And the trillium Fritillaria affinis are blooming. (Thank you, http://myfoodandflowers.wordpress.com. Not trillium but Fritillaria affinis.) Spring has taken its time. Waking to bird song from the open window closest to my pillow before the sun. Planting plans floods my consciousness. My second thoughts are of neglected gardens and things planted in haste and without the followup care needed to establish them. The beds in the back garden are weedy and overrun with a few perennials that hog space and push out everything else. I’ve pulled and arranged, especially last fall and transplanted some things from the front garden that needed dividing. Without real plans. The winter has not been kind and for moments yesterday I felt the sting of failure. But gardens need tending and care and the emotions of the gardener are dug in like compost. Like soil enrichment, the consequences are visible a season in the future. Or two. And grieving has not been good for my garden. The gardens of my Indianapolis home were ambitious. Now I remember them as such beauties but I worked very hard with a heart that pulled the beauty from the soil. And those beds were not without withering and dying. In Madison, since David’s death, gardens are afterthougths and responsibilities, more burdens than works of love. I’ve worked on them and have not sat in their midst. I have the time, if I wanted to take it, but not the will. This is not a willing spirit and weak flesh. Both are weak and it does show. But daffodils bob and wave and the trillium are blooming. Spring renews and the work of the fall — bulb planting in the front garden and bed defining in the back garden — shapes my first thoughts this morning. Is this the year to truly begin again. Third thoughts this morning are of planning a corner of the back garden. This was an awful, ugly little part when we moved in but there is an old lilac, an overgrown forsythia and a few stones laid for a bench to sit on. Here is where I will make my stand this spring. A cleaning, a design, a planting, and faithful watering. Some grass seed for the lawn that butts up to the edge and mulch to keep the weeds at bay. Such a simple plan. Self consciously, I thrill to this sure sign of spring deep inside. My perennial resilience is sending up shoots.
Author: Suzanne Buchko
mother’s day
This was started yesterday when I had limited sleep and a curmudgeon-y view. So, when I read Carrie Contey’s article about communicating mother’s day wants to family to have a satisfying mother’s day, http://t.e2ma.net/message/wv6x4/so6dmv, I grumbled. I’ve had no trouble finishing up today, with sleep and a much brighter view. Perhaps my inner curmudgeon just needs to escape and dance.
I’ve never been a big fan of the Hallmark holidays. Mother’s Day was always the perfect opportunity to prove that I really was the less than adequate daughter and granddaughter. No matter how hard I tried, and there was probably a good measure of passive aggressive behavior going on, cards were late, gifts never made it, and I always picked the wrong restaurants. Then, there were the years when I was a florist and mother’s day was simply hell. Although not everyone has a sweetheart to buy overpriced roses for on Valentines Day, everyone, everyone, everyone in the world has/had a mother, and the number of “children” in need of a gift on the celebratory day is overwhelming. The beginning of those days were fun and sweet and endearing but by twilight, when the last customer of the day banged on the locked door, demanding the dozen yellow roses that had been sold out the day before, the glow of filial love was hard to be warmed by.
From the time I was pregnant with Cheshire until four years ago, David managed mother’s day activities. In Indianapolis, where we lived for a long time and where mother’s day heralded garden planting season, my perfect celebration was to shop for annuals and tomato plants the day before or the morning of the day and then to spend as much time as I could outside putting a few hundred annuals into the ground. David would cook and I think I might have had the choice of movie in the evening. David and Cheshire would give me a card or cards and probably a small gift although I have to admit that although the vision of planting is vivid in my memory, the gifts I received are not. Sorry, Cheshire, if you labored long and hard over something. Some years we went out for brunch sharing the morning with Marcia and Matthew, but mostly I loved the warm May planting day.
No! I take that back. I do remember two hand made gifts from Cheshire, one a lovely purple pillow with lace trim that she sewed; however, remembering reminds me why —
Now, I simply hate mother’s day.
