Category: 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.

small steps

IMG_2166Julia put a new roll of toilet paper in the holder on Friday.  A small gesture but one of the “one small step . . .” kind of things.  I know that for any 13 year old to actually notice that some household chore needs to be done and to do it without being asked is pretty incredible.  For Julia, the noticing of the world around her in that way and to reach out to contribute to it is a “giant leap.”

Is the the vision therapy and probiotics at work?  Or is it just maturation?  Certainly, it can’t just be being 13.

Brunch yesterday with friends and talk about middle school and their coming sabbatical.  The middle school talk was interesting.  I got to vent which I seem to need to do with ever increasing frequency these days.  My friend talked of how much she likes the school that I decided not to send Julia to.  I cannot say that Julia would have been better served there.  The change of principal seems to work in that school’s favor but it was big and crowded and at least last year there was no possibility of asking for an art class each semester.  But my friend talked of the near magical teachers, welcoming community and her son absolutely beamed talked about HIS school.  Oy!

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recovery

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Laying in bed this morning, waiting for Julia to wake up to begin the day.  I am sore and a bit achy in the body after pushing myself yesterday to plant 400 bulbs.  If I bought next autumn’s bulbs the day after I planted, I would probably have many fewer tulips and narcissus in my garden.  And yet, I am so very grateful that my optimism and passion for the garden has returned.  Actually, it has been around the whole of this planting and weeding year.

Last fall, after a rather dreadful emotional summer, I seemed to emerge from the heavy years of grieving.  Last year, around this time, I realized that I was walking around with a lighter air.  I did not trust the feeling and kept looking around behind myself to see if the gloom and doom goonies were waiting to pounce.  I waited for the inevitable sadness to descend when something attempted failed or someone said something, did something, something something to remind me of the life I lost.  I was metaphorically shifting my eyes from side to side checking.

And of course, the time from then to now has not been without feeling sad or lonely or yearning for what I cannot have again.  But the burden of carrying that baggage around does not weigh on me as it did.  Perhaps I have earned a wheeled suitcase with expanding handle to haul around my baggage.  Wheels help.

In a celebratory but slightly achy mood, I feel like I can finally announce with glee that I’ve started reading again!  This too has been coming on slowly.  To lose the pleasure of reading and to live without it has been awful.  I’ve always read.  It is an activity that defines me — not that when someone asks what I do, I announce passionately that I read, but to myself and for myself, it has been part of my definition.  After David died, I lost the ability to be lost in some story as if I had lost the ability to understand my native tongue.  And it took so very long to come back that at times I worried that it was a permanent loss.  What if I became that kind of person who never browses for book, who travels on vacation with a bunch of movies loaded on my iPad, who has no interest in the NYTimes Sunday Book Review section?  When I look at these fears, I admit to feeling a wee bit pretentious. But hell, yes!  That is me and I was really scared that that was never going to be me again.

And many times during this time, I been the kind of dinner guest who sucks the air out of a room.  I had no questions to ask new acquaintances, nothing to add to conversations and when I listened, my eyes glazed over and forgot everything the speaker said almost before the words were out of his/her mouth.

And I wondered if this was forever.  What if my best slightly intellectual, perceptive, pretentious years were behind me?  How long could I fake it with my faithful friends who must have noticed my less than sparkling repartee?

At the beginning of the summer, I started reading again.  I was gentle with myself and went back to my reading roots — biography and science fiction and a bit of memoir.  I read with that same looking over my should feeling.  Was this just a season of reading that would pass?  Towards the end of the summer, a friend asked if I wanted to come to a book club meeting.  She invited me because it was a new group and she knew that I had not liked the memoir that the group was reading.  Was I really the person to invite to spice things up?  But I went, just glancing at a few chapters to insure my disgust.  At the meeting I voiced my feelings and listened to the passionate defense of the piece.  Last year I had forced myself to read the book, after the meeting, I re-read and changed my mind.  At least for the most part.

And I liked the people in the group, so I read the old Barbara Kingsolver book that was the next one up, and last months I read The Orchardist (by Amande Coplin, and very good).  I  seemed to be able to contribute to the discussion, ask questions and listen to opinions.  Along the way I indulged in the guilty pleasure of all of the Hunger Games and Divergent.  Literary merit be damned, I was having fun.  Just yesterday, I looked up Connie Willis because I could not remember the full title on one of her books (To Say Nothing of the Dog: or, How We Found the Bishop’s Bird Stump at Last  which is very funny and well done) and discovered that she had published two books since I stopped reading and was struck with wondering that the world had run so far ahead during my healing time.  What else will I discover?

