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Sunday, December 11, 2016

Guidelines...

I want to believe in the romance of the winter of my discontent. Another one. I feel the darkness of these early days, shortened by my distance from the sun... and I want to take my shoes off and pad about in my creative juices, making colors on all the walls.  There is a sort of delirium to it, and there are children gadding about, and they need to be fed. I wonder if I am heading for white coats and padded rooms sometimes... the way I am so internal ....

I've signed up to take a portraiture class and I'm very excited. Its cheap and online and so, that has its sadness, but it does allow me to work at my pace, and during the more and more infrequent naps, or when i wake because of the insane not-a-puppy-anymore in the middle of the night. I've always been mildly afraid of painting or drawing faces... in profile? Sure thing. But that damn nose! Straight on, a definite problem. I'm looking forward to working in my own style (whatever that is) with a guide ...



I've started to go back to Quaker Meeting more often. I had my first 'call' to speak a few weeks back... when you are inspired by the divine so heavily that nothing can stop you from standing up and speaking out... yeah, that full body shaking drive.  I spoke about joy and the need to celebrate who we are as joyful, hopeful creatures in the face of a world that doesn't seem to be focused correctly. BURBLE BURBLE.
It was intense, and the afteraffects of it left me down in the dumps for almost a week.  These holidays are a rough season, these firsts... although last year we knew we were separating at Christmas, no one else did... a special kind of hell, and I am glad to have more truth and authenticity in my life this year.

Yah, so, I don't know. It was a rough weekend, and I had some flashbacks to some stuff I never ever want to live through anymore, in any fashion, and this time, I need to make some promises to myself that I actually keep, about all that.  And its sad, and sucky, and not something I can send to the ether.
Damn the man. Damn.

Vaguery aside, I do have hope for these new guides and ways forward... sometimes I'm just hanging on, and sometimes I'm pulling someone else along for the ride. And its all a damn ride, after all.

Sunday, December 4, 2016

Seventh grade, bitches.

Boy,  when i think about writing for someone else, i feel an awful lot of pressure. Boy.  Pressure of the internal 'you really suck' variety.  And a huge resistance, as if editing my work, or changing my  Words were some kind of chastisement to a god given gift, when really it is just a fear that my first try wasn't perfect, not good enough.... that i'm not instantaneously recognized as a literary or some sort of genius.  Damn the man.

Its pretty amazing how deep the resistance goes though, its almost hard to think about, like some spell laid by the evil seventh grade bitch who first called me not cool enough. And that bitch lives inside my head, and has taken over a large part of my inner world for a long time.
Its an Overlaid webbing, coloring a lot of the things that i have done in the past, the things i do in the present.

I think most women that I know still recognize that bitch, know her pretty well at this point, but not well enough to be compassionate towards, although even the suggestion puts me back on a better path. Poor thing, she's got her own bitch living in there, too.

Funhouse mirrors baby.

As far as the writing goes, I've slowed down to dire levels. Not even journaling this amazingly challenging year, and I feel like I'm going../ I already know that I am sorry for it. There is so much going on internally, and it is a loss that so many things will have slipped away without a record.

Blaghblah. Trying to push through .
Love you, see you soon. Hopefully.

Wmx

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Sort it, shake it.

I'm trying to sort out something I think.

What is the interplay between feeling and brain?  I don't mean mild feelings, the ones that pass like lightning: annoyance, irritation, frustration... they aren't necessarily mild but they dissipate fairly quickly and the feelings i'm talking about are the sweeping ones... the ones in which your body is consumed.
Its not all fairy dust.
Anger, Love, Thrill, Fear, Hilarity, Joy, Grief

Big Ticket Items. When you feel them, they leave an impression in the air as you move through the world, right? You can see them in other people usually, even if you can't figure out which of the feelings you are seeing.

With those big ones, what is the brain doing? Can I think my way out of it? Is there some sort of control exerted? IS there a hierarchy within my body in which the brain and the feelings battle ? Is there a glass ceiling? Are there autocrats at the top? Practicality, Self-Preservation. Office workers. Suits.

You want to paint something. You are driven. Your hands are shaking with the desire. Before you make it to the paint, you realize there are people living with you.  You sit down and make your kids do their homework. You throw chicken nuggets at them and get in the car for basketball practice. Brain wins. Where does that shake go?

I feel like someone should be the boss, in there.  And i fear the 'consensus-needing-non-profit-committee-forming' nature of things, and worry that without a clear boss the chaos i feel will just keep rolling on.

What do you think?
I'm going to take my coffee outside and sit for a while on the porch.  Maybe I'll come up with something.  What will I use to figure it out? My brain? My feelings?

Strange post, yes.
Sort it. Shake it.

Monday, November 21, 2016

Deserving

Deserving:
I am.

I deserve to love my own self, the peace i bring to the world, the challenge i offer with my intelligence and wit.

I deserve to have my back touched at its small, the warmth of that intimacy.

I deserve to have thoughts on me, eyes on me with sparkle and light.

I deserve someone worthy of trust, big trust.

I deserve rocking sex.

I do.
All that. And then some.

This is my fight song.

I'll wait for it, all of it. Long as I have to.

Friday, November 18, 2016

First time

Two weekend past i went to Quaker Meeting for Worship.  Its my church, has been for five years. The kids have been raised here.  We sit in almost utter silence for an hour and worship what we see fit, listen (or not) to our minds and hearts spill over.  And Its the first time I"ve sat in this meeting for almost ten months.
When j and i first sp;lit the agreement was to pass the kids back at Meeting, and I was unable to have my emotional reunion be in 'public' or in a place of supposed quiet, so i was always meeting them in the hospitality hall, coffee house spot, etc.  I didn't want to 'sit' in the same space with J and I couldn't bear my heart to hear the kids call to me across the quiet meetinghouse.  So be it. But now it has been ten months, eleven if you count when we actually knew the separation was imminent.

THIS weekend, J was away on vacation.
So he was out of the equation entirely, and I finally got to have them on a weekend, with no bedtimes,  no homework, none of the daily daily daily routine that J knows literally nothing about- And i can feel entrapped by these necessities of parenting through school, at times, as can the kids.  But this, this was a weekend!
So the kids and I sat quietly in worship, on a brilliant fall day when the light shining into that small whitewashed space was both illuminating and blinding, all at once.  My brain is shifting, I am feeling myself falling into a very different space these days.  I don't know exactly what it is, and I know that i still have ups and downs and fully expect them to catch me off guard, if one can expect to be surprised.
The kids were amazing, how fully they remembered the quiet, the roll of space and mind. Roll, role.
Then they took off for 'first day school' /sunday school and i stayed.  I stayed and stayed and stayed.


And was worshipful, and thankful, and sky-gazing was my bag.  The kids and I climbed ladders and washed windows, picked up sticks and called on the cloud shapes in order to help the community get ready for winter. The clouds kept kids from 'helping' too much, and the work cruised right along.  
It was good, and it was good. 


Thursday, November 17, 2016

TIdal swells and where does it send you?

Just some bits to let you know I'm still alive:

SO, its a long strange trip, this whole reconfiguring of life because of divorce and releasing a history that is as much a part of me as tree bark is to the tree. And the ups and downs continue and learning to share birthdays and custody of the children  in a way which satisfies my heart and is also the best for the kids is ROUGH, to say the least. Dude. I had no idea. I thought heartbreak was the tough part, but no. No.

