Winter middle school concert, solo concert, birthday brunch (ordering and cutting herself!, indoor miniature golf (Wisconsin’s best on a freezing rain day) and lunch with a friend.
Certainly, a very sweet birthday and a busy week.
The elaboration. Continue reading
Yesterday, I noticed Julia asking whether it was true that C was coming over to sit for her in the evening. C sat during the week and told Julia that she was coming on Sunday. Julia never remembered stuff like that—time and people—before. We’ve had months of her asking what we were doing tomorrow and what comes next in the day, usually at inappropriate moments. Vacations, breaks and visits with her sister are being commented on in terms of how soon they are coming up. Mostly questions. And during our latest travels to Chicago and Indianapolis, Julia asked more than once when we were going home and wanted to know how many more days could we stay. These are very small steps forward but she may be developing some sort of time sense.
I take a sense of time for granted. We leave at a particular time to get to school on time, to get to meetings, to get to the movies before previews. If we use up our time doing one task there is no time for the other, possibly preferred, task. Christmas and birthdays and vacations are so many days and months away. Without a sense of time, the wake up alarm is merely an annoyance, rushing or taking our time makes no sense, and so many references in books and movies are wasted. Continue reading
Last year I began my resolutions by reflecting on the old year and reviewing the resolutions and goals that I had proposed. The process bore fruit. An overarching idea surfaced and I realized a guiding principle. Not that I always acted from that principle or could check off all of the tasks that I set for myself, but I appreciated the guidance. The principle was a simple one: To allow. Right now, I can remember so many times when I forgot it, when I pushed and strained, when I insisted. And many of those times turned out badly, or merely not in anyone’s highest good. Although I feel the need to move on from this principle, I want to remember to allow without thought of success or failure, without expectation or grasping.
This year there are two ideas surfacing: Use ego as a foundational tool and strength. Allow my generous heart to serve as guide. In one sense, the two may appear more active. They are. On the other hand, they feel like continuations of allowing. Certainly, the second grows from allowing plus a few resolutions that have been on my list for a few years. The first comes from need. Recently, I’ve come to a realization that I may never have a partner again in this lifetime. Okay, duh! To the extent that partner means an intimate relationship, I’ve been partnerless for six and a half years and perhaps I should have taken the hint sooner. But it is more. I have been dependent upon others in a way unhealthy for for my soul’s growth and it is time for me to find my own foundation and my strength. This is not the severing of connections. I am valuing my connections, my friends, my community and certainly, my family more than ever. But they are not purpose and not for survival. Those are up to me. Alone. And although feeling rather inarticulate about the fullness of this feeling, I hope to explore it and grow with it in the coming year.
2017 guiding principles: Use ego as a foundational tool and strength. Allow my generous heart to serve as a guide.
And now for 2017 resolutions:
Sit
Be gentle with dualities
Give more, expect less
Love extravagantly
Ask for help
Cultivate courage in fearful circumstances
Keep moving
Write
Turn off the screens and read
And now some tasks for the first six months of 2017:
Teach Julia about friendship
Develop Mindful Circle
Plan travel
Question high school and contemplate home
Schedule posts for the website and blogs
Write panksy
Consider the possibility of home projects
*art by Duy Huynh
Coming home from New Years visiting of friends and feeling the contentment of both journey and home. Needing a few quiet day to settle and catch up. Needing to make and put into practice some of the new year’s resolutions. Needing to organize to send out holiday cards-more on that later. Needing to figure out just how to plunge into the new year. Then again, the plunge has happened. Umm, am I already behind? Continue reading
Winter came on Sunday. Seems like a Dr. Suess announcement.
Julia woke up a bit before 8 and announced, “Snow. It’s snowing.” I am never crazy about the first snow. Not the snow so much as the driving. Sometime in a month or so, I’ll be ready to drive through blizzards and on inches of ice, but that first snow fall . . . All I want to do is light a fire, drink hot cocoa and huddle under my crocheted Afghan on the couch. Continue reading
Back from a week of NYC travel. A different kind of holiday, a different kind of time spent in NYC.
We usually spend Thanksgiving with old friends in a country setting but that didn’t work for us this year and so, Julia and I were in NYC, actually Kew Gardens, Queens, with Cheshire. The time was notable because we spent more time in her apartment than we have in the past and did not do any visiting of family or friends. Continue reading
On Saturday, Julia and I went to our second Zentangle class at FUS. The instructor, who encourages Julia, instructed most of us at a comfortable speed. Julia drew three times the amount that the rest of us did, adding detail, changing patterns, making mistakes and altering her spaces on the little tiles. Her tile is the one in the middle.
Last Wednesday, we had a parent-teacher conference. Julia conducted the conference, reading her notes on how she had done the preceding quarter and what she intended to do this next quarter. She has made the honor roll last quarter of 7th grade and this first of 8th grade, and she is proud of herself. She entered middle school not caring in the least about grades or tests or comparing herself to anyone. Her grades are scaled, she is not really compete with her typical classmates, but for me, she competes with the girl who started 6th grade and I see how far she has come.
Continue reading
I’ve started writing almost every day since Tuesday and went straight down the rabbit hole of self-pity. It was a greater pity than “self,” making the hole deeper and wider and so easy to tumble into. Having no partner to debrief with adds to the rabbit hole quality of the writing. I read articles by those who have written eloquently. What do I have to add? I thought of posting links to all the articles that I’ve read. For days, I could post links. Instead, I tried to find quiet. Not an easy tasks with the furies and demons circling. Continue reading
After watching the debates and talking about the election in school, Julia is very much into it. She fished out an old Obama button from some treasure trove and is wearing it along with two new Hillary buttons. Her assignment for Tuesday is to color a map as results come in. She told me that she is going to color the whole thing blue before any results come in. Magical thinking to be sure, but she’s got the right idea. Continue reading
Introducing Blaze the Cat, Sonic the Hedgehog’s sister. We are going for interpretation instead of exact copying. We’ve come a long way from dancing dinosaurs that had to look like what they were.
Halloween is not just a one day affair in Madison, so Julia wore her costume skating on Sunday and then on Monday night for trick ‘r treating. We bought the wig and ears but not surprisingly, the rest of the costume is in her wardrobe.
Julia looks pretty good with purple hair.
HP pumpkins made with help from two very nice genetics grad students who are visiting us as part of their LEND work.
Chasing Joy 