So, I come back to words on the page and screen (almost understanding the intricacies of Overdrive — gotta’ stop by the library one more time to connect my devices.) with such gratitude that this gift has returned and also with a new and growing list of must read titles.

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blue parts

IMG_2998I wrote this yesterday but after planting 400 bulbs, having a delightful dinner with a friend, and watching part of the last Star Wars movie with Julia, I fell asleep without publishing.  Ah, the writing life.

Observing myself this week possibly more closely than usual.  Looking for what to write about each day — umm, well didn’t work yesterday.  The mix of joys and sorrows and frustrations and blessings abound.  And the petals are falling on the dining room table.

Election result.  I am disappointed.  Not surprised.  I inform myself, I read, I think about who is running and what they believe in, I vote, of course, but I did nothing to work for those candidates that I believe in.  I don’t believe in turning away from our system in frustration and despair, but at the same time, I would rather not expend my energy working and advocating for the system.  Is that a mindset that just doesn’t work in a democracy?  Is it my job to be involved no matter what else there is in my life?  When I was in theater, I believed, however wrongly, that my art was all of the outreach I needed to do.  I would impact my world with my art.  I’m not saying that I really did that or that my work had some more global effect on anyone.

Later, when I worked for the federal court system, I was not allowed to be politically active in a visible sort of way and it was easy to embrace the judicial lifestyle.  Now.  Well, I did a little bit of campaign work when Obama was up for elections.  Didn’t love it, didn’t hate it.  I don’t feel it is my calling, but I hate feeling powerless or frustrate.  There are only so many productive hours in the day.  My plate does tend to be full but does that matter when I am watching the steady trek backwards in terms of policies that I think are important?

More middle school frustration.  More.  More.  In the assignment notebook last night was news of a science quiz.  There was a review sheet of sorts but it wasn’t clear whether Julia was supposed to fill out more of it than what was already done.  And she has no idea.  Her special ed teacher and I set up a procedure for taking quizzes and tests that involved getting Julia ready for tests over a period of days.  And so, a review sheet or sample test comes home a week or so before the testing day and we study little by little.  One night of studying does absolutely no good and it just frustrates Julia and I.

So that was where we started last night.  I had her read the little bit of material on the review sheet a few times and switched to practicing cello.

Today, I went in with her.  Talked to the special ed teacher who was also frustrated that the science teacher is not following the plan, but then again the aide in that classroom is different from the aide who was there when the plan was set up.  And I made my case for reducing the number of people that she sees.  Every doc and therapist that I talk to has agreed that Julia needs a smaller and  consistent staff.  When I made this pitched to the principal later, she talked about all the variables that can’t be controlled for.  And I agreed.  Someone is sick and out, someone is on leave, someone was needed in a place of higher need than Julia.  All of the makes sense and I know that Julia needs to learn to accommodate for that; however, if her people-environment is smaller to begin with she might start building some relationships that will allow for some change and flexibility.  As it stands now, it seems to be all change and transition for her— bells going off every 45 minutes, changing classes for each class, kids she doesn’t know and a building she is only beginning to recognize.  Some of this is the bedrock of middle school, but the plea that I am making is to make some changes where we can.  I see people as a possibility.  I think Julia’s special ed teacher can see that.  I am not sure about the principal.  It is system change that I am looking for and the powers-that-be would rather put a bandaid on the gap than change.

People with only neuro-typical kids tend to say that all kids face these kinds of challenges.  Middle school is a big change and some kids take a long time to settle.  I was going to write that if those people could spend one day with Julia they would know that her challenges with these change make typical kid settling into middle school look easy-peasy, but what strikes me is that if it is difficult for many kids, why is this the system?  I have read that middle school can be generally considered a wasteland between elementary and high school that needs to be endured.  I wonder why we are punishing kids for getting into sixth grade?  Why shouldn’t the system fit the kids instead of fitting those kids into an unfriendly and sometimes destructive system?

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last roses . . .