I’ve held back from this admission for a few years feeling that it is rather ungrateful to complain about not being celebrated. After all, there were so many lovely, perfect celebrations and no one has an unqualified right to be celebrated. However, the day just makes me unhappy and jealous and full of worry, and these are my reasons:
~ I don’t know what other single mothers do but these last four years have demonstrated that mother’s day is really wife/partner day. It is the partner who is orchestrating — getting cards and gifts, making sure little fingers sign the cards, keeping secrets, cooking or making reservations, planning for festivities which may include naps or baths. When there is no partner, who does this?
~ As a single mom of a kid who doesn’t yet get any part of the gift giving/card making/even wishing part of mother’s day, I am more than ambivalent about reminding Julia to make me something or to wish me a happy day. Oy! That necessity to remind and prompt brings on waves of self-pity and can induce worry — will she ever be aware enough to wish me happy mother’s day?
~ Cheshire is too far away. During this time of the year, it has usually been a few months since I’ve seen her and so not having her here for mother’s day (and no, I don’t want a visit on Hallmark holidays) accentuates those missing and longing feelings. It also brings on an embarrassing bout of jealousy. Her very nice boyfriend has a very lovely family which include a mother, grandmother, aunts, etc., and it is with them that I imagine she will spend at least part of her day. Really, I am not proud of these feelings, I don’t expect her to lock herself in her house and not celebrate his mother because her own is not near, neither do I expect her to keep any celebration to herself and not tell me. It is all irrational!
~ There is no one to buy a card for. Yes, I used to complain about buying cards, but everyone to whom I owed a card to is dead. I’ve mused about celebrating my sister and friends who are wonderful mothers but I am much too mired in self-pity to take that on. I also imagine, without any real knowledge, that those friends are all surrounded by orchestrating families. Again, the self-pity is just embarrassing.
~ Finally, mother’s day reminds me that I never had a warm, loving mothering relationship. I could never bring myself to buy overly affectionate cards — perhaps not at all overly affectionate for those who have good relationships — and then felt guilty that I could not bring myself to buy the cards that my mother wanted. We were the cliche she and I — I never had to go out of my way to displease her. My choices were never hers, and deep down, I don’t think she liked me very much. Perhaps it was not personal. Which is sad but not terrible, but I still regret, just a bit, a very little bit, that I never figured out how to have a relationship with her.
So, that’s it. I’m done. With the inner curmudgeon tap dancing on a virtual table, I don’t feel half bad. And I wonder what to plan to do on Sunday.
dukkha
I meant to go to bed early tonight. Well, I did go to bed early, found a pleasant movie, watched most of it, started dozing off, turned it off and turned over to go to sleep. And then, every worry in the world descended. Or no specific worry. Unspecific anxiety took over. It has been coming on all day, starting this morning when I set aside time to write email queries about teaching meditation. I managed to get off one email and then panic took over. Tonight I decided that I am not ready to offer services and need time and some kind of practice. The dukkha or suffering here is secondary. I worry that I am anxious because I will never be ready to do anything! A bit of hyperbole but in alignment with my feelings.
Living with this inside all day, growing and fermenting. Finally tonight with this sleeplessness, it dawns on me that this is about transition and graduation. I set a number of goals for myself this school year and I have met them. And now what?? The “now what” is my fear that I will allow fear to overtake me and not DO anything. That I will freeze in place or move sideways. It is so very hard for me to rest in completion. Rest and allow what is next to come to me.
Rest and allow does not come naturally. And there is the planning of Julia’s summer and the transition to middle school to stress and worry over. No, there is no reason to stress and worry. I have support, good support, and some very good options, but there was no convincing myself today that worry was not the only way to deal with it.
I would like to write that after writing and sitting with this suffering that it has dissolved and I am at peace. Well, not so easy but i am willing to be with it, willing to feel it and let it have its way for the time it needs to. It is irrational and transitory. It will move on. i am much closer to observing without judgment on this one, not all the way there yet, but closer than ever before.
time away
I feel the drag of not writing for what feels like a long time. Checking now — and two weeks is as long as I can go. Sometimes, like this time, I mean to catch up but don’t want to or cannot take the time, lose more time, lose momentum and refuse to write. Until I cannot stand it any longer, and that is today.
