is not something we leave behind, but something we incorporate. ... Outwardly I am eighty-three years old, but inwardly I am every age, with the emotions and experience of each period. The important thing is that at each age I am myself, just as you are yourself. "


Friday, August 24, 2012

I like big BUTs and I cannot lie. . .

make it an authentic yes, whatever you do, make it an authentic yes.
make a strong offer.
i take my advice where it falls.  some of it is golden. and will stay. (ponyboy defied.)
when the time is right, a teacher will appear, say the new agers and some other wise people. . .

i'm in a position these days to make post-its and stick them up and keep them for later, when i'm not in such a deepsunk rut and spot of ineptitude. 
but they are out there, i can look up from the floor and see them in their yellow-ness, just pointing out the end of the tunnel, the ways it can be... the arrival home at the shire.
heh.

but.

then there are these times when its allright. I'm not on the floor at all, I'm at the kitchen table, which IS NOT sticky.  i feel fine, things are working in a well-oiled bicycle gear fashion.  I look around and feel thankful, I have a specially brewed cup of coffee and some pate for breakfast and I feel luxuriously content with my gourmet lifestyle.  The kids are playing some sort of battlebased basketball game and I have a safe place for them to get dirty in.  So it is not as deep a rut as I sometimes feel. and that is a gigantic but.

thank you, sir mix a lot.  we all love them too.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Leggo my Ego

 
 
I'm in the midst of a coupla regular everyday challenges. pregnancy, fine, okay, challenging. discovering that the boys have been peeing out their bedroom window instead of in the bathroom (4 ft away)... okay, regular mothering of boys challenge... disgusting but regular. ... marital disharmony, for us, regularly challenging, this year anyhow. . . though there is hope there. fleas in the house. damnit. damnit.

but...

the hubsJ is just freshly gone for a two night sail with his 80 year old father and his sister... and the freedom of solo-parenting (temporarily, that word being a HUGELY important part of my experience of it...) is pretty amazing.  I've talked about it before, I know, but I love the stretching of time.  I don't have to think ahead much about what is for dinner, what behavior I have to limit, what bedtime is okay for everyone, etc. And the pressure-release on my ego is pretty great, some balloon-squeal of letgo. . . and I do think the ego problem is ALL mine, a relaxation of my fraudulent, imaginary sense of control.  For instance, don't give a shit today bout how much tv the kids watch, because I don't have to tell a damn soul about it... don't care if they eat a single vegetable for the next week and a half. (it might not be very good for their longevity, this private parenting thing. hm) As long as blood is not drawn, it will all be okay.  and blood may be drawn, and it'll still work out somehow.

(just watched my kid pee out the porch door rather than walk to the bathroom. maybe i should come down a little harder about this.  maybe later. god bless his teachers for what they'll have to deal with this year. hoorah pre-school teachers everywhere! hooray!!)

I suppose I could feel like this all the time if I chose, the freedom of apathy? or maybe thats a little too close to a lack of hope, or a decision to walk away from what responsibility there is inherent in child-rearing, responsible living. and I'm not at that point, although I've probably had some minutes where I could have turned in that direction.
so its apples for me, today, a change from the oranges, and its nice. and absence really does make the heart grow fonder.  it really does.

k

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Fully FULL.

in case you have forgotten, my pretties... or, really, in case I have, which I have, completely, depending on the day...  I am wicked pregnant.
and it is hot, super hot. and it is August, mid. But there IS hope. It is getting darker each evening, and there has been at least one night wherein I was called to use a sheet to cover my largess.
My brain has done that thing, which you may recognize, that thing of 'shutting off' which happens randomly, sporadically, almost without cessation but with enough cessation that it continues to be random and not entirely consistent. 
ask me to go to the grocery store, i dare you.  I may end up there, I may buy tuna and potato chips but forget to buy bread and mayonaise.  I may buy apples and return home to children and husband ravenous for the pizza I promised. 
there are quizzical looks all around, i tell you.

I made it to a therapy appt with my husband, made it all the way through coherently and relatively forthrightly... walked out the door and could hardly see my way to walk forward.  We walked to a restaurant and sat. thank the lord they had pad thai because it is my most favorite thing ever. it righted me for a bit and while braxtonhicks are cavorting with my sanity and comfort, i get to eat leftover padthai. so there is that.

