Funeral services give you a little glimpse into a family, a life you only knew in bits and pieces, shows so much that you didn't know. When a life is well-lived, funeral becomes celebration and thanks, and it is a miracle that in all millennia, we have only learned and figured how to gather, hold hands and sing... to help us all through this darkwinternight of loss. . .
a high school friend's mother died, and were it not for her attendance at my dad's wake, i might have passed it by, in my coldness... but she and her mother and father all attended, and i mark that in some deeper way, and am weary and so full of sorrow to share grief with her so soon.
and being so far from it now, months out of the shock, into the longevity of the thing... i am humbled over and over, an out-of-control tumble... into how much of life we take for granted. and how, with time, you can convince yourself so deeply that you have got it all 'taken care of'. we spend an awful lot of time lying to ourselves here, i bet it is almost a universal, but i guess it is true that i can only speak for myself. some time after my dad died, hubsJ commented that we are all such pathetic creatures, so wretched, that we can't see the joy and value of what we have until it is taken from us.
so .
i've known for a few weeks that i need to sit down and write out what will be my list of desires and dreams for the future of me. and i can't. i can't seem to see beyond my own nose, beyond my own skin. there are some who might mistake this for some wacky 'mindfulness' notion, but i can firmly set you straight, at least about me. i'm completely scattered, completely awash in incredulity, grief, disappointment and some fury as well. i'm swampwater, baby.
and so, sometimes i can share the grief of another family, another loss, and in the distance of my gaze, i got nothing to give but the sharing. and so, since my self-judgement is spiralling all out of control, i need to sit down and make a list, and a number one priority should be defense against the darkarts of the self-judgement. (and number two? better hair.) heh.
:)
Monday, August 25, 2014
Someone else's world. . .
Posted by Kate Hall at 6:32 AM 1 comments
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
We're on our own..
The neice and aunt are leaving for their coupla months at home soon. So we are on our own for the first time this summer and I'm now officially on a bender of 'oh my god, the summer's almost over'/'have to buy school supplies and track down all that school information'/'summerlist!!'. . . a bender it is...
today my mother comes to babysit some while i take one shoe shopping. boys are deleriously easy, i understand now... i'm taking ONE to go buy ONE pair of shoes. no friends, no outfit matching 'fancy shoes' or any such snarkery of the insane consumerism that is completely running amuck amongst the family when it comes to this little girl. and i'm not so much betwixt, as i love the beautiful things this kid is wearing, but i am slightly at a loss as to where it is all going to go... i am not prepared... her bedroom when she moves out of mine, is about the size of a large cucumber.
what am i going to do with all this stuff?! how do i get her to WEAR it at all if it is buried under more utilitarian things? WHat does one do with a highchair that only fits a doll?
i swear, having the boys first has done quite a number on my expectations for childstuff. and now having arrived at '3'kids means we have just too much stuff accumulated, and all i want new for the babe is crayons and coloring books. and a single pair of shoes. one. do you know how much easier that is, in terms of finding them, getting them on and getting them out of the house?! good lord. ONE.
this is not going to make me most popular mom in a few years.
but yesterday we unveiled our tie-dyes, today we are drilling holes in our suncatchers and we can cross some things off my own personal list. we've done waterboats and a hundred beaches... (we're skipping the water park but don't mention it tothe kids) we might go walking today at the nature preserve and i think i am still owed some more pizza dinners before school sets in... i like these late starts, i'm always sad to see the kids down south already started... this is one of the most beautiful times to be around, this late august, early september thing... the light is crrrrazy.
wish us well as we expand ourselves into our new spaces. . . may we all renew and refresh in a cold, clear, salty dive.
(m.o.g.)
Posted by Kate Hall at 7:16 AM 2 comments
Labels: mothering, raising boys, retail therapy
Monday, August 18, 2014
Water Day...
This is what an old and beautiful rowboat can get you in this town. I am most assuredly a landlubber, my most wonderful moments are pulling BACK into dryland and pulling boats OUT of the water. But i married into a family for whom boats and travel in boats are a part of life in the summertime and a source of comfort all through the wintertime, so I am working on adjusting. Its been about ten years and I'm still working on it. I think the addition of kids into the mix has not settled my nerves. Today I foisted the littlest off on my mom, she loves it and the littlest is not happy with a lifejacket on which makes EVERYONE very uncomfortable. (imagine screaming, trying to crawl out of it, whilst being afloat in a boat?hmm)
My hubsJ, his dad, his sister, my two boys and a niece, all set out for a little row, canoe, kayak to a magical mystical island that they've named 'mushroom island' in the middle of the river here. There are moss-covered paths, jungley trees, a picnic table clearing, and a vision of several nests of osprey. It really is astonishing.
And when its over, I like to have a cigarette and some land-based time to recover. (yes, cigarette. no, pride.) I am proud of myself, however, that my kids are getting this, and that the nervous energy that I have has not entirely been passed onto them. My eldest has some of it, but as long as he gets enough time with his dad, most of it is eased in the reckless abandon to the joy of life and experience. The eldest kayaked solo to the island and was beyond the beyond in his pride. The six year old controlled the tiller on the rowboat and his crooked path of genious made for a relaxed ride, though perhaps a little bit longer than completely necessary.
It is good that my ying has its yang in their father. so good.