SO there seems to be a constant roil of waves here, and I can be thrilled beyond belief with my life, and it happens and I'm bounding in joys for all to see, and then I spend a day wondering how on earth i am going to manage to feed the kids because i am so thoroughly trashed by the emotional high-tide. I've missed J lately, and that has been actually more painful than many of the feelings of betrayal and anger, and I've somehow come out the other side, and really can't tell you how, except that I am supremely glad to be done with it for now.

And we've made a bear cave, and the sloppy mommy is the way it is, and you should know, because thinking anything else is just crazy-making.  And many days I am ALL UP IN THAT CAVE.  
But there is always something else around the corner.

And I went to see Chakra Carol this week and got some peace, and it came with discussions of Leonard Cohen and the power and magic in his poetry and melody.  And I've introduced My now-4 year old to 'SO LONG MARYANN...' and boy, is that a great one for shouting in the car, or what?
Part of the peace I've gotten lately is a resurface of the massage-the-day-away table.
     When the boys were smaller I took a reiki class with Chakra Carol. And as part of my practice as a mom, I would give them a massage-the-day-away at the end of the day.  And as they aged, it went away, and I haven't opened the massage table for years.  And so yesterday, it was reinstated and there is a massage table back in my life, and used, not just leaning against a wall.  And I need practice, and I REALLY like the idea of helping kids and grown ups find their safe spaces within their own bodies, so I am taking a deep breath and just holding that idea in my own safe space to keep it with me for awhile in thought and dream, to see if that's a direction to go...

Its very cool to consider that part of what I have to offer the world is something I've already got.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Just Me.

Its been a very tough couple of weeks here, full of emotional regression on my part. But now it has been almost a year that i've known we were disassembling our marriage and so even in the depths, i know it is just a pit and that i'll rise again, and i have the tools to get myself up.
There was the family birthday that i missed for the first time in 15 years, a weekend in which i really wanted to hug J and congratulate and celebrate with the man i've watched grow and change for so long. And an instance of old history in which I realized that I know him best when he's slightly disappointing me and the great sadness that held for my own part in a long history of treating something precious like something that could be held passively.
And the need for a new water heater and the financial pressure rearing its head. And the coming changes that, really, have already arrived.
And a birthday of a child, when the birthday girl was somewhere else, and the magic of the birthday would be delayed until she was in my presence. Being alone and reliving the birth reminded me of how many things have changed and made me angry and almost had me sending drunken angry texts for the first time in my life, but didn't.  Instead, I sought out family and had laughs and fears about Donald Trump.



And a family birthday party here, and love of all the grandparents deep. And birthday magic that happens because of ME, because it is a large part of who I am, and what I have done with the past decade of my life, becoming a mother three times over and making homes and light and incredible goodness in the lives of my kids.
And the night after, when I thought I'd be distraught that birthday girl and kids all drove away and I was home alone? I thought I'd be drunk and inconsolable, but no.  I was reading and sitting by the fire and realizing how little time I have to myself and thinking of baths and enjoying the hell out of my solitude and making plans for the Supermoon rising in the sky...
It has been a long year, and so much has disappeared that was really good to go, and many that are so sad to lose.  And so much is still to come, and it is daunting but I'm so content to be where I am, in all this grayness wherein I begin to learn self-respect...and continue to daily struggle with what it is that I want. Just me.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

Lines and Squiggles

All the posts i've got half-typed, half-thought-out... all in line to be dispersed when i'm more settled in my thoughts and space, when i can make ritual a reality.
All in line now.

Donald Trump is going to be the next president of my country.  It all seems momentarily irrelevant now.

I am a perpetual optimist, in a strange way, as it seems, sometimes, to be an attempt on my part to convince myself of the words coming out of my mouth. and I turn quickly to a belief in checks and balances and what a beautiful system that can be when functioning healthily .
I think immediately to how I can DO more to move through the world with force, as a visible presence and sign of goodness. People need to see goodness in action, goodness as fairness, in clarity... a relief against the skies of the fear and anger that allowed DT to move forward, and now represent us to the world.

I won't tell you that I held my optimism high while walking through the world on Wednesday. I felt like i'd been hit by a truck, had a headache, felt like i'd been sick the day before and was slammed in the recovery. . . Lots and lots of disbelief.  How could a single woman vote for him? How could a single human?  But, the thing is, I do know how.  Fear and anger and believing in fear and anger are the cores of all of it.
But here we are. More than half the country voted against Trump, although electoral college rules the day.  BUT it matters.  More than half the country voted against Trump.

( i include this picture because it is me putting finishing touches on the present that the kids made (with lots of motherly influence) for their dad's 50th birthday. And that's the kind of model I'm talking bout... be that. I may not want to look at him and I may think lots of thinks about the kind of man he has shown himself to be but the kids? Understanding that giving is important, to me, but also to take a minute to think about what will be loved by someone else, regardless of small feelings... humanity is bigger than divorce, right? ((Full disclosure: he was touched to receive it and i utterly rejected that i had anything to do with it...)) but larger is still there...))

Be that. Be the model of what you want to see in world.  We can all do that.  
And we will be called to in the next four years. . . Loudly.

Friday, October 28, 2016

PIN IT.

I don't know what I'm doing, but VERY WELL... 
AND SO DO YOU. 

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Straight talk. From a businessperson. (Nyuck nyuck)

I'm taking this business course right now, and of course, i don't actually have a business. So there's your focus for today, right there.

What i've been learning from it though, is how to approach my life as though it were a business. If i were running an economy, there would be no 'aspect' which i would let lie fallow for long.  And if i wanted 'success' i would need to look at all the parts, and be sure things were all aligned, right?

So the business is me.


Are my parts moving towards alignment? No dirty entanglements with the past mob bosses? No bodies in the basement?
Hmm...
And i've got the space right now to look around and figure out how i am going to support myself and my kids in a way that is something i can sustain, that i can be proud of, and that will fit into the larger business of raising these kids and growing myself in the process.

So, a lot.  And ..

If i approach my current space as a laying fallow, whilst prepping for the next planting, the winter's work of the farmer, the dreaming, the thinking...

It is a making of lists, in which two of the daily items always start with 'think about'...

Moving into financial certainty, getting my ducks in a line. I may be shooting them, maybe painting them ... can't tell yet.

It is accomplishment of more 'firsts' in the whole divorce thing, meeting the girlfriend, dealing with the shock and further realizations about how little i probably ever knew about j.  Rewriting the story, and burning it out in new colors, that suit.

And how different my reaction was to what i expected.  Turns out, i am a fucking rockstar.
The laughter and faith are rising in me, so high... it is thrilling.

And...
The dog ate my brie yesterday though, and that, coupled with a couple days of forgetting my antidepressants and hearing peter gabriel in the grocery store, have upset my rockstar solidity a little, so i am back to the fertility of the moon and shine and minute to minute strength gathering.

And i am making friends, dreamy-like, slow and real and trustworthy...and i'm so gladdened by the loss of that social paralysis that happens when you are keeping too many secrets to be able to talk to people.  Its such a relief, and i hadn't ever recognized the depth to which i'd been doing it .  Poor girl.