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I rarely bring flowers inside from the garden.  I used to all of the time.  Perhaps one day, I shall again.  But these were on the rose bush branches I trimmed as I cleaned up with front garden beds.  I could not just relegate such loveliness to the compost bin immediately.  Each bud has bloomed and each flower gives off  delightful scent.  Rich gifts at the end of the season.

I cleaned the last of the beds, cutting back perennials including a Sweet Autumn Clematis the takes over one railing of the front deck and has a sort of spooky look in the fall and serves as an excellent background for Halloween pumpkins.  Then I raked out the front beds and most of the front and side lawns.  My beds and lawns are not that large but the trees that drop leaves on them are large.  I have at least another raking hour or two for the back garden and then a few hundred bulbs to plant.  This is the time of year when I wonder what I was thinking about when I ordered the tulips and narcissus.

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no small thing

I want to write about the workshop that begins tomorrow before it begins just in case   . . . . well, just in case, no one shows up or I feel like I blew it or said too much or too little.  Just in case I am more apt to criticize myself tomorrow and I am unable comment on the totality of the experience.

For a few years now, I’ve wanted to bring mindfulness training to families with kids with special health care needs.  I really thought that I could just find the people who were doing this — teaching meditation or yoga or tai chi — with families and offer to help them in some way.  However, those folks don’t exist.  No one seems to be doing this.  Of course, I know that if I throw this far enough out there, someone will come back to me with something, but the idea of teaching mindfulness to parents and whole families has not hit the mainstream in my neck of the woods.  There is also no direct path that leads to teaching families all together or children and adults with disabilities like autism.  I do a bit of work with someone who is working with adults on the spectrum but her program seems to be pretty unique. Continue reading →

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that mother . . .

A few thoughts that may or may not form some sort of whole.

It was a glorious fall weekend.  A bit too warm for Wisconsin this time of year but please don’t let me appear to be complaining.  Over and over, I heard comments that this could be the last, best day.  So, we carved pumpkins outside, we raked leaves, we listened to our favorite book and knitted outside, and we did homework outside.  And in shirt sleeves.  Neighbor kids threw balls and frisbees until dark and FaceBook is lined with pictures of babies in leaf piles and everyone else at the homecoming game.  Go Badgers!

And in the midst of raking leaves and what passes for philosophical rumination, I stumbled upon the giddy realization that there is an encore in my life.  I am giddy in love.  With theater.  With performance.  It has come upon me slowly this time.  For reasons, stated, assumed and known only in the dark night of the soul, I left this first true love sufficiently long ago that Cheshire had no touch with a theater mother.  I regret neither my theater years nor all those post-theatre years.  I learned.  I grew.  I made some fabulous friends that I would have never met had my path not included law, adoption, autism and grieving.  But to be back in the first flush of theatrical romance is delicious.

I never stopped seeing theatre, albeit sometimes with condescension as I’ve lived so long outside of the City, but in the most mediocre of productions, there is a good set or interesting lighting, one performer on whom all eyes are riveted or an interesting piece of blocking.  But the prompt that has pushed me over the edge and into boundless infatuation is the “live” performances of the National Theatre of Britain at our local Sundance Cinema.  One friend offered me tickets to Medea, then another friend invited me to Street Car, and tonight I am instigating seeing Sky Light by David Hare.  I have my yearly subscription to our local professional theater and now a subscription to take Julia to kids’ theatre productions.  I picked up the brochure for a dance company and I am dreaming of opera.  Who knows where it will end?  I refuse to enter any 12 step program unless it has choreography.

In another corner of life, I am becoming . . . that mother.

You know, the one who is chatting up teachers on a daily basis, who goes on all field trips, who is ever present for drop off and pick up, who immediately returns to school to bring forgotten assignments and glasses, and who is second guessing every move teachers make.

I have know those mothers.  I have listened to and gossiped about them.  I have agreed that they “need a life.” Their kind walked the halls of Cheshire’s private elementary school.  It was a school for the academically gifted and a catty remarks from my circle was that the kids were most gifted in the parents that they had.  On a third grade field trip, I rode in a van with a mom who, when I asked about her family, sighed and said, “yes, yes, four children.  All gifted.”  I judged her pretentious and wanted to wretch.  Of course, we were there as well although I allowed myself to believe that we were only there because the Indianapolis public schools could not meet Cheshire’s needs.  (And I could only rarely go on field trips. I had a job.)