My mother has been in my house for two days trying to help me cook some foods to keep in the fridge for the nights when my brain has left the county.  I have been letting her cook and fold and carry laundry and have been trying to find ways to not feel guilty about this.  I recognize it is a pretty damn special thing to have someone willing to do these things for you.  and i have frozen chicken bits all about the freezer now, as well as quiches. . .

frozen chicken bits. heh.

OH. took five roosters to the Farmer to have him cut them up into little bits.  guess what? Farmer chuckles, tells us we got a nice fat lot of hens to take home.  same box.  all our 'roosters'?  not boys. just peacockery ladies. we need to wait a little bit longer to see if any of our ladies turn into boys.  looks like we'll have eggs for the neighborhood soon. 
(did you know that ladychickens can grow combs and wattles? ((did too many people remember ally mcbeal at the 'wattle' mention?))

or anyone? perhaps it just stuck with me.

oh nelly.
i hope you are all well and good out there.
we're a work in progress over here. fer shure.

a not so pretty self-portrait....what the hell.

A whole month ago...at the 'beach'house...

Thursday, August 2, 2012

oh, the places you'll go...

dude. when you get a bee in your bonnet, the sucker can make right off with your head.  Had an ultrasound yesterday to confirm that there is just a singular baby in the belly, which there is... even looks like it has all of its alienparts... ultrasounds are freaky. . . . I've been measuring rather larger than my week-count, and was concerned about many things. too many.  been trying to channel chakra carol's (CC) therapeutic otherworldliness but have been fairly unsuccessful about it.  My age is high, my nerves are shot, my imagination is on overdrive. this is what i worried, like so:  Is there, WAS there a second baby? is that why i'm big, because there's a sad little dead thing in there next to the moving-niblet? Do I have some sort of mass which keeps the baby only on the lefthand side of my belly? If there are twins will I have to ask my husband to leave the room so I can adjust in peace without his panic to deal with?
castles in the sky, but of the dark swirling thunderstorm sort.
and all along, i was doing the CC attempt, like, gee, kate, you KNOW you only get what you can handle, right? ... gee, kate, all this faith you hang on to... now would be a pretty good time to actually TRUST in it... gee, kate, you seem to be spending a lot of time worrying about something that simply doesn't exist... like maybe your brain is on fire with its lie lie lies... brainpants on fire. heh.
-
the chickens are good. we have 7 roosters, which is too many. but hopefully we will remedy that this weekend with a trip to the Farmer. . . we have a very healthy fox in the neighborhood, so I am looking into evasive techniques. . . what scares a fox anyhow? I mean, i have read and seen the Fantastic Mr. Fox... so i know.  . . . i'm not really willing to bomb the trees yet, or get a large yellow construction vehicle. this ain't no field mouse.

- i've been having a hard time writing because i feel like i'm leaving out the biggest things and so I am going to keep trying to interject from my depressions with moments like this, it is really all i can do and i'm imagining that when the summer ends I'll find it easier to get out of my own rut.  of course, i'll be 8 mos pregnant by then so hooolllllaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!  we'll just have to see. . .

wmx

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Barnacles

I'm back, home is good and these little suckers are mostly all alive, you know. as are we. just waiting for the waters to return.




This is the house, the vacation house, the old cottage on the beach, wherein my children play all day long without the benefit of a single screen not made for bugs... the picture is taken from the sand. yes, yes it is.

This is my boy who is 7. gingerly moving his first-day-feet through the rockbound periphery. i'm on his periphery, collapsed on a rock behind him. 
  and this is what his shadow looks like through a lens.  although i don't see it that way most of the time.   he is a child of wild anxiety, and overbound with rules and following them.  some say it is a characteristic of the oldest, i recognize it as a characteristic I had as a child. (not the oldest) - a different type of shadow.



this is one of the very few shots of myself at the beach, in the morning, at the picnic table... slightly dirty, already sanded, in recline rather than decline. 

so i am here, and waiting...

thats as much as i got today.