A lot.


Monday, October 17, 2016

Whut.

I'm having a hard time with the writing these days, here, because i have to continue to be vague, and its just a real stymie to style.  I spent all those days in the past talking about 'ruts' and walnut hearts and all the sorts of pains i was feeling that were unnameable in order to protect j and to mask my own unhappiness with him, although at the time I thought it was more general than that.  I don't think I realize the depth of my unhappiness until he chose another.  It unmasked a lot of the delusions i had been living with... including many ideas of marriage and vow and faith and even love; what understandings i had of those things were all jumbled up in assumptions that were not real. So.

And now i'm not that interested in protecting j, and i was asked to protect his reputation and so many of the things i want to write about involve facts that i shouldn't share.

So what to do?

Really. Tell me.

One of my kids might be a conduit to the gods. Just so you know.  The things he says to me in his moments of clarity between the moments of goof and hilarity are so strong, and so pointed and so challenging, it is really amazing. Amazing.

I do wonder about the magic in that... which is not to say that is is easy. He's asking me to move on in ways that I am not quite sure I am ready to do, but which I know are in my future.

I got some kickass shoes. They are my harken back shoes... like Hollah back, but I was an English Major in school and it spurts out in weird ways like this...

I'm figuring out how to dress again, how to mother, how to be the person in the world that i have become.  I know it should be easy, but i think this is not my way in the world these days, it has to be considered, thoughtful. All of it.
 I feel that my last decade was full of things i didn't have a choice about, and i went on a track that felt so out-of-control, and i was just along for the ride, found it thrilling and nauseating but/and now i am much more conscious, and yes, my shoes are a reflection of how flat and close to the earth I would like to be... and color-full.. COLOR FULL!!!!

I may finally have to give up the notion that i will wear heels commonly, like chelsea handler, and i think i'll be pretty okay with that.  But i'll meditate on it some more ... :)


Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Sparkle

i've made myself a necklace, and i've put up two more strands of sparkle lights, i've replaced the burned out bulbs on the porch strand and the house is aglow in ways it has not been since we moved in. And it is good.  And while i recognize the power of batteries in my life.  AHOOOOOO... jokes abound.  Now i'm going to roll around laughing, and fondly reminiscing ...
So anyhow, batteries. So, they are good. But for all things not battery powered, the sparkle in a gem, a rock, a crystal, a bead, a woman.. you need light.
In order for a sparkle to appear, you need a shaft of light.  Doesn't have to be much, but does need to be direct.

So there is that.




Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Fluidity in Mothering (single style)

Some of this is blather, and I know it. So listen up.
There is a lot of learning about mothering going on here, as I do it by myself with these kids, and it's all on my curve, and at my pace.  It helps really, when I think of the kids themselves, in their individuality, that much hasn't changed in their understanding of their parents, whether in shared home, or not. I'm still and forever THE MOM (as J is their Dad, blaghblah) and what I have to give them is the very best that I can.  And the very best that I can is me in my fullest iteration.

This may sound like hooey, and I get it. But do you get me in this?


IN the space I have now, I have this immediate sense, when I do something I don't like with them, this sense of 'wrongness' in my own action, that I can ACT upon, that I can do something about.
And I do.  Which is different than before, when I was just awash in disappointment in all the adults of the world, and I would just drop back, and acquiesce, and feel bad.  Now THere is a real fluidity to my parenting that could only happen in my case, when there wasn't this large elephant of an unhappy marriage in the way, a constant resistance and 'try try try' and oh, that poor battle-wearied woman...
So the fluidity, the engagement in relationship is making a whole new understanding of mother-child, and it's pretty damn amazing.
Most of the time.

This isn't really to say that J was the reason I was unsatisfied in my skills as a mother.  He was just full of his own struggles and it took over my inner world, to the detriment of all, and I allowed it to happen. Me.
It's just that now I have space and consciousness and awareness in a new way, because I have shed some of that strain and disappointment.  I have discovered the lion's share of my own pride. (Again, so pun-ny and unintentional, you see it?)

Pride is a cocksucker, really, in a bad way, and makes people take actions against the better instincts they may have.  In my case, I think a healthy dose might balance out all the shame I carried during my marriage, so I am reveling in it for the moment. I have faith that I'll keep it from taking over and being a primary force as I move around in this world.

Friday, September 23, 2016

The ball rolling. . .

Lots of thinking about home lately. . . Working on feeling good about my financial life, recognizing yet another shift and change in my expectations involving money.
When I set out to write about home, just now!,  I wasn't thinking about money at all. At all. The damn fingers have a mind of their own I suppose.
Candles, small corners of curation,  snack platters, loud declarations that love still lives here, and always has, pestilence and boils aside, amongst the pandemonium of kid life, and unformed mom-life.
And a shift in focus, and it's fall, and I can feel myself roiling in the need to prepare for the winter, the inside time, the hours of looking at the same spaces... The way the light falls when the leaves are leaving. The 'facts' of having hours per week when all three kids are in some kind of school and I am still in the house.  Not still, but still.  (See what I did there?  A lot of possibility inside of it all. And, again, depth in small sentences.) and hope. And curiosity. And fear, Trepidation, and longing.
Read it slow. Read between the lines. Hear what there is.

I am trying to catapult my ideas into action, and have painted this on the side of the windmill. I'll show you later. 
I have been in love with Instagram, and have heard from Corinne( @crnnoel ) something that caught me up, and reminded me, in parallel with some of my complicated feelings about the photos I am seeing of my own old house. I can see the old place getting filled up on instagram and in a blog, and each time I see it, the breath catches in my throat.  that place. The love lost, the love that may have been still real in that  place, the mess the clutter the unbelievable spontaneity which precludes curation in a family vignette. Here, and there,  I have so many plastic toys, and a dress up box which hardly closes, and underneath the sofa lives an entire family of misfits, toys, socks, trash, yesterday I found a half eaten roll... And the bitemarks were not human. I don't even remember the last time we had rolls.  I mean, seriously, who has rolls in summertime? Uh, not me.

And so it is real, and messy and my youngest is in a purple tutu that doesn't match her classmates, and her sneakers, which rest next to me, smell of the boys, and wet dogs and there ain't nothing which will make her more a princess ... Like mother, like daughter, the mess is the truth of it, but it's a lot and it's exhausting. And in the challenge, is the joy.
Which is something to remember as I embark on this loneliest and most challenging of times.  In the challenge is the joy.

BUT boy, sometimes challenge is FUCKING messy. And smelly, and full of snot and stumbles. And sometimes I hide out in my house for entire days, and don't call anyone and don't engage in any 'self-care' because I am basically punishing myself some more. which is terrible, and true.
And there is little on Instagram which catches the light of the mess, the unpretty. When the light is just right is not all the time, and sometimes my piles topple and fall, and the sparkle doesn't
Look good, but green and LED'd and the dog chewed off the plug.