There was a music prodigy, whose mother did not allow her daughter to participate in gym to guard her fingers or in any of the school’s music ensembles.  Gym could be justified, but band was a different story.  The school was blessed, truly blessed, with a genius music teacher.  Students played music every day from 3rd to 8th grade.  This teacher had a gift for picking excellent music.  Middle school concerts were a pleasure.  For a school full of nerdie kids — said with the greatest of love — band was a marvelous team sport.  The band travelled every year — once to Carnegie Hall — for competitions.  And so, I judged that mother holding her child apart from mine.

There was another kid who skipped grade after grade and who eventually skipped high school.  He was in one of Cheshire’s math classes when he was barely old enough to hold a pencil — I exaggerate only slightly.  I heard about his mother from kids and other moms long before I met her.  According to reports, she was there, at school, all of the time.  She helped her son at his locker in the morning and sometimes between classes.  She was there for lunch and sometimes was seen sitting in her car when her son was in class.  Waiting.  I judged her excessive and a bit ridiculous.  I thought she should get a life.

And now.  Me.  Someone should probably be judging me excessive and a bit ridiculous.  And all I can say is that I am sorry for my less than kind imaginings.  I am trying to micromanage Julia’s time at school and I know exactly why I am doing it.  And I am so very sure that those other mothers had reasons which seemed just as vital and significant.

So, mea culpa.  As Julia says all the time, “I will not make the same mistake again.”  I am not as positive as she usually is, but I will try very hard to take a breath or two before scrutinizing what I may not understand.

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one

Sitting in Panera drinking tea from home and eating a terrible, awful, delicious, sugared breakfast muffin.  Sitting across from two gentlemen who I rather embarrassingly notice are appropriately aged if I was interested in social interaction.  I am taping away, replying to almost ancient emails that should have been answered last week, two weeks ago or how many months ago?  I usually really enjoy sitting in a public space reading or writing.  I love the gentle mummer of strangers, slight rises in voices advancing and retreating into the din, isolated words that peep out, and the occasional peek at who is sitting nearby or ordering at some counter.  But the conversation of the two gentlemen is impossible to miss or resist.  They begin by talking bullets and guns.  I wince.  They move on to the awful state of health care.  I roll my eyes and redouble my efforts to ignore them.  But they proceed to complain about “lazy, disrespectful, no-good” teenagers, public education that they “have no business paying for” and finally, and not to be left out, “our useless” president.  Now, I need to nail my feet to the floor and tape my mouth closed.  I am saved by a noisy influx of breakfasters who drown out the most offensive statements and I am able to control my most aggressive impulses.

However, what lingers is the stone in the shoe, the irritation of loneliness.  I would like to enjoy male companionship and I wonder if pickings are slim enough to include the despicable creatures sitting across from me.  Sometimes I wish very hard to enter into the fray.  I didn’t like dating at 17 and 20.  From my perch apart from it all, it doesn’t look so good now.  In fact, desserts and barren moon landscapes come to mind.  But as a wise nun told me when I was fifteen and broken hearted and complaining much the same as I want to right now, I only needed to meet one boy.  And one is a very small number.  When I remember that, I can pack up, pick up and go on with my day sure that one is a very small number and that the odds are in my favor that I can certainly meet just one.

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sad days & purpose

I wanted to journal as soon as I dropped off Julia at school today.  Instead, I came home and browsed around the internet letting the postings about 9/11 bounce off or sink beneath my skin.  Our Black Tuesday, Pearl Harbor and Kennedy Assassination — our days that changed everything.  Why do we need those days to change everything?   Why . . . Perhaps I should ask why don’t I change before it is forced upon me.  When I get the ‘why’ for me, perhaps I’ll comment on the bigger us.

Fall creeped in today as well.  Not creeped, although under cover of darkness.  Danced in with trumpets and streamers is more like it.  Last shorts worn yesterday, both of us in socks this morning, sweatshirts that will probably stay on all day, wondering whether I will get plants put in the garden before tomorrow’s predicted rain and the slight possibility of frost.

A gray day.  Working hard not to let the sad significance of the say stick but damn it is hard when the sky is so dreary and lights need to be turned on at nine in the morning.