Saturday, July 7, 2012

Will.

today is my 10th wedding anniversary. I am six months pregnant with my third child and 38 years old.  we are all on our way to the beach for something close to two weeks. There will be dozens of people keeping us company, keeping us distracted.  the children will have some more times of their lives. I will drink tea in the early morning and look out on the water from the front porch.  I go on a journey to see Chakra Carol, even from the beach, so I can be cleared out and bolstered up for this highly social sabattical.  I am hoping to find quietude and surety in the wallflower game I will play this year.  I will try not to spend my time wishing I were more adept at chatter and alcohol. It is exhausting.  I will walk on the beach with my kids, I will ask them, to no avail, to be careful on the rocks.  Parallels seem only to exist in the mind.  Where is a true parallel in nature?  or will?  fallacy. flail, you see. I will journal and I will read, because there is much empty time.  There is no television and no game but dominos. The house we have stayed in these past years is being sold shortly after we will leave. There will be many photos taken.  It is end times.  So many are gathering.  It is a matter of will as to how we all survive.  and by we, I mean Me. 

Sunday, July 1, 2012

humph

man, there is so much sadness over here... like a rock in my throat and i can't really talk about it and I want to write beautifully and show you beautiful pictures of my boy jumping in his bouncy house on his 7th birthday but i didn't take any beautiful pictures, and the sweat running down my brow and his at the time made everything blurry. and we are sad, and some mistake it for pregnancy weepy and maybe it is a shared phenomenon, wherein being 5 and a half months pregnant make my boundaries permeable and my cells are sharing their sadness with each other in a new way, the walls opening up to each other in a way my words can't seem to.  but man, i would like this to pass. . . in a real and substantial and not-likely-to-repeat-in-a-week way, but i have no faith in that, and i am trying to figure things out and realizing the limits of my brain on this one, because my heart is so involved.  as it should be, which doesn't help, because i can't seem to speak that language any more.  and i'm not 'right' and i'm not 'at peace' and there just doesn't seem to be an answer and so i am waiting . . .

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Just a little bit...

this morning both boys are at camp, having successfully navigated the steps of the bus.. one on foot, one hand by hand, they are off. 
I successfully navigated a new and very cute breakfast spot for a cuppa coffee which is a rare rare treat and some sort of pastry. and now I am home and under orders and intention to just sit for the full 2.5 hours of alone time.  I'm going to find a book momentarily and then drink my coffee while gazing at the chicken coop.  My birthday was allright, but I was glad when it was finished, as the pressure to 'make it something' sort of ruined it for me.  I did wear a dress and I did treat myself to breakfast at my most favorite spot, and after that it just sort of deflated slowly until it was bedtime.  Part of it was the time alone.  It has been a very challenging week marriage-wise and my birthday was the first time I was really alone to process and feel things and I guess I'm not all that happy to feel things this week, so I ended up feeling sad and lonely and while I did reach out, I got alot of message machines and so had to go ahead and feel things.  so, crap. feeling things.
Its all well and good when its beauty and light and butterflies... but when it sucks, and you're trying to grow and figure out how to change your perspective without feeling like a doormat or a 'victim'... it can just be hard.
and so, for today, I am forcing myself basically into the same spot, the 'feeling' spot, but this time without the added pressure of how happy i should be because its my birthday.  so that is item one on the 'change-your-perspective-and-get-thankful' list.
1. its not my birthday.
2. the chickens do not live in the house anymore and are figuring out how to use the ramp on their chicken coop.
3. chickens are REALLY dumb and don't seem to mind or feel insecure about it.
4. coffee is pretty good, even when its half decaf.
5. the pastry still awaits my attention.
6. I'm so glad people still make pastries, and not machines. (at least, at bakeries...)

see you soon, i'm off to find a book...
wmx

Monday, June 25, 2012

NaNananana nana...

Today is My Birthday and I am 38.  I got my big bad haircut and I managed to still look just like me.  At first I was saddened not to look like Audrey Tatou of AMELIE fame, but now I am pretty damn pleased to have such short and crispy locks.  The heat blows right by me and I can whistle my pinhead through the storms...
The chickens finally have their coop, and last night was their first night sleeping outside.  I need to go and be sure they are all still there... and let them out into the morning light. 
Actually, I'mma do that now. (all fine, happy, shy to go down the ramp to the run, but happy...and because the coop is newand smells of sawdust and stain, they almost smell acceptably, almost)

38.  More than half my chickens are roosters.  We got some problems with that, not the least of which is that I still don't really like male aggression and man, these are some very serious young Cocks.  Man, men and I are rare friends, and as much as I like two of my roosters for their plumage, the rest of them can go right into a stew or into the hands of someone else ... I need some layers, my friends... and I'm not just saying that so I can surround myself with people/chickens who are of my gender or my egg-fertilizing ability.  or, maybe I am. 