There is a lot.  I haven't even been writing in my journal these past weeks, I can't.  I spend my time alone shifting furniture, adding paint to already done paintings, and staring into space while I try to read books.  And yet I can't seem to write anything down.  I am far too internal, and I am struggling to get it out of my brain. And here, what should be two or three posts, I spill and spit and learn to identify myself as a dance mom on top of everything else.  I am writing this while the purplest one in the family dances her way to more stank.  Although, frankly, I think it's more an activity right now, than a lifetime commitment.  I certainly won't make this my reality show.
But then again, it seems the world is topsy turvy, and you get what you get and you don't get upset...
right?

Friday, September 2, 2016

Touching base. Beauty, some.



I am really starting to like my kitchen, getting rid of what doesn't bring me joy, realizing that the sense of chaos that it holds is an impeccable sort of beauty.
I had to cut another photo, because I didn't want you to see my anti-depressant medicinal collection, but then I realized that the bowls are doing as much work as anything else, and nearly as much as I am doing, just being what they are, feeling the wealth of their purpose, and the sly beauty of a curve doing what it was meant to do.

Friday, August 26, 2016

It was Day One...





Thursday, August 25, 2016

Vacationland

And I don't mean Maine, and I do mean Cape Cod.  With my mother and sister I embarked on my first family vacation without a husband... And believe it or not, I missed him.  I am not shocked by it, but my last few days have been full of grief and so I am not surprised... And the kids miss their goofy dad too. . . And then I didn't, because I actually, in myself, Was much more relaxed and able to see the reality that I both had, and still have. I am so much more than I was able to express while with him, with all of the accommodating and the background living. While he lives a kid-free life, doing yoga in the park while not arranging a babysitter first, or even realizing the difference, I want to fuck him up.  But then I remember what being a mother means to me, and how my marrow is married to the life that I am in now, as a whole part of a family...and was then, too... and it all smooths out. Mostly. It is complicated. Again and again and again.

His loss. In so many ways. And he'll never know.

And I'm here in the land of kitsch and tourist, and in the place we are staying it is very possible to escape the kitsch but it is a matter of turning your back, only.  The simplest and the most pointed action.

I'm asleep to the sound of the waves, and waking to the sunrise...and in the waters, and sands, the kids are sun-kissed and exhausted.


And I've got way better photos, but the colors are all like this...


Monday, August 15, 2016

Tit for tat..and then

Deepest sorrows ...
Bone deep and beyond.
thats what happened this week. the worry that all this was for naught, in the end, that there has been no change and will be no change...needed reminders from friends that there is a light somewhere at the end of one of these tunnels...

Its true that I'm not employed but not true that I don't have a job...  Being a mother right now, through all of this regular and still unexpected life change is a wild ride, and i'm more a fan of the giant slide on burlap sack than the rollercoaster.  I suppose i love those giant swings too, and the new fangled bungey bouncers, but I ride the rollercoasters in an obligatory sort of way... its okay, but i'm glad when its over and i'm not rattling in my adrenalin rush...

It's hard to know how to help the kids sometimes, when it feels like simple love and presence isn't enough, and there must be something 'right' to say, or some person to punch to make it all better. There isn't, there isn't. I'm just here for them, and it hurts to know they hurt anyways. No more kisses on the knees to make it all better.

And then


My old house: kids in the first tree they ever climbed, and a couple of hidden new additions...

I got my
 Old house that I love so much rented by someone who will make it a home again. It was an idea I had, that I acted on, that worked.  That hasn't happened to me for ages and ages. Maybe this, too, could be the way it is.

My family got a dog. It was a surprise, though I had filled out an application at the shelter. I got the call, drove to see, and drove home with a dog in the car. A puppy, even. I am in love officially, in that sensible way of recognizing the work that is, whilst having my heart open more and more incrementally with every rushed poo cleanup...

This and that, tit for tat.

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Chainsmoking

one
after the
other.
strung
like pearls
across the dresser.
swallows in the evening,

shifting compositions.



Monday, August 8, 2016

More asterisks, and other things... I ask you.

**What do you do to sustain your energy throughout the day?  I don't expect to be WonderWoman and I"m fine with dips and things in my mood... my god, the witching hour of four pm is not to be underestimated...

old photo, good colors. 

but really, i can do an entire day's worth of work before nine o'clock in the morning, and spend the rest of the day in a fugue.  I"d like to sort that out a bit.  I don't mind the productivity burst, but want to spread myself more sustainably...

%%Is it food? Do i need to drop the coffee?

*$Who are you? Who has been reading here?  Its shown a great uptick in the past few months but I'm at a loss as to who it is.... will you tell me?

&& J doesn't want me to share these posts on social media because he thinks it may damage his reputation, which as a solo business person, is very important to his livelihood. I can understand that. But I do think these posts are all about me, and I've not castigated him in any way.  ...its the one place where I'm really self-serving, so there is a part of me which feels robbed by a further inability to share.

&&What do you think of that?

((the kids are slowly rousing. I told them I'd take them to the neighbors pool first thing this morning.  Why would I do that? Its going to be cold.  Why would I do that?

*& the eggs are on their way back to the street. Nobody bought any yesterday, but I think the 'shock' has to wear off and then it'll sway its way to an eggstop familiar.
which, of course, is a thing.


Sunday, August 7, 2016

Sunday morning.

Bullets without guns: a new productivity. A Sunday morning bubble wave.


Hang on...

* today I became an egg lady, eggs by the road, cobbled sign stuck to kids' old art easel..not much thought went into it, in the moment, which is probably why it actually got done...$4 a dozen for free-range organically-fed chicken eggs is an incredible deal and it's the first thing I've done in a long time that was on my list and that honestly made me smile, for real. I've been hemming and hawing about the thing for a month...what to have on the sign, how to show humor, etc. delay delay delay.

*today it got done.

*today I sledgehammered the legs off the table in my sewing room. Yes, an actual sledgehammer. Hope J wasn't hoping for it, but I actually don't care. Sledgehammering is good.  Now I have an easel of my own in there and plans for dismantling spaces further and further...

*today I had fresh, hot coffee. And got to drink it while hot.


*today I am listening hard to car speeds in curiosity...will they buy eggs?!

 ***these bullets are asterisks, and the teardrops radiate out from its tiny pause. That- is not my 'this morning' and that has made today a beauty.



Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Content, in this minute.

A rainy morning, a chill, finally, and I'm very content.  Sweatshirts are my bling.  Truly, a sweater is my diamond, and I'm always happier with wool nearby.

The kids are nestled on the sofa, one still sleeping in my bed. I've had my coffee and my one cigarette of the day.  I'm working on quitting, as it is a remnant of a past life, and it has gotten out of hand as a stress reliever.  I was almost at a pack in two days, and thats nobody's 'social smoking', and my body was feeling the weight. SO, one a day, maybe two when another phone call comes in, or 'sighting' that upsets.

Small steps.

Rainy morning and the skin feels like it is breathing for the first time in days and days.  Earlier the three was upset because her umbrella was outside getting wet.
yes.

Now she's running out, raincoat and umbrella and nothing else, to play.

There's no missing this, there is no missing this.

and so i am content .

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Shimalimma dingdong.