I’ve had the odd feeling for a few days that I have been rehearsing living for quite a while and that I am now living. It has to do with grieving — that sheer will of putting one foot in front of the other day after day no matter the reason, the need to survive for a child, for a reason unnamed, the confusion of why. I did not realize that this was what I was doing. Yes, the willful survival during the first year or so, but I imagined myself past that a long time ago. Last week, I realized as I was making my bed that I no longer pull up the covers with the promise that I will live the day and be rewarded with a warm bed and the oblivion of sleep when I am tired. It startled me that I did not need the promise of oblivion to begin and get through the day. I did not even remember when and if I first made that promise to myself.
Julia report:
- Last weekend’s RE class was long and boring, too much material and just many, many words without illustration and only one diversion — a “science” experiment, pouring different liquids into a cup to watch them turn colors and wipe away color. It was an illustration of an closed and open mind. Julia was quiet, sometimes preoccupied with picking fingers or her own thoughts, but not at all disruptive. After class, I asked Julia what the class was about. She was able to tell me about the science experiment and absolutely nothing else. Words, without embellishment, just don’t work for her. This is not a new observation but a good reminder as I get ready to talk to middle school teachers.
- We are still riding the new big bike around the block whenever it is warm enough to do that. I am still running behind her. She is not yet secure enough to take on more. However, balance is good and she is consistently braking with hand brakes and not jumping off the bike. Getting started is not always easy. I am hoping to have the patience to wait her out and run around the block until she is ready to go further.
- At Gallery Night last Friday at Randall School, Julia sold the six pictures of birds that she drew for the event. Julia has had a hard time letting go of her work to anyone. Favorite teachers and therapists have asked for a picture that Julia has made and she has flatly refused. So this felt like a big step. Money helped. She took her $6 (and we could have charged more) and spent it on what other kids made — a big yellow flower and a pen with a flower on one end.
Some friends have offered to buy pictures from Julia’s fairy dinosaur ballerinas series. We made prints for teachers last year at the end of school. I am wondering if I can interest her in making more pictures and also making prints and/or cards as a summer project. We could sell to friends and if we did a healthy number have a booth at our church art fair which is in the fall. I see a number of reasons to take on such a project. My hesitation is Julia’s ownership of it. For so much of the time, it is me or teachers or therapists who lead the way for Julia — setting up experiences, guiding her through them and then doing most of the reflection when the experience is over. I admit that at time, I get tired of leading her. Typical children are led as well — the decision to engage in suzuki lessons after a very little child expresses an interest is about leading. It is more than a rare four year old, or 7 or 10 year old who wants to practice daily. And I guess I am still on that typical child’s calendar. By 13, I expect that the child will want what they are doing at least as much or better still more than the parent. Not so with Julia and I hope that I am doing what is best when I devise and push projects and activities.
Last Friday, during Gallery Night an art teacher from another school in town did henna hand painting. Julia and I both had our hand painted — hers in a lotus design, mine with a sunflower. The flowers were lovely and I so enjoyed the decoration. Mine is gently fading; Julia’s less so. I have my hands in more water than she does. This is the child who will one day get a tattoo.
I have joined the Forgiveness Challenge (http://journey.forgivenesschallenge.com), Desmond and Mpho Tutu’s 30-day, world wide online workshop. I am on day 3. Of course, there is much work to do.
Seder
A day after an FUS Seder and a day before Easter Sunday and waist deep in spring break.
Julia and I went to the FUS seder yesterday. There is a Haggadah written for Unitarians and there are a lot of cultural Jews who are Unitarians (lapsed Catholics also make up a decent part of congregations). Previous to this time, we went twice in 2011 and 2012. Both times, I was uncomfortable. There were not many kids and Julia stuck out — her behavior was not out of control but she was not interested in the readings, hated waiting to eat the food that was laid in plain sight, and was not really talking to people she did not know. None of this was out of the realm of normal behavior for her age group. It was just that her behavior was in comparison to the adults who were there. Perhaps it was as simple as my own comfort level. I was not at home at FUS. I was not sure I belonged at the Seder and did not want to explain that I was there because David was Jewish, I loved doing Seders with him, and I wasn’t ready to do it at home. I think I left the first one red eyed and mute, it had been a very long night.