The kids are both going to camp this morning, for the first time ever, at the same time, the same camp, one for half the day, the other the whole.   And assuming I can get the younger on the bus - I will have an entire 3 hours to treat myself to a birthday bash.  I'm going to read a book and journal over eggs benedict. or maybe just sit back and stare at customers who do this sort of thing all the time.  Fresh squeezed orange juice and a cup of coffee which has looked at caffeine askance...
Beyond that, I will try very hard not to do a single chore, unless something is bothering me.  Ask me tomorrow how that one has worked out for me.

I'm going to wear a dress.
WOOOOHOOO!!!!

(sorry, no pics of the new do... smiling into a camera at 5:30 in the morning sort-of depressed me and WE ARE HAVING NONE OF THAT TODAY)... :)

Friday, June 22, 2012

Rumours of Stormy Weather. . .

I'm going to get my hair all cut off this afternoon.  I've done this all before, and I'm going through it all again.  Today was the first time in my life I wished aloud to not be pregnant, and I hope I never say or think such a thing again.  I think it was a futile attempt at striking out at the universe, which just proves the heatstroke that I must be suffering.  There are first times for everything, and luckily, you never know ahead of time what they will be. (unless you're climbing mountains... then, you know.)
The kids are on day 3 of HEAVY television rotation, because they are fair and wilty after just a few minutes outside, and I'd rather they be still with their waterglasses, than moving or fighting.  This afternoon should bring a deluge of one kind or another, and I am expecting to have to hide behind pillows as I seek a real privacy when the rains come again.  Maybe a new breeze will blow, but today and now, I am just hoping to make it through the day.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

I wish i was a baller... (children of the 90's rejoice)



(sorry the post-title has nothing to do with the post, but it doesn't. at all. except very tangentially, i think.)
Today is one of those days of deep breaths and long sighs, I'm sure of the sort that drive spouses and children and mothers mad. It all comes from me, I tell you somewhat shamefacedly... I wish I were something different today, something more evenkeel, more 'gowiththe flow'... a little bit taller, a little less agedly pregnant, a bit more free, less bound in the negative... its all a choice, I keep telling myself, all a choice. I can choose my perspective, as easily, (*once begun) as I can choose my outfit. i really do think that, most days.  today i have made choices that i don't like, felt forced into by circumstance and history and i am tired, losing my capitalization as i go.  feeling smaller...
its the last day of school here and we have a bestfriend over to play and so i have made a sandcastle with the younger whilst basically doing damage control on the elders. . . it it fine, and an easier way to spend the afternoon than most. . .
and i'm still lost in the fantasy that i might be able to leave, escape it somehow... and so i putter on the internets and do not find my way... a few tasks here and there, a looking at fabric  that i need to sew, a dreaming of the single life wherein i am free to drive away.  when do i grow away from this pining for what does not exist? sheesh. * i still have not begun, and it is getting old. what would chakra carol say? or sister deborah joseph? i am pining for a letter. still looking without when i know, i know, i know, that ain't where its at.

Monday, June 18, 2012

My mom fell down the stairs. . . and what to do about it.

Okay, so she fell down the stairs. She isn't elderly, weak or fragile, but she fell into a wall and ended up in the hospital for two nights and a fraught Father's Day weekend.  Many stitches and tests later, and she is home, with no broken anythings, and a lot of shock and awe from all... I've had it with reminders of mortality, allright? had. it.
I don't know what else to say about it, and I don't know what to do about it except thank the lucky stars that this weekend wasn't the time I had to deal with the death of my mother. so, thank You Stars.  Thank you very very much.  I love . I LOVE.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Trippy

Catholics pray to Mary.  I know this is a very very exciting opener to most of you, but I've got to tell you that it has been tripping me up lately, enough so that I am considering contacting a R.C. priest about it.  (One of the boys I graduated from high school with... shouldn't be too scary?...) I mean, its the 'praying to' part of the sentence that I get stuck on.  As a born and raised Protestant, I can state clearly that there are very big no-no's about praying to anything other than 'the one'. . . but c'mon, I KNOW that lots of folks pray to the man/boy/God Jesus, and that seems legitimately fine, if not ideal ... and there are a kajillion saints out there and people pray to all of them, with a fury. and of course, there is the Catholic veneration of Mary, mother o'God.  why not? I mean, if its all ONE, what does the name matter? aye?  there are no names, man, that is what the man WANTs you to get stuck on, right? 
really? man.
I should go read the Screwtape Letters again, that C.S. Lewis guy has quite the ticket. plus, i love him long time.
The reason this is all relevant to me at all right now is that Sister Deborah Joseph of the Abbey Regina Laudis gave me a prayer to Mary to say when I felt I needed guidance.  And I used it, despite my protesting! Protestantism, and quirk of all quirks?  I got guidance.
go figure.