In my inner world, I have been busy.  I think, in the last few years, all my intuition and all of my energy has been spent on figuring out, trying to prevent, anticipating and muddling through. now that i am doing so much less of that, my intuition and energy are more free to play... and i realize the depth and complication of my love for mixing it up. metaphor, analogy, connections, these are my linguistical gymnastics, and this play of my mind is something i can really get carried away with...
other things i love?

i love paper cutouts, those beautiful shadow landscapes of the small. a stark cameo, a scene of edges. I don't need to acquire them, even, but I have a deep appreciation for their existence.

i'm a fan of screen door: the slams and swings, and the feels, between screen and wood, another landscape of texture, i suppose.

kid voices at play in the yard. indistinct yells and game rules being decided. nothing better.

kitchen table empty. never ever happens, but i do love it, in imagination... love seeing the grain of the wood, the false promise that things have found their places to be.

the deepest teal, the almost blue.

the sobbing sadness which won't let me burn love letters, and the unbelievably painful 'yet' that waits.

ah. there is, of course, so much more. but these are bits ... tids...

Monday, July 25, 2016

POST-its..

I'm still doing allright, my toes are sandy right now as we've just returned from a few hours at the beach. I'm doing allright with a few glitches, here and there.  Its become more important for me to track my cycles, as I need to hang on for dear life during the pre-menstruation ride.  Its helpful to know there is relief in sight. very. the moon, man.  the moon.



My eight asked me today if the oceans would just be a pool if the moon exploded... and all i could think about was The Last Airbender movie... did you see it? the world 'bathed in fire' when the moon spirit is crushed... my kids and I love that movie.  I think my three hasn't got a memory of it....

Too much time still spent thinking about J. Way too much. what? where? why? It was a long fifteen years, and I can't shake it off like he can, I guess.

I took a pottery class and LOVED it, had beginners luck the first class and will have something to bring home and photograph and be proud grandma to, sometime in August. The instructor was divorced and I listened to him talk about how lovely it was for he and his former wife, and just almost stuck my face in the clay in sorrow, for the not-niceness that I have going on internally, and the deep pain that I feel every time I see J.

not nice.

I danced with total freedom to Michael Jackson in the kitchen this morning.  It was awesome.  It freaked out the kids, and I kept on keeping on... total freedom doesn't really happen that often, it seems...

I'm getting more in touch with old friends, who've been through divorce, and its been very educational.  There is an awful lot of time needed for women, and a lot of anger and bitterness here and there, in pockets. time time time.

I have got that one in my pocket.  lots of it.

I'm not posting much here because it is actually hectic most of the time here, and even my 'one whole day' where J has the kids is not free and unplanned... but I am posting on instagram @wifemotherexpletive , if you want to see more stuff.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Therapy, bitches, therapy.

I am now seeing two therapists, to help me... help me. One, Susan, is new.  She was a name on a list, to help with divorce and with issues of codependency and addiction. As it happens, her methodology is incredibly woo-woo, and a perfect fit for me.  We talk about the body, and where the emotions lie therein, hello chakras?!, and then address emotions specifically, with curiosity, asking what emotions of protection, anger, sadness, self-criticism are serving my larger purpose in life. It is totally woo-woo, and lovely, and I feel very bolstered by the experience. I see her every week, believe it or not, and it is fab.

Chakra Carol is once a month, although I am not sure why I don't do it more, except that the planning of how to deal with childcare of all three for a longer period of time is probably the ticket. Summer. She takes my calls, too, and I've had to take her up on her generosity on that one, more than once. Today she told me I was all normal, the feeling of self-worthlessness were part and parcel of divorce, and I was okay, moving in the right direction.  Sometimes something as simple as someone you trust telling you this, is enough.  Today it was. Feeling worthless is pretty damn hard to bear.

It's amazing what the fears can be. They are legitimate, yes, but from a place of inconsistent emotion. For example: being afraid that the kids will love 'her' more, because it will always be 'fun', because there is no 'discipline' or 'no' coming anytime soon.  Can you imagine being afraid that your kids will love someone more than they love you/? But the proof is in the ex, right? If he can, they can. It is an query I hope you never know. It is completely devastating, this fear.

It doesn't matter that J says that he says all the floofy stuff to the kids, like how lucky they are to have me as a mother. He obviously doesn't think it true, or he wouldn't be trying to get them to fall in love with another woman like he did.  there is something to that. and then, nothing, at the same time.

But it isn't a true emotion, this fear. Rooting myself in the role of my life, realizing the power of my presence, my loving, fun, consistent and giving presence in the world is very tough, inconsistent right now, but not impossible. I just need to look at the good minutes, the shimmers in the summer doldrums, the baby pictures, the summer pictures, the magic I have made in this beautiful house, to feel more of my own rock in the life of these kids. It is all a trip.

It is also true that the kids are not their father. Nor are they me, thank god. They don't carry his personality in their skins, they are individuals on their own right and they can see for themselves what love has, in all its guises. So there is that.

There is a lot. a lot a lot a lot.
and a lot of therapy is making me a whirlwind on the inside.  but i'm hoping that by focusing so intently, i find myself in a much better spot when it all finally subsides.

in the quiet, the coming storm. in the quiet, the receding storm.
you dig?

Friday, July 8, 2016

There is so much.

there is so much I do not understand.

If my elven eleven can actually articulate that he is not ready to meet his dad's girlfriend, I do not understand why the meeting will go on . (Tonight)

When my mother is mad at me for being too flexible, because my eight year old asked if the girlfriend was coming to his birthday party five months from now and I did not dismiss it out-of-hand but just said a lot of blaghblah about time and whatnot... and I say, 'what choice do I have really? What choice is there?', I am met with silence.

How freaking telephones carried voices through telephone wires, and now through space, to satellites and back.

How I can make people laugh while I am contemplating jumping off the roof. (In theory, in emotion, but not in reality.) My three year old told me I was beautiful when I put on a dress the other day, beautiful like daddy's girlfriend. She hasn't met her yet. (Tonight)
I did walk away quickly after saying thank you, sweetie. I did.

This is a transition to end all transitions and the only good thing about it, is that I will never do it again. I must say.


Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Single mama goes hippy. Not hipster, hippy.

In this, my first summer of single parenting, I've got a long list of things to do. Today it is raining, so all bets are off and I'm hoping everyone sleeps real late, and gets ready to color and do play dough. Think my eleven elven will do this? Heh.

While our list has a lot of kid-driven choices, there are also some of mine. few, but some. And I'm always so happy when we accomplish our things, I'm feeling proud for the experiences and happiness that I'm gifting my kids.

There is this small part of me, though, that is curious about how much I am gifting to others all the time, and wonders about gifting myself. It is true that I often have fun on these outings, almost always really, and watching them have fun is a gift in and of itself. But since I spent so much of my failed marriage arranging and easing and enabling, I am finding myself in a large query about it all.
and my job as housewife-notwife and stay at home mom is basically about constantly gifting others, in its very essence.

It wasn't the way to go in the marriage, for me, and what if there is something more that I am overlooking in the new relationship I've got with my kids? What if my gifting them these times is somehow missing some component that has to do with my own gifts? Does this make sense?