A day of tasks preparing for dinner guests by clearing and a vacuum.  Wash needs to be folded and then outside to over seed, hoping it is not too late for that, planting new perennials and the Japanese iris I dug up yesterday.  Dividing perennials is always a thrill after the work of digging and dividing is finished.  What I dug up yesterday was a newly planted patch five years ago that should have been divided last fall.

Something else.

Each year First Unitarian Society (FUS), our church, has an art show/fair.  Art in the Wright Place — Wright because it is held in the space designed by Frank Lloyd.  I filled out an application for Julia this year.  The summer’s art work lends itself to sale and Julia could work on both money and social skills at the sale.  The response to Julia’s tee shirts has been great and more people are asking if they could order one and so, I thought that we could also make some shirts for the fair.  However, Julia did not make the cut.  The reasoning was that the art fair wants to attract quality artists and customers beyond our congregation.  If they open the door to Julia, other kids may want to participate forcing the PTB to pass judgment on kid art.  If any kid who applied is accepted, that would change the tenor of the show, professionals will be less likely to want to participate and the fundraising focus will diminish.

The particular power that sent the message also asked if she could order a dancin’ dino shirt because she had only become aware of them when some of the folks around her received them.  When I explained that the shirts were part of a limited time fundraiser and that I had hoped to offer some shirts at the art show, she suggested that I check out ways to keep the tees coming.  I momentarily thought about it but “the reason for the rule” tapped me on the shoulder.

“Reason for the rule” is short hand for something a law school prof proposed — if the reason for the rule does not apply to a situation, then the rule should not be imposed.

The reason for making more shirts was for Julia to get social skill and money practice with people at the show.  Doing any more by mail order doesn’t give her the practice that was intended, and to be honest, although she is thrilled that people are wearing her shirts, she is not impressed that her art is on a shirt.  She doesn’t need the ego boost.  To keep the shirts coming through some private printing might be only fanning my own vanity.  The shirts are fun but I’m not interested in setting Julia up in business just yet. Most of the work would fall on me and I’m not interested in setting up a Julia-related art business just yet.  I hate saying ‘no’ to folks who are asking for more shirts, but . . . there is such a pull to get sidetracked by endeavors that slide so far from original purposes.

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dancin’ dino

IMG_2749Our dancin’ dinosaur tee shirts arrived by mail yesterday. Julia was tickled and couldn’t wait to wear one of hers today to school. Lots of friends have ordered shirts and are posting pictures on Facebook. Every picture puts tears in my eyes. Three teachers from Randall posted a picture, all three of them with dino shirts and “I love Julia” scrawled on the board behind them. There are no thank you’s enough. And I pray that this is a beginning, not the highlight. I hope that this incredible talent is yet to be developed and will carry her far.

Who knows what can come, there is no way to capture a moment and keep it close. I ride this small happiness, Julia’s small accomplishment and hold on to hoping that her life will unfold gracefully and with much happiness and independence. I know, I know, it is the same with all kids but it is different when it is not assured that your kid will grow and mature and come into their own. It is different. And hard. And joyful.

This being a mother of a kid on the autism spectrum is not for weaklings and scaredy cats.

Some notes on the first day beginning of middle school that I began last week:

Day one is over and day two begun. Actually today, day seven is almost over.

Julia liked her first day. In her assignment notebook she wrote on the first page that she loved Wright Middle School. This morning she remembered the names of her homeroom teachers (one is her special ed teacher) and her SEA (aide). She ate chicken nuggets and french fries for lunch and also loved them. There was perhaps also an apple that she ate. There is no sign that she is interested in bringing healthy lunches and at least at this point it is not worth any fight on this one.

She continues to like her school and the experience. The first set of challenges are about listening to bells and whistles that start or end classes and activities, and also at moving independently from room to room. At Wright, the sixth graders only move among a very few rooms but it is still very confusing for Julia. I think that part of the confusion is about the new sounds — noise — and stimuli that distract her terribly. If she continues to be confused and unable to move from room to room, I’ll ask for some help there. Although I want her to be independent, I want to her to learn content as well as independence. And I think content should come first.

Julia willingly is willing to get up and dressed in the morning. We have not laid out clothes each night like we did it all last year. This year she wants to pick out her own clothes and pending my approval, she does a pretty good job. Have school begin an hour later than at her elementary school is really golden! I am so much happier to get up at 6:45, than 5:45. At 5:45 I can hardly drag myself out of bed, and I am not effective at dragging someone else.

