turnings

09 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by Suzanne Buchko in Growing a Daughter, Journaling My Days

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So, wow and thanks to the rather excruciating tiring hike of Friday. Yes, I complained about exhaustion and didn’t complain about sore muscles Saturday but it worked wonders. Today, we took a bike ride around our little bay and I almost enjoyed it.

I am out of shape. Yes. Indeed. Add to that, I have a 10 year old bike that was a $65 Lowe’s special when it was new. The brakes are almost nonexistent and the handle bar is unstable. I’m almost sure that more is wrong with it but I’ve been putting off a tune up because I expect that someone will seize it to cut it apart for parts.

Ok, just a bit of hyperbole.

So, out of shape, bad bike and Julia rides pretty slow. She is doing a great job these days starting out, balancing, keeping those pedals going and stoping using her brakes, but she rides slowly. Last week, riding slowly seemed to be a special kind of painful hell.

Oh, and also, I ride with a bit of stress. Worried about how Julia is doing, whether she will fall down or into traffic or hit a jogger.

Today, we were half way around the bay when I realized that I was feeling pretty good. Julia was still going slowly and there was a brisk breeze blowing against us and the handle bar needed bracing, but I was not out of breath and no part of my body hurt. I think that whatever body parts were put in gear during our long hike was exactly what I needed to begin again.

Back on the bandwagon of a strong, well-maintained body.

This week, the week before vacation, will be busy and bittersweet. Julia’s graduation ceremony — known as the moving on ceremony — is on Wednesday. Thursday is the last day of school. Thursday is also the day of our party for every teacher, therapist and aid that we can get to our house. I am so lucky that my friend, Amy, will help with the prep and the hosting. I can probably do this all myself but there is comfort and familiarity doing it with someone. I wonder if I should be insisting of learning to do it all myself or if the lesson is in the interdependence that is not a partner. David and I enjoyed hosting and cooking and prepping. No wonder there is still the flavor of the old life in making a menu and a shopping list. This sweet nostalgia stands quite apart from what it feels like to leave Randall School. I have absolutely no reason to imagine that middle school will not be as wonderful as elementary, but the fear of the unknown gnaws at my boots.

Big breath in, big breath out.

On Saturday, there will be a all-Quest reunion retreat. It is only one day and I am part of the small committee that is putting it together. The committee work has been fun and interesting. My duties — to do two readings and lead the Japanese Crane moving meditation — are not terribly demanding. I am excited to do them. It is stepping ever close to where I want to be. But the day is the end of Quest activities for at least a year.

Our third bedroom, aka Cheshire’s bedroom, has been redecorated. And yes, this relates to everything I’ve written although I couldn’t have asked for a more abrupt transition. The feeling of cleaning out the stale Chi from the corners of the room, of moving furniture about and of needing to make it pretty have done just that. New striped roman shades, a new rug, and new bedding. There is a small bench that needs the seat recovered but the room is ready.

So much is ready for the new — Julia and middle school, some project or adventure for me to stumble upon and a guest room to fill. I felt the lifting of grieving last autumn but I feel the anticipation of the next adventure now.

I bring what I am and what I’ve done and all my reasons but I do it now with an unburdened heart. I am so curious to see what comes.

Aside

transitions

04 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by Suzanne Buchko in Growing a Daughter, Journaling My Days

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quest

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.

Tears

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by Suzanne Buchko in Journaling My Days

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grieving, quest

I am sitting in a bar on the way to Racine for the Quest winter retreat. I actually managed to leave so early as to give myself time to stop on the way for lunch. I’ve never done it this way before. My usual way is to pack up very late and/or very early before retreat, cram something into the beginning of the day, start out just a bit late and become utterly frustrated when traffic slows my frantic pace, and finally, arrive at best just as the first meeting begins and at worst, after supper. This behavior makes it impossible for me to settle in and prepare for the experience. Some fear, some apprehension, some betrayal of self.

And today — well, I’ve been cutting expectations all week. Didn’t “finish” Julia’s room, didn’t go to the seminar that I didn’t want to attend, didn’t even hang the four little pictures that I finally framed this week.

And it is all ok.

Perhaps I am taking something of mindfulness in. Unmindfully, judgementally, I might add, Finally!

So, sitting in this bar and at first feeling guilty and uncomfortable being here. As if lunch (with a diet coke) is some kind of ultra indulgence that I have no right to. The physical feelings — part of the week’s assignment in the online meditation course I’m doing — are a queasiness starting in my diaphragm and moving out to the edges of my sides as if not really inhabiting my whole body.

But I settle in, order lunch (and my diet coke) and open email. We are asked to be computer-less for retreat and I comply to the best of my ability although I am planning on doing some course reading at night and last retreat I wrote on the keyboard instead of a notebook. Checking email is far away from the spirit of the law, let alone the letter.

In my box, is an email with attachments from my friend whose mother died last week. She sent the order of service, written tributes and obits for her mum. This is a woman who I liked so very much. We met when her daughter was our exchange student and she came to visit. During our first evening together in Indy, David, she and I went to an Indian restaurant and had planned to go to the symphony. We ate and talked and missed the music all together. She was one of those very precious people with whom conversation was effortless. I have not known many. So many people knew her so much better than I did, but I was not wrong at all for wanting to know her so much better than I did. Her husband used the words “generosity of spirit” in describing her. I have used those words to describe what I want to grow into. I am not surprised.

I sit in a bar, with a few tears falling into my diet coke and a headache from not having a good, long cry. I hurt for them, I hurt for myself. How many times do I need to be reminded to seize life and suck it all dry!? If I am going to have to hurt this much, I have to suck out all the joy when it is there for the taking. I am reminded of day lilies — blooming furiously for one day. Blink, walk quickly, wait and they are gone.