Category Archives: Journaling My Days

I journaled for years on paper and I expect to be doing it in some form until my last days. In short summary, I teach mindfulness to parents of kids with challenges; I garden as often and as much as I can in Wisconsin and I am working through the threads of grief six years after my husband’s death. I am very grateful for finding and chasing the joy in this unexpected life.

apples, prejudice & bao

17 Tuesday Sep 2019

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img_5756The week opened into this new season.  I moved to Newton in the middle of summer but I am experiencing every bit of this new season as it rolls in.  Skies are blue except when they are not; dusky greens are just beginning to show color and we need more than our summer blankets at night.  

Last weekend, we picked apples in Stow, MA.  Saturday began with clouds and I was betting we could make it to the farm, pick apples and leave before the rain set in.  However, the rain began in earnest as we crossed the border into Stow.  So, we found a cafe in Maynard, the next town over, where we ate grilled cheese and I had a good coffee.  We parked next to a Harry Potter shop, found out that there is a Wizard’s Con in November, and looked at a lot of cool stuff.  Then the rain stopped and we were able to squish around in the apple orchard and bring home a bag of apples.   Continue reading →

our new world

11 Wednesday Sep 2019

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F4797A75-796A-4825-A9D8-80FCB91A8BBFLast week, Julia’s inclusion facilitator (a post previously called “case manager” and hereafter IF) told me that Julia was not put on the bus list in error and if it was possible for me to drive her for the week, she would get the bus this second week of school.  I agreed, jotting down the bus as a topic of conversation for our meeting this week.  Sunday evening, the bus service called me to tell me when Julia would be picked up on Monday.  This morning the bus was early and so tooted its horn for us.  I went to the door and Julia was out a few minutes later.  I talked to the driver who actually seemed to know the the time quoted to me was too late and that they were still making adjustments.  She apologized that I did not get phone call before this morning about changes.  I feel like I’m living in some utopian bizarro world!  In Madison (I’m not going to repeat the bus saga, the sped bus never tooted its horns if Julia was not waiting for it.  A bus pulled up to our house, waited a few minutes and then left.  There were a few times when I complained the bus never showed up and the dispatcher said that the bus was there, waited and left.  If the bus was early, especially in the early days of ninth grade, it could have escaped our notice.  So, this little curtesy, a tooting of the horn seems like a miracle to me. Continue reading →

first friday

06 Friday Sep 2019

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Notes:

~ I found a coffee shop with WiFi and other folks sitting and tapping away on laptops.  And pretty okay avocado toast and latte.  It is on a side street that is the size of an alley.  I had looked for it yesterday and couldn’t find it.  Clearly, it is a gem as there could not be much walk by traffic.  And I found a parking space.

~ Parking.  If I moved directly from Park Slope, Brooklyn, to Newton, MA, I would opine that parking in and around Newton was a challenge but not impossible.  However, having spent umpteen years in the midwest, parking in Newton feels close to impossible at times.  Also, having a line of cars behind me and no place to pull over and let them pass when I am looking for a parking space is uncomfortable.  I’ll get used to it, I know, just now . . . I am very grateful for early Jersey training in parallel parking.  The skill is like riding a bike. Continue reading →

morning pep talk

05 Thursday Sep 2019

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Julia finished two days.  She has come home happy both days.  I’ve gotten no frantic phone calls, emails or texts from anyone at school.  She lost her binder on the first day (found yesterday) and her new to her jacket on the second (she will look for it today).  There is a strict phone rule in her physics class—if the phone comes out in class, you lose it.  First time, until the end of class, second time, it goes to the house office with unknown consequences.  Good black line rule for Julia, nice that it is for everyone. I’ve driven her to school these two days and I will do so tomorrow as well.  Buses are messed up (Did I bring that challenge with me?).  Interestingly, the bus dilemma is not confined to sped buses and there was a general email from the principal about it yesterday.  He admitted that the primary reason for the problem is not enough planning and he has an idea about what to do for next year. For the present, more parents are driving kids to school.  Just like West, Newton North sits in the middle of a suburban neighborhood and as such does not have the roads to support school drop off traffic.  Our 6 minute drive takes 20 and getting out of melee takes more. The buses will help.  I think Julia appreciates our time in the car.  High anxiety yesterday, a slightly lower level this morning. Continue reading →

the practice of being a stranger

19 Monday Aug 2019

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On the steps of the Custom House.

