I stopped into a bookstore this past Saturday morning and made a killing at the clearance rack. I bought stickers and button pins for that 6 year old birthday party on the horizon, got some high quality wrapping paper dirt cheap, found an amazingly funny little book for $0.75, and got myself a new writing journal. The point in this is going to now shift focus to... the journal.
It's 5x7 or so (perhaps a bit bigger) with a cloth wrapped soft cover in black and white with a red ribbon page marker embedded in the binding. It's not fancy but it feels great in my hands. It was a bargain, too, at 75% off. I hesitated for a long time over it. After I picked it up the first time, I knew I wanted to buy it. It was just that nice. But I don't need a journal, nor want one.
Now that I have this wonderful thing, I can't think of a thing to do with it. There's the obvious; it's a writing journal, you write in it. But what to write? Is there a point to the book itself? Should the book have a purpose? Should each page be an isolated foray into language?
I feel this ridiculous amount of pressure in regards to this journal. I already pulled all the tags off and they've migrated to the dumpster (with the receipt) so I'm pretty well stuck with it now. But it's just sitting there on my desk, haunting me. Making me feel like I'm missing something. Making me wonder which thoughts bouncing around in my head should migrate to paper.
And no, I'm not immune to the hint of irony involved in blogging about journal intimidation.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Friday, February 06, 2009
Night Shifts to Day
Night Shifts to Day
I slept for a few hours after a late night wander through the house. I would have slept longer if not for the child at my elbow asking for breakfast.
I waved her away, promising to climb out of the warm covers, and then went back to sleep.
I woke again to the flutter, flutter, peck sound of a bird trapped in the chimney behind the headboard of the bed.
It's an old house we occupy, and it used to be warmed by coal. Many rooms have these tiny coal chimneys along the wall, and the basement has a chute for delivering the dark lumps of fuel.
The chimney cap related to our bedroom has some kind of flaw - we keep forgetting to investigate the problem and fix it - which allows small birds to be swept down in high winds.
So we wake up to a flutter, flutter, peck of a desperate animal used to freedom but caught in a trap.
Each time, we clean off the headboard and heave it out of place with mercy and pity mingling in our eyes. We open the windows on these windy days, lock out the cats, and take off the little cover behind the bed.
Each time, the bird finds true sky so fast that we have trouble identifying the species and I realize that locking out the cats is ridiculous - they wouldn't have time to make a catch.
I slept for a few hours after a late night wander through the house. I would have slept longer if not for the child at my elbow asking for breakfast.
I waved her away, promising to climb out of the warm covers, and then went back to sleep.
I woke again to the flutter, flutter, peck sound of a bird trapped in the chimney behind the headboard of the bed.
It's an old house we occupy, and it used to be warmed by coal. Many rooms have these tiny coal chimneys along the wall, and the basement has a chute for delivering the dark lumps of fuel.
The chimney cap related to our bedroom has some kind of flaw - we keep forgetting to investigate the problem and fix it - which allows small birds to be swept down in high winds.
So we wake up to a flutter, flutter, peck of a desperate animal used to freedom but caught in a trap.
Each time, we clean off the headboard and heave it out of place with mercy and pity mingling in our eyes. We open the windows on these windy days, lock out the cats, and take off the little cover behind the bed.
Each time, the bird finds true sky so fast that we have trouble identifying the species and I realize that locking out the cats is ridiculous - they wouldn't have time to make a catch.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
In the Details
In the Details
I stood at the edge of the bed today to fold the laundry. The huge windows don't let in much light on these overcast afternoons in late winter.
The room is a mess, no matter how many time I promise myself I will pull myself together and clean. Stacks of things that haven't found a place or are simply out of place compete with the layer of dust for someone's attention.
I can hear the wind working around: the flag out front snaps, like a cheap firecracker, while the old coal stove exhaust behind the headboard emits short puffing sounds as the bitterness tries to sneak its way into the house.
Downstairs, you can hear the wind howl around the back of the house, mournful and profound. Such howling started when we built the outlying garage and I'm oddly grateful for it. I hear the moan and feel less lonely inside, more appreciative of these walls that surround me.
I am chilled down to the core and feel stifled in these clothes meant to keep me warm. I soak up hot beverages in vast quantities but it hardly touches the cold;
I am tense: against the cold, with the anticipation of sunshine, out of fear that the dark coldness will never go away.
No matter how often I live through this stage of winter I always lose confidence that spring will come again. One day, my fatalistic heart believes, the sun won't shine anymore and I will be lost here forever.
I stood at the edge of the bed today to fold the laundry. The huge windows don't let in much light on these overcast afternoons in late winter.
The room is a mess, no matter how many time I promise myself I will pull myself together and clean. Stacks of things that haven't found a place or are simply out of place compete with the layer of dust for someone's attention.
I can hear the wind working around: the flag out front snaps, like a cheap firecracker, while the old coal stove exhaust behind the headboard emits short puffing sounds as the bitterness tries to sneak its way into the house.
Downstairs, you can hear the wind howl around the back of the house, mournful and profound. Such howling started when we built the outlying garage and I'm oddly grateful for it. I hear the moan and feel less lonely inside, more appreciative of these walls that surround me.
I am chilled down to the core and feel stifled in these clothes meant to keep me warm. I soak up hot beverages in vast quantities but it hardly touches the cold;
I am tense: against the cold, with the anticipation of sunshine, out of fear that the dark coldness will never go away.
No matter how often I live through this stage of winter I always lose confidence that spring will come again. One day, my fatalistic heart believes, the sun won't shine anymore and I will be lost here forever.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Grab a blanket, it's cold outside.
