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Friday, April 26, 2013

scared, fearful... what a difference . (DEUX)


i'm scared of spiders. man, like, my heart races and i start to salivate in a not-hungry way and i have to move really fast in order to accomodate the adrenalin.  i can't really save face in front of my children anymore, although i like to talk about my fear and so i think they get to see me processing and so all is not lost, on the parenting front. i also don't feel that killing them is an option, as my personal 'right to life' applies to all and everything. (except mosquitos, damnit.) clearly, i am morally problematic.

this week it happened that there was a large, very large, arachnid in the kitchen that was big enough for the cat to simply sit and watch it... she'll kill mice, but not this thing, if you get my drift.  it had a walk, for instance, a lumbering gait that took it underneath the cabinet, in the end.   and i had two opportunities to run from his/her company in the presence of my children. two. I didn't put the baby down in its company in order to better run, I didn't cry, I just realized that in order to capture the spider i would need to get far too close to the spider...and I completely left the room. in hopes, i tell myself, that the cat would pounce or that the manspider would find his own way to the door.
but. that kind of fear is exhilerating, heart-pounding, perhaps sweat-inducing, but exciting. so exciting in the face of my daily motions about the house and in child-care.  an utter change to the pace.

and then, there is fear.
not exciting. and far less 'simple'. . . and i think, almost always, based on something that we think we have 'put away' somewhere else.  perhaps a childhood hurt, a marital splinter, a teenaged slight, a real trauma.  it ain't no joke, and seems to find it overwhelmingly simple to overwhelm, in the moment.  fear can cause many emotions too, in our need to avoid the underlying issues. in myself, i frequently find myself angry, when a flash of fear came first. i'm very good at ducking, finding anger some sort of release.

*none of these are casual, zipped through, they are utterly real and once written, i can argue every single one of them into non-existence. but i have to do that, i have to argue, every time i feel them. they are upsetting, and if i don't have the 'space' to argue them, they can make me insane and driven to despair.

fearful things:

i'm afraid I don't love my people enough.
i'm afraid the love that I do have isn't enough, to save them, to do right by them, isn't really 'love', but some byproduct of responsibility and tenderness.
i'm afraid my husband scorns me.
i'm afraid when i think 'i'd be better off without him'.
i'm afraid that my kids won't think well of me when they are grown ups, this woman that i am.
i'm afraid I might not exist outside of the laundry room, in this family, in this marriage.
i'm afraid people only see me as my husband's wife.
i'm afraid I only see myself as someone's wife.
i'm afraid to hurt him when he reads this.
i'm afraid my heart is going to atrophy, because i'm holding it too tight, and soon it will be 'too late'.
i'm afraid that people only like me because i do stuff for them. or smile at them. i have a smile that makes people think everything is allright. suckers.
i'm afraid people humor and tolerate me and that is it.
i'm afraid i can't think anymore, with any depth. maybe i never could.
i'm afraid i am a sham.

dude. dig?


Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Fear, Grief, Your MOTHER. (PART ONE of many, probably, as in octopus-ital...)

I do know the differences between your, you're and you are. same with they're and their and there. i do. and i wish everyone did, but they don't. and i have to move on. . .
deep breath.  i feel the grief.  for public education in America, for time wasted, for sheer laziness... i feel it. . .
deep breath.
i shame myself too, so as long as its evenly spread, we're good.

in this week of crisis, in Boston, and in this town, where young suspects schooled themselves, had friends, smoked pot...  it has created many flows and eddies of thought, swirling tornadoes of seemingly interconnected spouts. we live nearby, my sister lives nearer by, everyone here is related to a police officer, everyone here knows someone who runs, lives there, did live there, did go to Chechnya, everyone is connected. and thats all i'm going to say about that.

because it isn't New York again.  It isn't. while truly terrible, it is not a first time... not that shattering of innocence, a fear of world war, impending doom.  (maybe that was just me.)