Findings and observations, many without conclusions:

-I am making home and I prefer that I was done already.  Hanging pictures in the most compulsive manner.  Damn theses plaster, horse hair and lathe walls!  Small pictures need are hung velcro-y like strips.  Not buying them from Amazon but a “local” hardware store 25 minutes away.  Twenty five minutes is not too far to go for helpful advice.  On Sunday, I hung a large poster from a molding hook using fishing line. I may have to camp out in the living room all night to make sure the line does not stretch and/or break even though the hardware guy swore that he never sold a reel of fishing line to someone preparing to fish. I still have three pictures, big framed pictures, that I want to hang, that I cannot imagine not having on the walls in my home and I’m not sure how to do it.  I am used to banging a nail into dry wall, perhaps looking for a stud.  The patience of this house stretches me thin.  Continue reading →

perfect impermanence

29 Monday Jul 2019

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432344A0-42BB-428A-9AE6-065C84CA861D“The deeper that sorrow curves into your being‚ the more joy you can contain.” ~Khalil Gibran (Also, Sr. Francis said something like this to me when I sought her counsel after my first “true love” broke up with me. I have been taught the same lessons over and over.)

Writing around the photos from last week when I should be making phone calls. I almost posted pictures without words, thinking that energy should be put to the practical and useful.  I let that thought pass.

We made it to a beach on Friday.  Unfortunately, the beach itself was not all that hospitable. Revere Beach, which to tell the truth I had been warned might disappoint. It was low tide and the waves were smaller that Lake Michigan’s waves on a sunny day. The damp and wet sand was covered with a bit of sea weed and a lot of brown oozy stuff. I googled around trying to figure out what it was but the best I could find was a newspaper description of “yucky brown stuff that smells.”  Is it bacteria? Have I been away from oceans for too long to know what is normal? Continue reading →

transplanting

21 Sunday Jul 2019

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The great warrior cat, Muta, guards, protects and keeps cool.

Saturday. 4:34 pm. 95 Degrees F (35 C). 

The house is pleasant with the window air conditioner working in the living room and the portable air conditioner at the other end of the house in the kitchen.  We’ve been puttering all day, only pausing briefly to check outside on how hot the hot really was.  Julia unpacked our CDs onto the rack.  I rearranged furniture; consolidated boxes, put the IKEA tv table together, organized the electric cords for the tv, air conditioner and internet, put stuff that I have no room for on Facebook Marketplace and answered email.  It has been a productive day but strangely unsatisfying.

I have 10 boxes left to unpack (There are more boxes in the basement but most are storage boxes.  At least, for now.).  Inside the 10 boxes is art, pictures, and decoration.  Funny, I think I started with 10 boxes of art, etc., and I’ve unpacked a few.  Is the art multiplying? Continue reading →

growing home

15 Monday Jul 2019

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“Emptiness refers to the absence of something that, for some reason, one expects to find—as when we say a glass, normally used to hold liquids, is empty even though it is full of air. The point is not that there is nothing there at all, but rather that what is there differs from your expectations.” ~William S. Cobb, “The Game of Go”

Expectations. Emptiness. What I hold on to that I don’t even form into thoughts, into the stuff of consciousness. Unconscious expectations. Ah, that is interesting stuff.

Sunday.  Julia is up first, watched some tv, folded her clothes and taking a shower.  For days, her lack of independence compared to her typical peers has been what I see and I have felt such sadness.  For me, for sure, but more, for her.  Listening to her move around our new home, sounds that are unfamiliar and not easily identified, I see, ah yes, I see, expectations.  For all that I preach, to myself and others, about natural unfolding and patience, I am still comparing her to peers. I am comparing peacocks to robins. Continue reading →

oops

12 Friday Jul 2019

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Small adventures.  A visit to Newton-Wellsley Hospital for help applying for Julia’s MassHealth insurance and then hours at my desk filling out the supplemental disability form.  Done and mailed and waiting.

A visit to the MA Registry of Motor Vehicles on Monday to get (1) my license, (2) MA plates and (3) a non-driver’s license ID for Julia.  I didn’t bring sufficient documentation for my license and I don’t yet have sufficient documentation for Julia’s ID.  And Oy, registration and plates.  I need my title to change registration and I don’t have one.

It’s a long story, a perfect example of the perils of procrastination.  Continue reading →

notes from the spiral

07 Sunday Jul 2019

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The Newton Living room/Dining room 

A week and two days.  Hold tight.  This is long.  I’ve taken notes.  I am really tired and last night Cheshire and Justin brought over an “extra” air conditioner to take the edge off the heat.  We’ve made it though the loading, the drive, the almost catastrophe, the arrival, the delivery, seeing our new home, a measure of unpacking, and our ninth death day celebration.  Lots of being here with some worry on the side.

Beginning last Thursday.  Closing on the Madison house and the journey out here were, as in any good transformative tale, challenging.  My buyers hesitated and complained a bit. Wedding jitters? This might have been their first old house buy or their first buy together.  My cleaners were responsible for some of the anxiety—the middle burner on the stove top probably still wet from cleaning did not immediately light and the cellar floor, still wet from a wash, suggested a wet basement.  Then, the central air did not immediately switch on and blow out cold air, but I hadn’t run it yet this season and directions needed to be followed.  Does anyone read directions? Eventually and with some realtor help, signing happened.  I worried and fretted from the road and was happy and relieved that I had pre-signed what I needed to do last week. Continue reading →