Last night was a new moon, the Fourth of July, and a first night home all-together, all-alone in a few days. Sleepover party, sleepover with dad, sleepover for fireworks... Now, just us. I made a fire for us, and we wrote our wishes on paper and sent them to the sky. My wish for more openness and magic and a more fluid relationship to the time that I need for all this processing was made more palpable by the focus I put on the process. I found it very powerful. The kids were drawn in, away from the television, towards the fire, the yard, the play, the focus. I've got to figure out how to draw them into my own inner life, not 'into' maybe, but shared, seeing what is increasingly important to me, the intangibles, the hopes, the fireflies against the darkness...

the lense is blurred, but there has to be a sparkle, there has to be.

Saturday, July 2, 2016

Growing Things

My eldest has turned eleven. He is a rare creature, so sweet, so sensitive, his light shines through easily, and though he has been clouded by the separation of his parents, he is shining still.  He has always carried his Light lightly, and it is remarkable, and so he is.  Eleven. Elven.

There was a family party, complete with his dad shooting hoops and all his surviving grandparents, and even a visiting cousin.  It was 'normal' for the new time.  I think it was a bit overwhelming for me, watching what is still technically my husband shooting hoops and playing with my kids exactly as would have occurred a year ago. But now I look at his body that is so familiar and yet cannot help but dwell on how he is loving someone else with that whole body. Internal, external. It is so surreal, so much of a stranger.

It brings forth a wild understanding, tree trunk gnarled, that while he is so familiar, there is little I know about him anymore. I like not knowing, honestly, as so much of it I was tired of hearing, and am tired of hearing, and would love to never sit through again. But there are things that I have forgotten, that are probably good things, like how he uses his poetry in riddles for the kids to suss meaning from wordplay.

He is finally learning how to take responsibility for the kids, all three at once, as he has now had opportunity these six months. It was not something he understood when he lived here. Maybe that was on me, but I think it the natural division of labor, gone wrong. But now he knows, and watching the relationships of the children with him, shift because of it, is another growing thing. They, and I, have more trust in him.  A sapling, perhaps.

It is mildly interesting to notice my twist, a man that I used to know, internal external, and do not want to know anymore, and what happens when there is an outside force. Realizing what a bad husband and partner he was for me, and still having the twist is sharp sometimes. I don't judge myself too harshly for it, as I don't take action beyond my inner world and we have all seen much much worse. I take comfort that I am not slashing tires, or making angry gestures to the world.  I would wish myself more immune, but I can vaguely sense it coming, this flat immunity. Again, I don't know what it will look like.  But there is something bright at the end of this tunnel, something bright.  Fools's gold? Chrome in a diner? Diamonds? Prisms? Sunlight in the morning? Brightness, and I'll take it in whatever form it arrives.

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Weird days.

Writing about my hearing a little, as i did in the last post, is a little weird these days.  These days are weird.

fiddling with the aide... 
But, as I have been spending a lot of time in therapy, and a lot of time thinking about myself (which is good. and bad.), my hearing has been coming up more and more as a significant obstacle.  An obstacle to the sorts of work I can do in my future, an obstacle to the social relationships that I may want to forge.  One of the things this hearing does is get in the way of my understanding conversational flow.  If I am sitting in a small group and things are bouncing and bounding as they do, I miss almost all of it.  One on one? I'm a freaking rockstar. but more than that? I start quieting, missing bits and pieces and losing the thread entirely.

Last time I was single, this was not the case, and I enjoyed myself in social situations quite a bit. Still and always an introvert, I still loved witty rejoinders, humor of almost all kinds...not really a fan of humor with 'boobs' in it, but I can dig it sometimes, when I get to then make fun of the joker.

The J is/was a social succubus and can talk to anyone, for any length of time and really make them feel like he is involved.  Just because he can turn and do it immediately to the next person, without a blink, and without any depth of actual intimacy doesn't make him a sociopath, right? Bligh...not true. Emotional Tourette's.
But because he had that skill, I left it to him, and did not make my own way further down this new, quieter path. so now I am.

SO what? How does one share life in a meaningful way when that conversational flow is so stilted? I'm probably too old to hang at bars, and I'd be on my own there anyhow, so What?

What is this going to look like?

I don't know either.  I say that a lot in these weird days.  I don't know what it is going to look like.

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Deaf, and in the waters...

Today I took my boys and my niece to the water park.  The littlest was dropped at my mom's and we took our chances with the grey day and headed out to tackle the one thing that has lasted two whole Summer's on our 'gotta do it' summer list.  The water park: slides, floats, tubes, waves, lots and lots of cement, lots and lots of chlorine... And water. Beyond the beyond.

If you've been reading here for a long time, you might already know that I have pretty 'tricky' hearing.  I've got one ear that is totally deaf (hello?? Car. Bike. Boom.((me on the bike.)) The other ear has a profound hearing loss and is filled up almost 24 hours a day with a high-powered hearing aide that is nonetheless really tiny and mostly cute.

But I got some challenges in the hearing department and put me in the middle of a water park, and this kid can't wear the hearing aide. Water, electrics, no mix. The kids were forewarned, and frankly, really loud as a baseline, so we all got along just fine. I did get yelled at by a lifeguard, but it was a mistake, and the poor kid was more stressed out than I was, so it ended up all good.  When you can't hear someone yelling at you, it is much easier to bear.

The whole reason I am writing today is to share this moment: as I went down the blue slide, the yellow slide, the red... I was totally deaf.  I slid, I rode and watched waters rushing, I slapped my boys on the shoulders, I grabbed them with my feet and my fingers, but it was all silent.

Completely silent. Charlie Chaplin silent.  It is something you can probably envision because we've all seen that commercial at some point, with someone else's toes in the slide... And, just believe me, it's a quiet and beautiful thing...just taking all the noise away, makes it magic, real magic.

In these six months of separation, J has had the kids every weekend, and I have not.  I have missed so the formless times of late wake ups, meals with no boundaries, 'activities' designed with nothing but fun in mind.

So this summer is especially ripe.  And I'm on the climb.


Monday, June 20, 2016

I'm okay, you know.  My life of mom of sports kids is winding down, and there is one more game/trophy ceremony to go through, but I am planning already to miss it as it will be my birthday, and I can do without seeing another trophy ceremony for second graders who really live in the ether and not on the ball field, thank you very much.




I have three more days after today, before the school year is finished.  I am trying to relish them deeply, the quiet, the pressureless wait for the bus to return, the tiny Three and I sitting around, playdoughing, tireswinging, just us.

Today I go, again, to the house I have loved, to fix a hole in a closet wall, and to meet with the realtor again, to be certain it will get onto the 'market'.  It is my birthday present to myself, this work.  The house is one of my beloveds, and while I still set aflame the man and the history he tries to tarnish, the house stands, beauty in its bones.

One of the things I have realized, as I look upon that house, and the one I live in which is threatened by the man, is that I AM a homemaker.  it only took me ten years or so, and two of the three are in school now...  slow tides.... all these items, these corners of beauty, all have come about because of me, and my thought for their creation.  I am feeling deeply rooted, and deeply possessive. There is a floating knowledge that I may not be able to afford to keep the kids here, and so, like the last week before school lets out, I am trying to spread out my awareness to all its magic.  The sparkle lights by the back door, the tin heart hanging on the wall outside the kids rooms, the paper mache snake hanging over the dining room table, the tea cups J's grandmother gifted us for our wedding, the primary colors of kidtoys and the stories they have all seen... the half-done treehouse, which may live its days half-done, but used.  the view from its platform is legendary. . . in that it captures this magic, the grasses, the home.

so, there is a lot.