This morning I dropped her off — a bit later than planned but that was more due to my own confusion about when bells ring than to our morning routine — by the gate of one of the playgrounds. It is probably not called a playground in middle school. Other students were already walking into the building. She very cheerfully hopped out of the car and joined in the throng walking in. She immediately struck up a conversation — perhaps started talking is a better way of saying it — with two girls who were probably not sixth graders. I watched them look at her and then say something that I couldn’t hear. Oh god, I hope there are kind kids in this school! Julia has developed into a very friendly/talkative kid but so much of what she says is border line inappropriate or unintelligible. She needs more listeners who make sense of what she says.

Last week, Julia took the tapes off her cello. Yikes! She was jubilant; I was/am terrified. Her teacher do not really believe in taping cellos. The tapes I’m talking about are very narrow bands of sticky tape on the finger board of the instrument that mark where the first three or four notes are. It is a guide for beginning students and it seems to be quite a security blanket for me. Instead of using the tapes to figure out where the fingers go, Julia (and I) will need to use our ears. At lesson, she took the tapes off and played two tunes better than she ever has played them. Ok, I get it. But I hope it works at home. I am skeptical. I can’t help it. I am not a musician. Her teacher says she has a good ear. I don’t think I do.

While her cello teacher was giving me the rational for removing the tapes, Julia was figuring out the next tune in the Suzuki book, “Go Tell Aunt Roady.” So her teacher assigned the song as long as she memorized the one she has been working on by next week. Julia said, “sure.”

We also may be renting a cello from her teacher instead of from the school. That means that her practice instrument will be a lot better than what she has now. I think she would appreciate that.

I am starting something new on the iPad. Julia wants to play games on it and she also wants to get back to playing with her wii. It dawned on me that game time needs to be reward time. And also limited. I decided to link game to to writing prompts in her iPad journal. I’ve been giving her three: three things she did in school, what she ate for lunch and how she felt after a day at school. I began by sitting with her as she wrote and then correcting grammar and spelling (mostly capitals) when she was finished. This week, it was best when she did it in the car on our way to her therapies. Best because it is close to the end of the school day and she can remember better what she did than if we wait until she gets home close to dinner time. I’m also not looking for a lot of writing. She really can’t do that well and stay on topic. And some of what she is writing is funny. I am sure that her social studies teacher did not mean to emphasize the importance of using shampoo to clean hair. I’m not doubting that he said that, just the importance he put on it. I put her picture from the first day of school on the first page. I want pictures to be a part of the journal, (We used pictures alone last year. ) but I don’t want to burden her teachers with another task until everyone is more settled. For writing, she gets 20 minutes of game time to be used as she likes. Right now, she plays the HP lego game on her iPad.

My notes:

Fall is always the beginning of a new year for me. Another go at improvement and reinvention. Or at least a refinement of ideas, processes and goals. This year is no different.

Towards the end of the summer, my meditation practice really fell off. Too much Julia time or rather my perception that I had to spend time on addition instead of meditation. Probably a mistake. Immediately correcting that one.

The garden needs attending and I want to seed the lawn. The next few weeks are crucial. The compost needs emptying. I found some great perennial bargains at Builders Square. Also, I have perennials and corms to dig up and divide, as well as an over abundance of hollyhock plants to move from the front to the back.

Interesting thing about my hollyhocks. I love them! And I’ve managed to get quite a good backdrop of them in the front terraced garden bed. But this year for the first time since I planted seeds, I’ve only gotten plants and not flowers. Since hollyhocks are biennials that bloom only in the second year, I usually have some flowers and some plants every year. I am not sure what happened to my flowing two year olds this year. Was it the awful winter? I need to thin the plants and dig up some that are in inappropriate places. Hopefully, next year, I will have flowers in the front AND back gardens.

Contacts have been made and interest pursued. It looks like I may be leading a mindfulness group for caregivers – parents, grandparents, sitters — at IDS. It would be my toe in the waters I want to wade waist deep in. I’ve sent a mock up of a flyer to my contact at IDS and I await the PTB’s approval. Even if I get it, I know that there is a decent chance that no one will sign up for the circle. It happened last year with the Special Ed PEG group. I hope this is different. It would be a lovely way to begin.