SO now, why do I feel like I have to confess my idolatry? and to WHOM? i mean, deity already knows all.... so ... my MOTHER? my childhood pastor, reverend Ben? the man who married me, Reverend Dan?!
OR, is it just a way to deny the challenge of receiving guidance that is not simple, but feels as true as anything ever has?  denying what i know?

anyhow, this surfaces these days because I am struggling... yesterday I sent said Sister Deborah Joseph a short note to thank her for her guidance and for her prayergift... and somehow when I write letters in realtime, with space between sentences and thought that runs through all the words... (not like here where speed can run the whole show...)  I can really plumb depths in a short span.  I hope Sr.DebJos. can tolerate the deepshort of that note... makes me miss and pine for the days of letter writing... so now i wait, for more womanly guidance, from afar, from a human woman who has chosen to spend her days in a community of prayer, away from the community of the wider world, but still very much in it.

I feel it is not so different from the world of the shy one that I am... away but still very much in it.   (my bellybutton is out, perhaps more than I am, some days... )

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Tickles

Little things to let the light shine more fully:

1. baby movements, the tickles have begun, down low, little feet pumping away...
2. planted the tomatoes and basil and sage (for poison ivy heartbreaks in the summer of my discontent) and feel so very happy that I got them in, late or no.
3. folded fabric again, discovered a top that Grammie had been cutting into pieces, its dress-bottom gone, its star crystal buttons still intact... I will take a picture, when I get to it. I will!
4. the lawnmower was fixed, and it was only forty dollars, so now i can battle the ticks by removing their habitat before I sic the chickens on them.
5. brownies. always.
6. tomorrow I host 'hospitality' at meeting, and it is the last day of Sunday School, or 'first day school' as the Quakers like to call it, so i look forward to running children that are eating my veggies and so on and so forth. plus, i haven't been since my retreat and I feel the loss and look forward to a sitting in the light. it is the beginning of summer, for real.
7. i asked my mom for help with cooking some meals to go in the freezer this summer. of course she said yes. what do i wait for?
8. my nephew graduated from high school last night.  it is a first for me, another realization of adulthood, this tiny boy is moving on.
9. my parents dropped in this morning and pruned and weeded on their way out.  that is wildly nutty and wonderful.
10.  my brother is about to become a daddy and the whole world is about to explode on him and I am excited to see the whole thing. . . in laughter and companionship.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Sorry sack.

I'm sorry I haven't been writing, I've been weepy and looking for things to look at... spending time looking out the window, at pretty things on pinterest, at the flowers from my mom's retirement party... I'm fine, not doing much but preparing for all of the end-of-school events that seem to crowd in these months of May and June...field days, field trips, birthday parties to go to, birthday parties to plan, graduations, with this belly to work around.  My husband said this morning that he thinks I am proud of the suffering I am doing.  I do not know if he was teasing or not but feel very slighted and also slightly pathetic if it is true, that I am somehow bragging about my corpulence and my headaches and so on and so forth.  and then I wonder again about my inability to engage in self-care and what the hell that is all about. . . if Sister Deborah Joseph and Chakra Carol are both pushing me to interact with my divinity, and the divinity of the world, why in the world am i not listening? and taking action? My god, I can hardly even feed myself these days...I seem to be eating solely so that the babe is nourished. . .  that is certainly not the kind of interaction/action that will move me forward in this walk.  happy moms, happy kids and the so on . . .  I've GOT to get out of the ditch.
meh.  Its been cold here for the past two days, I'm feeling it in my bones. . . maybe its just that simple.  I can warm when it does...

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Nuns exist! and they drive pickups, and golfcarts, and beat-up Chevys.