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Six months.

evidently, thats how long it takes, to dismantle fifteen years of marriage. To shred memories, to make two people into utter strangers, to make the stories all show their wear and their lie.

six months.

on a side note, my new chickens have started to lay eggs, and I can be the egg woman of my dreams in the next few weeks.  how bout that?


sorry, a short post, and i know i have dropped off the face of the earth, but i am here.

Monday, June 6, 2016

GIANT Asterisk: one sentence, one thought.

An online friend was exploring what an asterisk was and I am completely enthralled.  Originally, starlike, with teardrops radiating out from the center, connotating an omission, a dropped sound, a deliberate pause.


I'm living in an asterisk.

How damn cool is that?



Photo Credit: denisecoles via Compfight cc

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Remember.

I sat on the stoop of the first house I ever owned. I had been cleaning to get it ready to sell. I was quiet, after much lifting and sweating and moving things from the basement that have been there for five years, and probably more than that. I bleached baseboards, and washed memories of dog from the front door. I was on my own, as the man with whom I shared that house, and that family with, has moved on and on and on.

I remember writing a post one time years ago about his having had the last beer, and leaving me on my own with my afternoon frustrations with the kids and the life. I remember the nights of not-knowing when he'd get home, the weeks of his overnight shifts, the pressure he felt at the steepness of his learning curve on the new job.

I remember the fire between the two houses and being woken, irritated, and then seeing a fireman in my bedroom and carrying the infant outside in a blanket. I remember my neighbors, I remember an everlasting battle with the bamboo, and I remember the awesome glory of the cherry tree in bloom. The whole kitchen was bathed in pink.

I remember losing my hearing entirely. I remember thinking of suicide. I remember telling him to get a new wife. I slept with my hand on my infant's chest to be ready to wake and nurse. I remember the kids in the neighborhood being a needy bunch, no socks in the whole lot, and turning them away when they showed up with a toddler. I remember his parents sleeping over often enough that the pull-out bed was named for them. I remember crying while watching a narnia movie on Christmas Eve...I remember rocking my children to sleep and trying all crazed tries to get them to go to bed on their own. They still, now three, all sleep with me in my bed. The bed time routine involves piling up, books, and stories told in the night... I remember the boys first experiences with snow, with rope swings, with log piles. The dog who died before the move, Roxanne. I remember it all. all of it, not just the pretty.

As I drove away, I thought first of him, and his new life, free of memory, and then I thought of me, and raised my fist, ala john bender, and thought... my past is on fire, aflame, and I am driving off.  Let it burn, beauty and all.

Let it burn.




Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Social Experiment

I'm up at two this morning, evening, and was sitting on the porch with a cigarette thinking how i'd probably get a headache when i realized that was just a wrong way to approach the day.

so tomorrow morning, this morning, when i wake again, with all the kids, i'm going to say aloud, 'today is going to be a really good day.' and mean it, and share it with the kids, this hope, this certainty that the day will hold something special, something life-affirming... as all days actually do.

i'll let you know how it goes...


Wednesday, May 25, 2016

I met a man.

and what I am here to tell you, is that I am not ready to meet a man.  I was hardly able to make eye contact, was flooded with relief when I saw him in the room, and otherwise spent a lot of time avoiding being in his presence.

This is the era I find myself in.

so, just so you know.  I am not ready for this era, but am trying to do what some may call 'flow' and I call freaking out at multiple levels.

It is part of all that I am trying to accept these days. The whammy of j's new love, and utter quit of me. The creation of an intimacy-less relationship?

I don't know, man.

Evidently, I am much slower to move than I had thought.

Call me slug.

Friday, May 20, 2016

Afraid.

Today I head off to a hippy-dippy Quaker retreat with the boys, for the weekend.  The theme has to do with God's sense of humor.  I have a quote on my wall by the computer which says"humor is an affirmation of dignity",  and its a fortune cookie fortune.  And I think I'm a pretty funny girl, really, though these days have been pretty trying, and I only laugh with my kids.

It will be a place with calm, placid, loving adults and thirty or so rambunctious 8-10 year olds. And I am afraid.

I am afraid to be in a place of support and goodness for I fear I will be seen in my hot mess. And, as my friend Pam tried to counsel me, the worst case scenario is that someone would hold my hand and rub my back as I broke into a million pieces.

Vulnerability is risk and exposure. And when it is purposeful, it is brave. When it takes you over, frightening.

So I'm scared of the peace, contentment and guidance of Quaker compassion.

This retreat is for kids, not for me.
This makes me both a turd, and a woman who has a lot on her plate. And I'm grappling.

Fingers crossed that I am able to access Light during my time of shadow.

Fingers crossed.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Acceptance: divorce style.

There is a lot that I am being asked to accept these days.  And it is tough, especially when the heart rails against it all.

But I am working on it, because, as I am being told again and again, it is what it is...

what a flavorless sentence.

I am working on a post I'll put in the garden.  I think the boys may revolt.

The garden may also revolt if I don't tidy her up.

Womanhood and Motherhood have been strong with me lately, a real appreciation of how distinct they are, how freaking beautiful... I'm using gray, which is not a color I hold dear...

but it is a blending of the black and white world I find myself in...

a space wherein one can search out flavor, while waiting for dissolve... cracked and knotted but still holding...


Monday, May 16, 2016

What's your name?

Well. that's easy, right? Except when the first page of your mediation paperwork asks you, and you have to spend time thinking about whether you want to keep the name of your former husband, or revert back to a name that is full of love and trust and strength... but having a different name from the children?!

Is this a connection that I can let go of?
And if He is letting it go, can I hold on to it?  Will the kids even notice? Would I really tell people that I have changed my name? Or, for the schools, would I even notify them? Should I talk to the kids about this? Would this wound them, my asking? The thought that Mom might not have the same name? Would it make them feel more connected to their Dad than to me? (i know, i know, i know that is not so, but what am I staking my claim to, them? the name? what?)
Also, I happen to have the same name as my mother-in-law and now that, too, would be another severed connection.

What the fuck do I do, to answer the simplest of questions?




Photo Credit: ----screenname---- via Compfight cc

Sunday, May 15, 2016

I admire...

I admire all little girls.  The shy, the heavy, the thin, the loud, the quiet.  But I confess to the largest admiration of all, the strong.  Long, lanky, stocky, sticky... the muscles within and the confidence of body to know that it can do whatever one asks of it.

The surety of the body of these little ones, I am in love.

I chaperoned a school dance for fifth and sixth grade kids this weekend, and I found myself staring at these fawns in the woods of their pre-teen years... They were so graceful, and so unsure, covered with gobs of blue eyeshadow, and shoes that hurt, and sometimes, winter boots and sweat.   It was a menagerie of girlhood, all the stages of awkwardness and grace that exist, were in the woods that night.

The boys are wild boar, rushing about with smiles and glee and little notice of all that goes and grows on around them.

It was just awesome.

And while you would think it would provoke some memory or time of my own, it was sheer delight to watch a new herd of ladies make their way into the world.

this dance had few cryings in the corner, and no slow dances, so the challenge of that growth is still in the future.