what there has been, for me, is a realization, again, of how difficult it is for us, collectively, to allow ourselves to feel fear and grief. to just sit in it, get down and dirty with it.
it seems like that is what we did around Newtown, and look at how different that was. . .
maybe we are allowed to feel fear when children are involved. maybe i know a lot of mothers, and we talk about it- or at least in its direction- more often. . .

fear and grief.  if we (I) don't figure out how to process that, to allow it, what does it become? irrationality, rage, vengeance-seeking, short-tempered anger, 'yelling at the kids for singing'... , depression...strung out. we are strung out.
how do we fix this? how do we even begin? if the only possible certainty in life is death, why does it get so little play? and why does its sudden appearance (so-called) drive all of us so wild with insanity and resistance ?
why is our fear so tied into worry, the least productive thing in the world?  if we worry about our fear, does it lessen?  does worrying keep anyone from death?
and at the same time? i dodge what i think i am afraid of, don't want to talk about it or look too closely at it...so i get it. i don't want anyone to die. ever. i get it.

but i also get that i am making that shit up. its not true that i don't want anyone to die. i just fear the emotional upheaval of the grief and the fear that it won't be peaceful or painless .

i feel more free to grieve, to spend my time with compassion, to empathize, sympathize, to shudder at the understanding that it could have been me, at any time, it could be me. or them. and i have to somehow assimilate that feeling into my psyche, without turning to 'worry' it... sorrow is somehow easier to relate to.. react with, seems less likely to morph into anger. is it? my friends who have big grief? is it?
probably would do me some good to dive deeper into meditation these days, get my 'mind' self all up in my grille.

- i apologize for the schizophrenic nature of the post. like my own pulse, it is random and inexplicably fine.  and there will be more, because i've actually managed to 'not' talk about my real fears, and while i skillfully and adroitly dodge and weave, my point gets left to dangle...

Thursday, April 18, 2013

what lies beneath...

eggs.
the word is lovely, the image is lovely... all that shell covering such a provision of sustenance,  a possibility deep within.  (one needs a rooster for possibility to produce, one does.)

beneath the coop we found two wildly large piles of eggs, a surprise to us... what with the coop having internal 'laying boxes' which have their own familiar layers and our small family of hen being just the one, and the neighbors' small collection of visiting hens ... someone's been laying eggs all this early spring, each day, a large healthy brown egg... who? why? and they have been there, without predators, for weeks... have we no raccoons? really?


it is a shame to let them go, but we must... and with great trepidation and fear we move them out, to the bin, to the hopes of 'not-cracking' that make us move so slowly and carefully with this precious, once nourishing, little bomb of rottenness.



we are moving slowly, removing the rotten... its a prune, a cutting-out of what burns and is malignant.  it is a choice to face the light, as always, with a clear heart, with our possibility flickering and yet strong.



Thursday, April 11, 2013

Littles and Bigs

1. the Kathleen Norris book is basically saying that the divine is in the daily.
dig it? laundry, repetitive, seemingly fruitless tasks?  DIVINE. the place where we should slow down, the 'daily bread' that proves us human and in the very light we seek. (if you do.) boy, do i .

2. I have a big rippin' problem with the seemingly fruitless tasks that i do all the time.  i teem and steam with resentments (universally applied) for the works that i do which my children and the public call 'not working'.

I can't think of anything else to put on the list, but these are what I am dealing with lately.  I think I am edging away from the seething resentments, but slowly... they are very comfortable and familiar, after all... i've been doing them since the days of 'kate, would you set the table please? ' of childhood... washing the dishes after dinner with my sister was a precious sort of hell.  emphasis on the hell. 
so, I am trying it out.  again.  slowing down, focusing in on the tasks at hand.  realizing that making repairs on cheapass made-in-china fake fossil teeth necklaces may be all that I am here on earth to do.  who can know? but making that repair can really feel like the universe has just lit up in daffodils, i tell you.
oh, and i've added 'read and write' to my daily chore lists, and I am really meaning to do it as much as possible.  and here, in the internets, reading on a laptop does not constitute reading.  things move too fast, even if its just my eyeballs clacketing around. i have to read a book or a printpage of some sort, in order to cross it off. although, WRITING here... that does count.  call me fickle.  go ahead. go.

riverflow on.

wmx

Friday, April 5, 2013

After: five minutes friday...