Posted by Kate Hall at 7:41 AM 0 comments
Labels: fathering, hope and family, husbands, mothering
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Another rainy rainy rainy rainy
i'm stuck, i admit it. i let the kids watch tv too much, i can even get irritated when they approach me for food... when do they grow up, anyhow?!
and then i cry a little and make up for it with marshmellow fluff and fortbuilding. or trampoline supermanning. . . or rainy day children's museums.
a roil of resistance:
i can't seem to get over this grief, this daily churn of horror and disbelief and sickening ... it is as much a missing of my father as it is the missing of my faith in something larger. the whole world, when you lean on a pragmatic 'science' for its meaning? doesn't feel that revolutionary, certainly doesn't feel certain or safe or protected or any one of those ...
its a shock, its been long enough now that i can forget for a while and then it sneaks up on me and whacks me down to size. the world is empty, the world is mean.
(gah, its a rainy day again, morose is the word of my day. i'm sure i'll still feed the kids and laugh with them too, i'm sure... the babe is still asleep after all, there is much still to come.)
its wonderful to read wonderful quotes, but every single one of them, has to feed into your belief in order to be effective.
so i am husk-like, corn silk on a picnic table, no longer with form or function. and so the kids watch tv and tv and tv.
the elder was horrified to hear that nietzche was famous for his 'god is dead' ... his towel on head he says, 'but god is NOT dead, why would he be famous?' i could see the seriousness in his face.
oh, these days.
i'm 'not' hoping and 'not' praying that this is simply my dark night of the soul and that i will come out on the other side, into the blueberry fields and rainbow elation of the wonderworld... i am. and not.
i fight it, and i don't allow for hope, i resist what has always been easy for me, the language of prayer and divinely inspired wonder, and so what that leaves me with? is stumbling languages, shrugging shoulders when the topics get too big... how does one apply grief to wonder? lay it on thick, tell me what happens when they intermingle, because i'm going back to be quiet and wait wait wait for this rain to stop.
Posted by Kate Hall at 8:52 AM 3 comments
Monday, August 11, 2014
Betwixt
I mentioned to my brother in law a curiousity that i had about the name of a website. within 20 hours, i had a website and a twitter account. this is a good thing. but a little bit foreign. and the learning curve is wickedly steep.
i am totally whacked out and nervous. ( this has no relationship to actual events, this is entirely internallydrivencomplextypestuff.)
i have to spend some time thinking about how to use a website to build a community. can a website do this? this town is crazy, yes, but lovely, more so. how do i get the elderly to attend the highschool sports? will this even change things, is it a worthwhile thing to attempt? how do i get churches to start preaching the value of setting down roots, putting up your money to support what is good and right to grow and sustain a community?
do you see how deeply my manipulation runs?
how do i make a priest tell his population that higher taxes are the way to go? is that even true?
how do i get wealthy, summervisiting people to drop their wads on the people who live here ALL the time?
and really, do i want to do any of that at all?
what do you want to see when you look online at your town? huh? geez. i can't truly believe that anything of real import for a community can really be on-line in the first place. i think i may be dealing with some issues this week. heh.
i am betwixt and between some weighty things, and grief still rides daily...
i want to channel jack black, in school of rock... and live hardcore... dye my hair and shake my stuff for good and for detachment...
bigger garden, more animals, more isolation, less isolation, beaches, hermitage, off the grids, live from the waldorf, much... and less.
i have utterly given up the idea of homeschooling and i'm cool with that, but public education has its pits and follies and the lurking schoolyear is in the air already, and i'm not so cool with that. - although the possibility of a quiet home does not disgust.
blagh.
Posted by Kate Hall at 11:20 AM 2 comments
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Late Night Visitors.
not raccoons or foxes, but peoples... late night... we call them the church people. they are nice and kind and all that jazz, which i 'have to' say first because when i tell you they live in 'community', people get all freaked out. it must be something American, the shocking fear that community really means the stripping of individual power. veeeery deep-seeded... the women wear long clothing, loose pants with tunics and long hair. the boys have ponytails all trimmed, all the time. they don't have a doctor in their community right now, so they use hubsJ. they do most of their own treatments, as they are very good at herbalism and healthy living.. but at the occasional infection or oddity, they will be our late night visitors. They are so very friendly, really, and they never push their ideology, at all, as far as i have seen. we've been to some of their homes, we've seen the baby goats, we've eaten their very tasty food. at one point, they did have their own doctor, and that man is the connection to hubsJ... his wife was the wonderful Martha, of the five babies and the no toys and the capoeira dancing in the kitchen... at this point, i have made her a deity of womanhood... and the best lasagna maker ever. ever. makes me want to cry to think i ate it up so fast.... she was so shocked when i opened the door to the house so soon after the 2nd baby was born. she wanted me at rest for the full 40 days. part of this expectation is realistic and possible when you live in community and there are 10 other women who can answer the door. in my case, no such situation. (and she moved to brazil. and she was beautiful too. beautiful.)
last night's visitors were Ken and friend J. they had to wait as we weren't home, but were out to dinner. So ken played ball and pumped up the balls that weren't any good so the boys could play... then sought treatment for J, and measured the back of the house so they could put a bulkhead in/on. besides all the communal living and cooking, the men of the community run a construction company. and since hubsJ takes no payment, they are bulkheading in trade.
I don't know what to make of it all.. but I do miss some Martha, and I will be happy to take a bulkhead and think more about what makes a community so much more wonderful than scary... but this is a seasonal regularity for us, here in the balmy southcoast... a day of heat and swimming in the neighbors pool to relieve the sudden screaming overheated ones... and yesterday it was me.
my brain is on a constant loop of grief, anger, regular, grief, anger, regular... so much so that my regular is getting a little pinched. . . i can't seem to get good sleep, but have to tell you our tomatoes are about to burst into red... and that regular is pretty dang fab. tomatoes for breakfast, kids?!
Posted by Kate Hall at 6:40 AM 2 comments