Category: Pondering Quietly

Some deep thoughts in the shallows of my mind, some shallow thoughts . . . somewhere else.

cells

IMG_1175Feeling like a super mom today.  Exhausted but endowed with power and magic.  Today is never easy.  7 years.  Another anniversary of the beginning of my unexpected life.

I have long entertained the idea that the cells of the body are recycled bit by bit every 7 years.  Where did I hear that?  I have no idea, but if it were so, there is no cell in my body left that actually knew David. Could that be? Even if it was the general rule, I imagine my cells clever enough to bypass such ignorance.  They might have whispered and conspired, perhaps saving one very, very old seven or eight or nine year old cell and sitting at her “feet” to listen to stories of when I was not lonely.  And really, there was that time when I knew joy without effort. And maybe in the stories of that old cell is the seed of a coming time of such joy.  Just maybe. Continue reading →

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just my view from the porch this evening

Countries, governments, empires rise and fall.  I was not a bad student of history. I learned the three to five to seven reasons why Greece and Rome and the city states of Italy and England and France and various dynasties of China fell.  Somewhere in those reasons was usually some catastrophic event— a war lost or a prolonged war won but leaving a weakened empire or a natural disaster. I imagined that the linchpin of any fall was that catastrophic event.

When David and I lived in Frascati, Italy, we would talk politics with our landlord and his young adult children.  Mr. Maoli told us that the United States was powerful now but that as a nation we were children. He said that once there was nothing stronger than Rome, and in another age Venice, Siena, Florence and Genoa were all powerful. And now, they were not. I agreed. He made sense. Nothing, even a democracy, even the leader of the free world, lasts forever. Continue reading →

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my major

My favorite tulips
Full blown in the sun

Two deaths. One the wife of friend; the other the mother of a friend no longer. The first was a sound shake. A woman who was ill and being treated, who was expected to survive, to be healed. An unexpected death even though there was probably some scientific percentage that she would not survive. Like David. Twenty percent of those with heart transplant don’t survive. And we never considered for a moment that to be David.

We are all always part of the percentage. Continue reading →

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noticing

Old toilet
New toilet. Ok, not an amazing change.

So much of life flies under the radar and goes unnoticed.  By me. Sometimes I notice a new hair cut, I comment on a Facebook announcement of a new job or I ask about an increased spring in a step, but so many times I miss much of the lives around me. I don’t know whether to attribute it to self-involvement, a teenager who needs attention or a general character flaw. Continue reading →

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week’s end

 

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Lunch at cheesecake factory.

Sunday: 62 degrees at the end of February.  We must be outside, but I do not feel free to dictate in public.  Sigh.  Ego or just not wanting mothers with small children to move away from me.   So I type with one hand.  Slowly and with fewer capitals.  We’re at Burney’s Beach, a tiny made-beach on our bay, after a special ed advocate’s meeting  in a coffee shop.  Julia is sculpting in the sand and I . . . I sit like a turtle in the sun craving the warm, gentle warmth.  This is the time of year when I can imagine giving up the four seasons in favor of eternal spring.

The meeting: Politically, I am totally out of the educational policy loop.  It will be an effort if I want to catch up.  I need to if I want to figure out what I can contribute.  Believing that the way to change is at the local level where passion lies, the spirit is willing . . . Continue reading →

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a purple cast & deep learning

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If It Grows Together ~Duy Huynh

I don’t believe that everything happens for reason. Or that there is some sort of divinity arranging events. However, I do believe that the examined life demands that I take advantage of my experiences as teaching and learning moments.

And that’s where I am today.

Last week I canceled almost everything we do.  No cello lesson, therapy with Marilyn, speech therapy, reading group, Chinese brushstroke painting, ice skating for Julia or songha for me.  We stayed home.  I went to a show on Friday night with a friend driving and we went to church on Saturday Night which had the bonus of a potluck meal afterwards.  I did homework with Julia every day and we found time to write to thank you notes that she owed but without other obligations she also had free time to play video games, listen to music, and draw Sonic. This morning I had a chilling awareness that what we did last week, no therapy and just a little bit of learning, could be what Julia’s life post high school could be like. It could become a lonely life of unrewarding work and coming home to an evening of mindless TV.  I know it’s four years away and she will change between now and then but my mother fears bubble up. What if she doesn’t change or grow during these years? What if at 21 or 25, Julia is not curious and needs me to fill her days for her in some productive way? What if only me wanting this fuller life for her? Immediately, I went down the rabbit hole of worry and fears.  What if… What if… What if. Continue reading →

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dreaming

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Art by Day Huynh

“You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done… you are fierce with reality.” ~ Florida Scott-Maxwell

Last night I dream of David. I haven’t dreamed about him in a very, long time.  I was one of those real-feeling, ordinary-day-feeling dreams.

This last week has been intense and concentrated, filled with reading and writing and two long phone conversations with an old friend who reframed some sad events of the last few years. During the course of our conversation, my friend told me about a phone call that she had with David.  A call that either I did not know about or had completely forgotten. Either one is possible. It concerned her, not me any way. But hearing about it after all this time blew a little bit of life into the dusty ghosts of my imagination. Continue reading →

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resolutions 2017

1296_52378848781_5943_nLast 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

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of rabbit holes and safety pins

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 →

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open hands

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Noxious weeds gone.

In 1851, The Whale, the English edition of Moby-Dick, was published, differing from the American edition with thousands of punctuation and spelling changes, and over 700 different wordings.  In 2003, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth book in the series, was published with 864 of similar differences between the American and British versions.  Has our understanding English improved in the last 150 years?

Joni Mitchelle’s For The Roses this morning.  Comfort music.  Not quite my first Joni but the first album that I bought when it was released.  Prior to Joni, I had been such a musical snob. I appreciated trained voices and songs that were a part of stories.  Musical stories. Oh, there were the Beatles, The Dave Clark 5 (my best friend’s favorite) and other distractions.  They were inconsequential, or so I thought. The American Musical Theater was my ‘real’ music.  And then Joni, thanks to a boyfriend, and also our newest Noble Prize winner.  I’ve been humming Dylan albums straight through all week.   Continue reading →

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