This year, finally, finally, it was different. There is something about assuming home. I signed us up for set up and we were there two hours before the festivities. We set tables and put ceremonial foods out for each table. I did whatever a very sweet older woman told me to do. In our chatting, I found out that her husband had died 4.5 years ago and although she still did Seders at home, doing at at FUS for the big group – almost 50 — was very comforting to her. I shared my experience and I did what I have always been good at. I helped her serve — getting up before the end of the service to help her with the soup and getting the soup bowls on the tables before the soup got cold.
We sat with some people we know. Not everyone at the table, but some old neighbors with whom it was wonderful to catch up with and a couple who usually go to Saturday service like we do. Conversation was not always flowing but I could feel myself extending myself and adding to keeping our socializing going. This is in sharp contrast to the last few years when I’ve felt myself a drain on social gatherings and a conversation stopper. I am not totally comfortable in large gatherings or gatherings of near strangers but it is a relief to have whatever I’ve needed to engage in company once again.
Julia is also at home at FUS. She helped at setup some but she also sat and read her latest adventure book — a birds with swords story — and talked to who ever passed or sat close to her. Some people know her, and some are surprised by her, but I’ve stopped feeling the need to explain her all the time or to protect her or her listener from what is difficult to understand. She is practicing. People at FUS will help her or will move away. And most will help. Last night, a number of them told me how charming she is. And I smile a very grateful thanks.
Once again, there were few children — a baby just one, and two little boys, 4 and 6 — and none to read the four questions or open the door for the prophet, Elijah. Julia jumped up and ran to the door for the later, and was more than willing to read the four questions. (In 2012, she could not do the reading) She didn’t love the whole ceremony but she was present for most of it. She took in all of it. She read along and out loud at the appropriate times and took a stab at singing the songs.
The Haggadah that we used omitted the story of the four kinds of children. That is my favorite part because the message is about including all children in the reading of the Exodus story, the teaching of the next generation. In the past I had thought of Julia as the child who did not even know how to ask any question, last night, she was almost the wise child, willing and eager to ask questions and to learning about her ancestors.
In a little while, we will pick up her new bike. We ordered it last week, and I’ve already been to the store and asked for some adjustment to be made before we pick it up. I am hoping. Yes, I am hoping that she will love it and we will be biking all summer.
hot lunch
Julia ordered hot lunch at school on Thursday. She did it deliberately. Before lunch time, she took her brought-from-home lunch out of the class lunch bin and put it in her locker. When the class went down to lunch she got in line for hot lunch and took a hot plastic tray to her seat. It was pizza and she was very pleased. Her teacher and an aide caught the aberration too late and let her just eat. Julia has been taking her lunch to school since kindergarten — for a long time she didn’t like the bread based lunches that were served, the food is not that good, and frankly, I don’t think she noticed that other kids were getting school lunches.
Her teacher fired off an email to report this behavior.
And so did Julia. I mean she told me. First thing off the school bus was . . . to back up, she came off the school bus excited to tell me something. This is very rare. I am usually prodding and scaffolding for a few words about the day. She declared that she wanted to eat hot lunch at school. I could almost hear, “like everyone else.” At least, I think so.
I have a lot of questions about this. I could theorize. Is this an opening out and due to her visual therapy? Did she know that pizza was being served? I don’t consider that this was impulsive behavior — seems pretty deliberate and planned to me.
saturday
You get up where you fall down. You don’t get up somewhere else. It’s where you fall down that you establish your practice.
—Ryokan Steve Weintraub, “Umbrella Man”
Facebook seems to be always full of links and games and quotes. For me it is not as appealing as it was when it was friends posting about glories, worries, and mishaps. And the stellar achievements of their offspring. Still, every once in awhile, there is something that is undeniably attractive.
This. Above.