There is so much to love and cherish.

also: Click on the also to see photographer Kate Parker talk about 'strong is the new pretty'...

Friday, May 13, 2016

Divorce Mediation

Prayers for me as I go into my first mediation meeting with J.  Let my strength and clarity of purpose shine forth, without rancor.


Let my belief in myself and what I want for my children be the greatest Light in the room.  Help me to turn from 'making things easy' to 'making things right'. 


Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Dead Chickens

My chickens were all killed on Friday night, sometime.  I was unable to close the door on their coop because J had an emergency and needed me to process it with,  and to watch the kids while he processed it.

Dead chickens.

I would do it again, if the kids needed me there, and even if J did. Supporting him is something I have done for most of my life, it feels.They needed an adult there to be consistent and safe. I slept on the couch.


But my chickens died for it, and in that, I see something.  Doesn't everyone?


Monday, May 9, 2016

Divorce, Mother's Day style.

I made my first big dinner as the head of my household. It was a hit with the kids and the adults ate it too. Rocked the first fried chicken dinner, as these things go. My in-laws were there, and will be there with me forever, whether the law says so or no. I love them to bits and pieces, and in their eyes and hearts, I will never be replaced, nor will they, for me.

It is hard to match that with how I feel about J. and his visions for his own future, which do not include me, except as the caretaker of the children.

Steel has no place in me. It is not the same for other people. J.'s hardness can be unbearable. But it is good to recognize that my porousness, if that be such a word, is also soft, and full of love and possibility.

These are tough days, and I am swamped by the reverberations of everything that I am hearing and doing and feeling.  I am just trying to find my clarity, but this is pretty swampy land, and I have no guide posts to feel my way along.

As my mother-in-law says to me often, 'it is what it is.' and while that is not particularly comforting, which is not in her demeanor, it is true.

But I get to choose what is next, and 'what will be'.  thats a whole different ballgame.

*and the day ended magically, with the kids playing outside while i was wrapped in a blanket on the porch. so there is MAGIC. and her name is MOTHER.

Friday, May 6, 2016

Calling all SuperReaders...

the littlest has been watching a lot of pbs while i take bath after bath to calm my heartbreak. so SuperReaders, answering the call, being a special agent for the toddler set, these are my soundtracks lately.
wonderful. maddening.




but really, i am in need of the pen and paper set. Please send me your address, because i need to write letters.  you can email me your address if you click my profile pic, and I'll write...


I WILL WRITE.


Thursday, May 5, 2016

Listening

Listening to the Stones'  Wild Horses is actually making me feel incredibly strong. I completely go away when I hear it. away, moongirl, away.

Listening to all my instincts having a war with each other: STOP! GO! all the time, and deciding to stay quiet to them, give myself more time before I speak, look around more often...

I think I'm going into a hibernation of sorts. Giving myself some time off from the rollercoaster.

Anything could happen tomorrow. Anything.


Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Oh MY, Ms. Truitt.. Logos and Flux.

SO, I haven't been reading that much lately, and its a bummer. But the weekends wherein I am 'free' have been taken up with sports and I do this very willingly (so much so that i question why anyone would question such.) because my boys do love their running soccer games and do detest their stultifying baseball games... but I am the mom, and the moon,  so I attend, no matter what 'custody/emotionally self-sabotaging' situations may be interfering in my life. MOM, of the roar variety.  I attend.

SO, what i have been doing is going extremely slowly through one specific book, Prospect by Anne Truitt.  IF you don't know who she is, that is expected, as she was a sculptor in the 60s through the 90s and not that many people are all up on the sculptors. yah. Her work was abstract, wood and layers upon layers of slightly differentiated colors... GO look her work up at www.annetruitt.org ... She was born in 1921 and died 2004, so she is contemporary, but not of my generation.

What this is, is a memoir of her year of turning 70, having a lifetime retrospective of her work in New York, and writing it all down as she goes.  She is extremely well-read, and writes with a gift.

I'm not done with it yet, but it is DEEPLY overdue at the library so i want to share it, finish the reading and then return it before they come after me. There is so much in here for me.  It reminds me a lot of Madeleine L'Engle's 'A Circle of Quiet', which I felt compelled to own, I loved it so.

What I've been grooving on?

Learning about Heraclitus and his views on Logos, the law that nothing changes and the Flux, the law that everything is always changing.
"He conceived of these laws as at once opposite and identical, as the convex and concave of a curving line are at once opposite and identical."

She believes herself to do her best work, when she, herself, grooves on in this space, the apparent discordance, the vibration of the betwixt and between and the space held there. the apart and the together.

I love this.

Throughout my journal of the past month, there are her quotes interspersed something fierce, She teaches about Hermes Trismegistis in the first pages, 'as above, so below'... and this, my favorite when I'm feeling the need to remind myself of my humanity, not just my bath-needing emotional wreckedness...

Homo sum: humani mil a me alienum puto.   I am human: nothing human is alien to me.

This: "a line of meaning was intermittently intersecting the line of our trajectory".   So graphic, so large.


I don't know if the richness of this read is coming across in my scattered way, but she is all of these:  artistic mentor, a mothering mentor and a grandmotherly mentor.

"The phrase 'Oh, it was you.' used to come into my mind when I first beheld my babies."...

Do you remember that moment?  It was exactly in my experience of the births of my children.  A recognition, deep and warm as the womb.


GO, find this at your library, or click the links.  She has two other books of memoir and I will be reading them... GO.

Monday, May 2, 2016

Hope. lost and found, and changed.

I had a nice day on Saturday, until i went awry.
I was channeling Skunk energy, if you know about animal medicine cards, and it was great.  I talked to the mediator, arrived in a sunny breezy spring day to the first soccer game, enjoyed... lay on a blanket with my three and watched play in uniform unfold.

Then traveled an hour with J and kids to the next game, also lovely.  felt almost normal, which is the trick on me I have to watch for more closely.

The ride home wherein I would be dropped off and the kids would go elsewhere really got me blue. The thinking ahead, the reality falling into my passenger seat. and the sadness and confusion.  And so i snapped a few times.  and i'm sorry for the snaps, because it is a tourettes of my emotional world.

I had been trying to ask J, in the car, about whether he was getting good support, who he was talking to, imagining that dating is not the time that emotional vulnerabilities about a failed marriage are discussed.  wanting to know which friends were bolstering him.  There is so much longterm intimacy that doesn't go away.  or, hasn't yet.

 and i have so much hope for him still, and worry and all those things I've done for so long, because he was my husband, and I thought our lives were connected forever, all the way down the lifelines.

One of my snaps was that I asked him to get me my weekly powerball ticket when he bought the kids donuts, and he joked that the law will say he gets half.  and it popped my hope bubble.

I've been buying the tickets to give myself a tangible, silly proof that having hope is not supposed to hurt. and in that moment, it hurt again.

I still have hope, and its pretty amorphous, and I don't even know what it IS that I'm hoping for, anymore.  but i'm going to buy my two dollar lottery ticket, because hope should not hurt, it is HOPE, for chrissakes.  and i am exercising my right to frivolous HOPE, whatever the odds.

Is there a point at which there is no turning back? or is there ever a point at which turning back is really an option? are we facing forwards no matter which way our head is turned? where our feet are pointed is our direction and the like?