Julia and I are moving on with our knitting. She is making a red and yellow scarf. Yes, Gryfindor colors. I am ready to make a hat. It is rather amazing to me that one of my newish friends is a master knitter who is very willing to teach, advise and answer questions. Perhaps others will not see this as amazing but the saying “the teacher appears when the student is ready” keeps running through my mind. I’ve believed in this idea before I ever recognized that it was happening to me. These days, it seems to be happening all the time. Often at least. And I am deeply grateful. I am also struck that I have done so little to merit or deserve or warrant such attention. When another friend called me to urge me to come to a newly formed book club, I felt the same way. How did she know that I really wanted to join a book club even though I had done nothing about looking for one? I have the feelings of being cradled in community.

This feels like a long, overdue letter to a friend who needs to be caught up on every part of life. It needs to be put in its envelope and sent on its way. I’ve promised myself to write every day — just 200 words but write. I am hoping for rebirth.

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family day

This year we celebrated Family Day, the day that Julia, Cheshire, David and I met in China. When David was alive we celebrated with presents and Chinese food but for the most part Julia had no idea what we were doing. Celebrations meant very little to her for a long time. She liked Christmas and her birthday but it was more for the presents and the birthday cake, which Cheshire made for the first two years she was home, than anything else. She had no conception of time passing, of the yearly repetition of significant days, of celebration.

If she had been a newborn when we met, none of that would have been surprising. Tiny children learn time by practice, not by rational discussion and explanation. Although I had expected to do a lot of practice when we adopted a five and a half year old, I also expected to be able to talk and explain what we did to Julia when she learned enough English. And it was hard that neither the discussion nor the yearly practice of celebrations taught her about time and the passing of days. Parents of neuro-typical children, even adopted kids, will say that their kids took a long time to figure out time and perhaps they did but Julia did not, and to some extent still does not, understand the passing of days. Of the many things about Julia that scared me, her inability to understand time has been one of the most frightening. In my mind, Julia is time challenged because of early trauma and lack of attachment. I can’t prove this idea but to me, the synapses that fire in order to count, tell time and consider distance were turned off when neglect and abuse filled her days.

Time has long been the subject of Julia’s therapy. During her intensive days, she made calendars with her therapists. She marked off days, put stickers on significant days, counted up and down to special events. Learning the days of the week was a goal for more than a year and when intensive therapy was over Julia had not quite mastered the skill. Months of the year are only a very recent acquisition and not at all rock solid yet. Now I look forward to Julia’s understanding of these big concepts. Slowly. Very slowly but they are coming. She can now answer the questions of when her birthday occurs and how old she is. She knows what season Christmas, Hanukkah, Halloween occur in, although she is shaky on Passover, the Fourth of July and Chinese New Years. She is beginning to understand that all of these days are not the same — presents on some, special food on others and being with extended family on still others. Sometimes she can even answer what today is, what yesterday was, and what tomorrow will be.

Part of Julia’s speech therapy has revolved around the wh- questions of which ‘when’ has been difficult. This summer she has written out the ‘when’ of the day–year, season, month, date, day, time of day and time. She does not use this information when she speaks or writes and I wonder if she ever will. Asking what we did yesterday or on a specific day is still almost impossible for her to answer although notable events like what we did for family day are accessible format least a day or so. She does need help to communicate the information–prompting questions or background so that what she is saying makes sense to her listener. Speaking in context remains a challenge.

Family Day has been different and harder for both of us then other celebration days. It was the day we met. In China. Nanchung. In 2006. It was not an easy day. Julia was ripped away from what she knew. She was not allowed to say good bye to the only person she loved before she left the orphanage. Her Chinese was not understandable by our facilitators and they had no idea whether they were getting through to her when they tried to explain what was happening. Mostly she was scared. Once again, handed to strangers. Two years ago, she told me that she didn’t want to celebrate family day because it made her very sad. She missed China. It was one of the first times that she demonstrated an understanding of a notable day. So for the last two years we marked the day very quietly. When she asked not to celebrate, I took it to stem from her own feelings; however, I wonder if Julia’s request had something to do with my ambivalence.