The Abbey Regina Laudis is where I stayed this past week, its in the hills and valleys of the middle of Connecticut somewhere and that place, right now, is GREEN.  As in, earth bendingly GREEN. dappled and shaded and glistening and GRRREEEEN.  Its slightly ahead of us in the way of growing things, and it is lush, and bordering on the edge of chaos in its growth. 
I'm not going to link to the abbey, because you should really look for it, in your own time, and not be fooled by the easy linking that speeds everything up, and leaves us still empty.
I got four nights there, was counciled by Sister Deborah Joseph, because I wanted to be...(on the phone at the guest house, i heard her name as Sister Brother Joseph, and wondered what exactly i had gotten myself into....  dug holes for lillies, planted a dozen or so in a garden of the Lady Abbess..(foundress mother-sister-woman-abbess)... watered excessively, sat down, took pictures, ate a lot of fresh bread with 'fresh butter' and looked longingly at the raw milk and homemade soft cheeses. I dealt with the fact that I am not actually roman catholic but I am in love with the rituals of an ancient church ... and with the oft-difficult-for-me-to-access-God. I went to church services four times a day. The Sisters have at least two more, there are rumors that they have a middle of the night service which the guests are not invited to...this Abbey sings its prayers, they perform something called 'the hours'...a chanting of the Psalms, as far as i can tell.  I don't know exactly why its called 'the hours' but maybe some real Catholic could tell you.
I LOVED IT THERE. it was quiet. i went to church at 6:15, mass at 8, worked in a garden, church at 12, lunch, the afternoon to myself to read and walk and write and mess around with my hair, then vespers at 4 or 5 depending on the day, then dinner... and compline service afterwards which i usually skipped because it was time for calling home...
I was in bed shortly after 8 every night, and awake sometime in the 5 am range, and i loved it.  I'm sure I would have loved to sleep late, but I seriously found the morning prayers to be something of a cool mist for my soul.  whatever happened in the night, or whatever was going on in my internal world, was soothed and cooled by the singing women behind the grate.  Except for when the Sisters were out working in the world, they were cloistered behind wooden grates, and their 'enclosure' holds much mystery and magic for me. They use cellphones to keep track the time, they call each other about their work and needs, they are hip to the groove, in their full habits in the full sun.  I cannot imagine what August is like for them. I do know they do all the haying for their property, also in full habit.  The itch of that image alone almost undoes me. 
One of the things Sister Deborah Joseph (shorten that at your peril, she was a formidably nice woman, human completely through and through, but NOT a debbie jo. ) said to me on my first day was that I had to have the ability to be nurtured.  I confess, this was a humdinger that I have heard before, in different shades, from Chakra Carol, and in my own journal writing.  Heart Walnut anyone? One must be open to accepting tenderness and vulnerability and nurturing, before one can feel them.  I say.
I say, captain.
it was a good beginning.. and much of what i read throughout the four days seemed to leap at me and show me that perhaps the 'work' that I need to do involves more vulnerability and more cessation of self-protection, which of course, scares the hell out of me.
so we will see.
thus concludes part one.  i don't want to talk much about the re-entry into family life except to say that there was vomit when i left AND when i returned, as well as fevered worrisome child behavior. and allergies have made me their bitch.
meh.

wait for more, valiant readers!  all four of you. :0

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Burning Up on Re-entry

really, the title does it. the post about the four days with the Benedictine Sisters will have to wait for tomorrow. (it was good, those ladies just do not burn, i tell you... )

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Hatching an Asterisk

a natural follow up to Incubation...of course... we have a hatching going on, a five chick success rate (from 30?!) ... we are happy with the five, this chicken-tender most-so. I am visiting parts of town I have not visited before, and finding chickencoop-makers under every stone.  If we had time and scrap lumber, we would build our own, but I find it romantic to think about a coop that is the best design element in the whole house.... and I need it to be protective against foxes, coyotes and other nefarious creatures... (= well-built)
and I am still ready to go... even with these new babies under wing, ready to go.

I hope to be equally ready to come back.

*ha! am i really a chicken-tender? ha! go figure.  all these self-defining terms and thats one i simply never thought to add... i guess its time to re-do the blog description... :)

*um, yeah, there are 14 chicks now. .  so far. we may have moved into and 'alien' featurette.

*there is a stink here that will only worsen as I am gone, and will be mine to figure out when I return.

* haven't packed yet, but think I've got the stack of books figured out.  Here they are:
Bible. duh.
Journal, also duh.
the way the crow flies, ann-marie macDonald.  hubsJ passed it on...
Selected stories, Alice Munro... hubsJ actually purchased for me, for this trip.
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett, because I feel like a little girl and this was one of my favorite magical places and stories.  where is the Dickon in your life?
and..
The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp... because i figured why not?