Fancy Link format:
http://lisajobaker.com/2013/04/five-minute-friday-after/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thegypsymama+%28thegypsymama%29



-you write for five, don't overedit, and post. and thats all that it is.  i am trying to write more!
thats what she wrote up there, and thats my high def way of showing it to you...
but I'm going to write for five minutes on "AFTER" in response or because of the gypsymama's linkaging...

here goes:

After .


I tend to follow, is how  I began it. and I'm right away filled with uncertainty about the truth inherent there, but it is how I feel, as the mama of three, one teeny still.  There is a brood I have and they tend to the running, these days.  I cluck and ruffle my feathers and waddle around behind them.  It is hard to value oneself as highly as we should.  Some days I can barely raise my head above the laundry piles, or to respond to the man of the house. (makes him sound like a caveman, but he is not, except occasionally) :) But I have come to realize lately that I can't wait until after the children are grown, after they have left the house to do those things which are the stuff of dreams... I just can't.  I can hardly see the forest of my dreams these days and it is all part and parcel of itself, an in-folding, ever-folding laundry pile of sheets... what is it that I think is happening after? how long will I wait to wash my hair?! heh. the self-value, self-respect position? the place wherein I value myself enough to care, to take risks, to leave the laundry done or undone as the day calls?
maybe it is this spring... digging me out of my winter home... sending me scuttling from the light... i've grown too heavy in my woolens... what will happen after?

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Sugar Crush

a debacle, a debacle of greatest porportions. proportions? well. yes, again with the addictions surfacing here there and everywheres.  why can't i be addicted to exercise? or bran muffins? but no. with the advent of commercialized and overplayed secular Easter celebrations, all of them containing bunny references and plastic eggs stuffed with cornsyrupdreamy-ness, this girl has lost all control of reason and moderation. yes, yes i have. 
'and right here is where you start paying, in sweat.' (think Lydia, of Fame, in teaching dance to her limber masses)

except i am not sweating, except in my exertion to keep the candy from the kids and in my own evil clutches. oh yeas, it is that good. they seem to have forgotten it, in fact, which lessens my guilt in making off with it.  (in my defense, sad and sick as it is, i did actually throw three or four bags AWAY, in hope of staving off my craze, but . then. it. hit.  and there were still two egg hunts to go. )
shit.

well, here's hoping there is some protein in my future .  until then, i will be hearing Lydia's voice, interspersed with the wonders of 'Sugar High' from Empire Records, an old and longtime favorite.

(tried to include it for you, but no go.) meh.

Monday, April 1, 2013

Daffodils and the dirt they ride in on...

just found myself standing by the bassinet with my finger caught in the mouth of the almost five month old, head down on the wicker, legs buckling from the ridiculousness. would have been better to just give in and lie down on the floor. ...allow for the  'up all night' mentality that seems to be all the rage these days.  maybe i should get some 'E'.   peh.  today i am still in my pajamas, and while i appreciate the dream of comfort that can give, it does not for me.  i am in restriction, frozen in my own resistance.  agah, struggle struggle guffaw.  and, actually, therein lies the rub.  i once was funny, and am no more.  i don't quite know where it has gone, but it is.  and while i hope this is a dormancy which will prove itself fodder for daffodillians, i am not sure, and i don't lack myself without my 'funny'.  i miss laughing with my kids, turning them away from their own gripes with my bubbles of delight.

it is much too easy to blame this on others. 

and so on, and so forth. 
the work is never done. I'm reading 'The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work" by Kathleen Norris. . . damnit if i have to get mindful again, damn it all.

(my day will come, i just have to deal with this one right now.)