Since David died I have struggled to celebrate anything. The struggle has waned with time and the understanding that rituals and celebrations need to be remade, but my sometimes ambivalence and need to break away from rituals which have become meaningless or just too sad to me has not provided the celebration structure which Julia needs to learn. Some of my changes have surprised me. I’ve long held that the only Christmas tree was a real tree but we’ve traveled during three of the last four Christmases. I found it hard not to have a tree at all but I didn’t want a big nor did I want to leave a tree in the house with the cat and dog when we travelled. And I couldn’t bear to take out the decorations that I spent so many years collecting. For a few years, I bought very small trees that could easily be put on the back porch when it was time to travel and Julia made decorations. One year it was dinosaur versions of all of her therapists and teachers. Another year we made baking soda dinosaur cut outs, and hung them with red ribbons. Last year, I bought a small fake tree and small ornaments to hang. Had I been told five years ago that I would put up a fake tree with impersonal ornaments, I would not have believed them. And so my own crazy process of grieving and finding my sea legs again has not provided Julia which rich family traditions.

This is not necessarily bad but it is not the way I expected Julia to be raised. I struggle with feelings that she needs more than most kids to learn family and I am giving her less. And then life intervenes making even simple plans complicated.

A few weeks ago, Julia announced that she wanted to celebrate family day this year and it happened that we had a Chicago eye doctor appointment that day. The appointment, made in May, was the subject of much negotiation between two docs and me and I really didn’t expect Julia to want celebrate Family Day. So whatever we could plan to celebrate had to be fit around long car drives and a few hours of eye testing.

We drove into Chicago on Wednesday evening after Julia finished therapy at IDS. We stayed with our friend, Linde, at a loft that belonged to another friend’s parents. Linde had pizza for us (and a beer for me) when we arrived. (The loft was like something I dreamed of in my NYC days.) The next morning we had breakfast together and then went on to the Field Museum where we spent a hours with the evolution exhibits walking with dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. The eye appointment went long which was not wholly unexpected and we wound up eating McDonald’s in the car on the long ride home instead of take out Chinese at home. At home, Julia opened presents. I had made a Hogwart’s uniform for an American girl doll. Our friend, Sandra, made Julia a beautiful quilt in reds and golds and that goes with her Hogwarts dorm room and includes two blocks on which Julia’s dinosaurs are copied. Julia loved her gifts. I had expected her to love the quilt. It goes so well with her room and the dines are very cute, but the doll was a chance. I had no idea how she would react.

Ivy is one of the historic American Girl Dolls from a story about the 1970’s and it was the first of those books that Julia connected with. She liked that the character had a Chinese family who celebrated New Years. The American Girl company is headquartered near Madison and at least once a year there have a big sale. I’ve never gone because Julia has not been interested in dolls. A few years ago a friend who went found a huge pile of imperfect Ivy dolls. She messaged many friends and then bought dolls for those who wanted them. The doll’s green pants had bled a little bit, staining the dolls’ legs. On the one I got the stain is barely visible. I put the bargain doll in the back of my closet figuring that one day Julia might want it even though Julia does not have a good doll history.

One of the toys that we brought to China to give to her when we met was a baby doll with moving eyes. I am not sure whether it was the first day that we met her or the day after, but when we gave it to her she first cradled the baby doll and then when she saw the eyes open and close, she freaked out. Julia threw the doll down and started beating it with her new stuffed bear. I tried at other times to introduce a doll to her but Julia was not interested. She liked the Disney heroine barbie-type doll. She has two that she played with for a little while and will pick up now and again, but generally, she was much more interested in her dinosaurs than with human shaped dolls. Perhaps it is because she is identifying more with people these days. Perhaps it is because she read this doll’s story and the doll is Chinese. I hedged my bets by making the Hogwarts uniform, the pattern of which I stumbled upon when I was researching and searching for ideas for her bedroom.

And so, Julia opened presents. Ooh’ed and ah’ed and then I sent her off to bed. She put the quilt on top of the comforter that usually covers her bed. At least for the moment, it staying there. Ivy is living on Julia’s comfortable chair. She has asked to bring the doll to church and to school. Did she know that I would not agree? She also talked about Family Day to Marilyn, our attachment therapist, and to Linda, her speech therapist. And seems to be remembering why she got gifts.

And I, holding my breath, crossing fingers, saying a prayer, am hoping that a little more understanding has come with this special day.

Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 1