Four nights, three days. alone, with nuns and prayers, and a garden.
So, I am ready to read, probably should bring a pillow for sleeping, and I presume I will be eating- although there will probably be a substantial drop in my swedish fish intake this week...

*there was vomit in the house last night, and lots of laundry to do this morning, and a visit from the midwife to take my blood, she still thinks there is just one bebe, which will keep our sanity at least in its original ballpark.
*15. uh, 16.

Monday, May 14, 2012

Today is Monday.

Sure as hell is.  What was a very long week of headaches and blugh and sick in strange places, all of it mine own, ended with a whimper and a sigh..flowers, a nice kiddisplay of food, a family visit with grandparents and sitting with my feet up... and now today is Monday.  Kid one is in school after a violent struggle, Kid two watches Scooby, and KidinUtero sits calmly without waves of nausea... always good.  On Thursday I leave for my retreat at the Nunnery. So soon.  I feel already checked out a little bit, as if a 'reserve' now will make the leaving easier, making HubsJ more prepared for the solo parenting that I do all day, every day... I'm not sure it works that way, but it is something that I fall into without any thought, so ... it has begun.  I'm not sure what to bring, what to pack, what to read.  I'll bring a bible because, hello, they might not have one there.  (?) ... and what else? warm clothes for cool nights, cool clothes for garden work, sweater for early mass. . . pajamas. . . toothbrush.  books. journal. cellphone for tucking the kids in at night, should they even approach 'bedtime' bedtimes. . . part of the reserve is a suspension of control... what i won't know won't kill me, or even bother me.  For instance, bedtimes... who cares?  I wish HubsJ well getting them up in the morning if they are up too late, but I'm sure he'll manage something, even if its a world of difference from what I do.  it'll all be fine.  and I'll be away, doing something a world away. . . even if bored and unable to sleep, the new environment sits in its newness like a gift, a brown paper package tied up with string. . .
the idea of four days wherein I do not have to find any shoes but my own, I do not have to pack a snack, I do not have to even look at the laundry piles, I do not have to think of the things I have not done, the things I have to do.  
All of a sudden, I am ready. 

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Marriage, MOFO.

Don't care what stupid North Carolina has to say about it.  self-centered that way, i suppose.  anyone in love should be able to be married, if that is what they want to do. it is a very hard business.  straight people certainly do not have a corner on doing it well... what a church has to say about it is also their business and it doesn't need to affect my business because I do not belong to the kind of Church that says certain adult consensual love is lesser than another. so there.
and I believe in the separation of Church and State, like, as in, it is a founding principle of what created our country, and is ONE of the few we should hold up as a GOOD ONE.

Marriage.

Do we tell each other the truths about our marriages? Do you talk to your friends about despairs? hopes? desire for change? difficulty? great laughter?  Do you consider it private? too private?
I'm in a marriage which has moments of great difficulty. It does, and sometimes it breaks my heart more than once in a week and it is hard to rebound from that.  I do believe that if a heart breaks, something greater can grow there, in that space, so it is not really broken, but shapeshifting. . . so I have hope when I am not actively self-mate-recriminating/rebounding.  Doesn't mean there isn't pain...
I'm working hard on re-assessing my disappointments... after all, its an 'expectation' that has been disappointed, and not something true.  a wish perhaps, but not 'what is'... it is very hard work, all this re-perceiving... and I often often do not achieve my goal, and disappointment can really eat at you. really.
But I realize that I think its all too private to write about here, for sure, and I realize that it can be many months since I have shared any of the details of the relationship with anyone. anyone.  and there is something in that.  Is it me? my own isolation and desire to spend time with friends in laughter and frivolity rather than gripe and tear? or is it something bigger?  a womanly desire to show a 'good form'? to refuse to acknowledge disappointments? to not show the 'real' to the outer world... how easy it is to believe that they all have it easier, all those other couples... those couples who met in high school, those couples who dated for 5 years before marrying, those couples who make each other laugh and appear to be wildly best friends.... I imagine some of them Must be in good shape, they can't all be suffering (sometimes) and hiding, right? 
How hard is marriage? even when its really good, its hard, right?  the sharing of space, the sharing of life... flip the coin and its great, remarkable, funny, full of light and love and laughter.... my god, look at the kids we make!  flip and flip and flip again. 
tripflip.