First day of spring break, we sleep in — by an hour which is no where near enough for me — Julia is starving — had no interest in eating well yesterday when she was with friends while I went to the theater — I am feeling low to begin with — rain outside, wrestling with the bike decision for Julia, wanting to be outside, feeling uncomfortable with the online course assignment, and grumpy because I wanted to sleep in, really sleep in. I get up to take my shower, ask Julia to get dressed. Ask Julia to get dressed. Ask Julia to get dressed. She is in bed playing with her iPad. She loses the iPad for the day. Our standard deal — no listening, no iPad.
And I don’t expect to have any fun today. I can see it all now. This is precisely where I fall down. The question is can I get up, really get up to begin again, not to add to the embers of anger and resentment and discontent that I am guarding inside. Can I sit with this, sit without judgment and then move.
When days begin this way, Julia seems to push more buttons, be especially uninterested in pleasing me, drops things because she is not paying attention, and similar annoyances.
I move through the beginnings of the morning — meds, breakfast, schedule (I always write a schedule for Julia), and my list. We so social study test studying and some cello before we leave for clinic. And we sit for twenty minutes. I sit with my grumpiness and by the end I can almost look at it without seeing it as just plain bad.
I get through my list while Julia is at therapy at clinic — return a drier, buy something for Cheshire, do the big good shopping at Woodman’s which is crazy on a Saturday. Go to the coffee shop, have some and order something else for Cheshire. When Julia is finished we go to REI, order her bike and buy her summer sandals. Gratitude rears its head when I find out she can still fit into a kids size Keens — the adult sizes are twice the price of kids.
We go to chufgrg rch, early, so we sit and work on a few math problems. I co-teach and don’t really have much to say at all. I am hardly a coach through the arts & crafts portion of class. I decide no to the potluck, lonely today but not sure I can pull off friendly. We go home and I cook. I haven’t heard from my sitter for the evening. I was scheduled to go to a party. Sitter doesn’t show, texts last minute. She is ok, i was worried about her. I don’t mind staying home.
We watch Frozen, singing along with all the songs except for that cutting ice song. Julia goes to bed and reads. I work on easter eggs and watch Parenthood. I’ve done nothing for my online course today, but it is the intimidation quotient is a good deal of what set my mood for today.
Sleep is late and blessed.
Somedays, making it through is the success. It is all a practice.
transitions
I am going on retreat this weekend. My last scheduled retreat through Quest. It took me signing up for a 2-year program and promising to go to all of the retreats (6 in all) in order to allow myself to take time for myself. Now, I need to make sure I keep it up — like exercise, like practice, like anything out of my daily round, I can forget so easily how important self care is.
When I was part of a couple, it was not necessarily easier to remember to take care of myself, but there was . . . I don’t know a word for it. Couple-time. Down time together. We took time — as simple as a walk or a late night tea, sitting on the couch cuddling watching a movie. There was self care and also care for the beloved and most of the time that was enough to fill me. Perhaps that is another reason to couple. I did not have to work at care. I cared because I loved.
Now, it needs to be deliberate. And so be it.
My sphere is small. Sometimes smaller than I realize. A friend called from England last night and my phone was turned off. When Julia went to bed, I went to call back and discovered that I could not make an international call on my cell. It struck me that my world had shrunk very small if, in the last four years, I had not even discovered that I could not make international calls. Of course, now I remember that it was not a concern when I had a landline and then we used Skype all of the time when Cheshire was traveling. But in truth, I have not thought about this is a long time. The idea makes me claustrophobic. How small I have made my box. How insulated. I understand the urge and the need for such diminutive size. Healing, at least for me, is not done in a large forum. Small feels very safe. And after all of this change, change is still a challenge. I find I must be vigilant to support it. I proclaim and most of the time imagine that I have readied myself to accept and embrace change. That it has become my way of life. But however true that may be in some realms in others it is a true lie.
I have stopped using commas. I have overused them for years and now . . . when?
Julia: Very happy to have me away for a weekend and to spend the time with one of her beloved therapists. I could wonder if this means good attachment or bad. I both fear and embrace wholeheartedly her need for independence. We are working through a trauma book with Marilyn (attachment/trauma therapist). Julia has been drawing pictures of a “sad, mad, scared” brain and of a happy brain. The pictures are quite amazing. She captures feelings. When we ask her to make these drawings, after reading a description, she happily trots to the table and begins work. Yes, I think she thinks in pictures, and although I can talk about it and read about it, I really do not understand it. I so definitely think in words.
Last weekend, I wrote down “rules” for solving simple math word problems. The rules are illustrated — at least as well as I can do that. We have been using the rules. I had Julia do her paragraph writing for the week about the rules for problem solving. Another way to get the rules into her brain. I am not interested in any math work — which I imagine will always be a challenge for Julia — for its own sake. No “two trains departing from opposite sides of the world going different speeds with some finite number of stops each and where do they meet.” I want her to be able to go into an art store, order supplies, and know if she has sufficient cash to pay for them.
Julia broke her first easter egg. Her thumb went right through a shell she was working on. It is inevitable to break a few eggs in the beginning. Who knows how careful you must be with eggs until you break a few?! She handled it very well — felt badly, didn’t really want to throw it away but didn’t want a smelly eggs around, and moved on. There is evidence of her years of intensive therapy!
And my Curriculum Training Course with Mindfulschool.com began last evening with an online video introduction. It is a big class — 40 on the call, at least three times that in the class. I am excited to get going. I can almost feel myself crossing a threshold.
will and grit and persistence
I wrote this next thinking about a grieving friend at the beginning of the month. These thoughts did not seem appropriate to send but I like them. It is me writing to the me of three years ago. It is the affirmation of that part of the struggle. That part of the path. And so —
Again, thinking of you. Our season is finally changing — snow mounds shrinking and turning a uniform gray, people walking without huddled, squashed faces and birds singing with unbridled enthusiasm. During the first years after David’s death, changes of season were are hard as holidays and family celebration days. I wrestled with the twin pulls of a past that I could not re-create and a future that looked awfully bleak. The first fall I wanted to paste the leaves back onto the trees and paint them green. I did not want David to miss the autumn. The solace I found was in the center — putting rice into the cooker at the end of the day, running around the block holding on to the back of Julia’s bike as she learned to ride a two wheeler, reading about atypical development in children, walking the dog and shopping for food. Searching for and then finding the quiet center. This process of grieving is not passive. True, some of it seems to require vast amounts of sleep that can be impossible to get. So much requires will and grit and persistence. It is work.
Even in the depths of despair there needs to be an ember of wanting some future that will not hurt so much. To have any less is to lose the future to the past and not touch the present.
fun
Julia got out of school at 10:45 and I was in a LEND workshop helping to facilitate for the day. One of our respite providers was able to stay with Julia until 2 and then dropped her off at Waisman. Julia hung out and on her iPad while I finished up my day.
It has been my habit to go home after a day like this and have a work night. Math, reading, cello, social studies and anything else that Julia needs to be working on. And a decent supper from scratch or the freezer. We do not take many days off.
And so, we took the rest of today off. We went to a 4:40 show of the Lego Movie and for the first time ever, I wished I was a 9 year old boy who was obsessed with Lego. The plot was nothing to speak of but it was fun and silly and had some really cool Lego effects — my favorite was the undulating Lego ocean. We had popcorn and stayed through the credits. When we got home, Julia dragged out her Legos and went to building — of course, what else? And I made some rice and scrambled eggs with rice. We watched another episode of Star Trek and Julia went to bed. I am looking for fun. Some undemanding, indulgent, un-useful fun.
It has been a long time since fun has been on the agenda. I don’t know if that is mainly because of the therapeutic life that we’ve led or grieving. Or some combination of the two. There is so much work to do but recently I remember weekend afternoon naps while Miazaki was on the tv, walks, just walks, toys all over the house and long conversations with a beer. I remember Julia laughing much more than she does now as a rule. And I can remember this without tears or depression or regret. I can hold the sadness and still wish I was a 9 year old boy. I realize that I’ve never had the discussion with anyone about balancing a therapeutic life with fun but perhaps I need to find someone to have that discussion with.
It is time for fun.
Chasing Joy 