Do you ever find that you have a nearly overwhelming urge to talk but have nothing to say? This happens to me all the time. It's like words are stuck in my head in some nasty punishing game of pinball - without all the cool lights and sounds. I know they're in there. And I know I want to let them out. But connections fail, willpower fades, and the moment is past.
So, lacking the ability to hold a coherent conversation, here are some things I've been thinking about lately.
1. I love my husband and kids. I like this life I lead. I'm grateful I get to stay at home to be a mom, and that we've decided to continue home schooling Arianna for awhile. I also want a night out, maybe an entire day off, and am seriously dreading all the arguments about continuing to home school Arianna.
After all the things that we've done over the last 8 years that our fellow humans have looked at askance, you'd think they would just get used to it. I suppose they keep holding out hope that we'll morph into "normal" with no notice.
2. Coffee is my enemy. Or if it isn't, it should be. I only drink it when it's loaded with cream (preferably vanilla flavored) and sugar. And yet I keep enabling myself to drink it. You'd think I'd learn the lesson and stick with tea. I suppose I keep holding out hope, blah, blah blah...
3. "Making choices the most spiritual thing we do," says Shane at Mosaic. Or he said something like it, anyway. And the more I think about this, the more I accept the truth of it. There are many things I do not choose about my life. For example, I wouldn't choose to have coffee as my enemy (think about it's sheer thorough infiltration of our entire culture), but it is. And still I choose to drink it.
Ok, so drinking coffee isn't a spiritual exercise - or at least it isn't for me, enemy or no. It isn't the drinking of the coffee, it's the choice to drink it knowing that I probably shouldn't, knowing that it's just going to be unkind in the end. And this is a huge metaphor for life, isn't it? Don't we take all these things we know and use them to make choices good and bad? Admittedly, I do occasionally close my eyes and blunder forward but mostly my choices are based on my knowledge and experience. And sometimes it seems that the problem lies exactly there: the knowledge base and experience I use to make my choices.
What do you do when your knowledge is faulty? When your experience shines the light the wrong way? How do you learn to disregard everything your head and heart tell you, guessing that they are wrong but unable to understand?
Heavy, vague questions. Here's where my real life intersects:
A great example came into harsh view over the last few days. Hang in there, the connections might take awhile. My nephew informed me that when my sister was young and "threw a fit" her (my) parents would do things like throw her across the room ("and isn't that bad?" he added in a rush). I looked at my sister, wondering about all this, and she said "I might have exaggerated a bit." And I shook my head and said sadly "Only a bit."
No, I wouldn't say my parents were abusive. They ruled with a heavy and explosive hand, though. They never apologized, never backed down, and spent almost all of out time together trying to mold us into what they wanted us to be. This doesn't sound so bad. And I often think of it this way. And I excuse the behavior as being "what they knew" and the "best they could do." But deeply do I remember my dad's kick that sent me sprawling across the floor, and then choosing to leave the house, and making a condition of my return that they weren't allowed to hit/kick/etc me anymore. I was almost 16 then and they were embarrassed that I had told my friend's mom what had happened, embarrassed enough that they agreed to my condition and actually stuck to it, for fear of being embarrassed again.
I spent years drinking behind closed doors, creating poisoned relationships, ekeing out a miserable existence. Is this because my parents were explosive and heavy handed? I don't know. And I'm not sure I care. No matter what they chose to do, I chose to respond this way. And when I get really frustrated or angry with my kids I find I sometimes choose to act in the same way. [Yes, yes, no shock there: we are imitators by nature and learn from our environment, etc.]
But here's where things get dicey for me. I can admit that I made and make some of my choices based on a faulty knowledge/experience base. But what is faulty? Can it be fixed? How do you make these sorts of judgements?
For me, I often rely on outside sign posts. No, I don't want someone to stand over me and tell me what to do. But guidance sometimes rocks. Sometimes you really do just have to give up what you know and blunder forward. But all of this means that in the end you lack a basic trust in yourself. Hopefully, my inward distrust is a healthy thing. I don't know, really, as it's a terribly hard thing to judge.
And so I suppose I'm beginning to hold on to Shane's other rather prolific comment "The past is the past." I just don't know how it all goes together yet. How it changes everything or if it even does.
4. [Amazingly, there is still more!] I haven't been to therapy in over a year. This is the longest break I've had since I started therapy 8 years ago. And I'm so grateful that I went. At the time I was poisoning every good thing in my life, putting my marriage on the line, and was ready to just not step out of the way of the end. Thank you to Marc for forcing the issue, to my therapist for not forcing the issues, and the friends who stayed around anyway. [Award speech ends here.] But it's scary not being in therapy. The real world has actual repercussions and consequences. Therapy was a reality suspension in which words could float away from me without harming anyone else. And I miss that. I should probably try writing again. It's possible that sort of thing is available there.
5. I don't have very many secrets left. I've given away a lot of them. It's strangely lonely.
I can't handle the sound of my own voice anymore. Later.
PostScript: Who's Shane at Mosaic? This Mosaic is Mosaic Christian Church of St. Louis. They meet downtown (cool for me). Shane's the pastor there. He's unlike the "average" pastor: he's not worn a suit to a single church service I've attended, he conducts a lot of meetings at Starbucks (infiltration - see?), and I'm pretty sure I heard him use the word "crap." You can look him/the church up on the web at mosaicstlouis.com
So, lacking the ability to hold a coherent conversation, here are some things I've been thinking about lately.
1. I love my husband and kids. I like this life I lead. I'm grateful I get to stay at home to be a mom, and that we've decided to continue home schooling Arianna for awhile. I also want a night out, maybe an entire day off, and am seriously dreading all the arguments about continuing to home school Arianna.
After all the things that we've done over the last 8 years that our fellow humans have looked at askance, you'd think they would just get used to it. I suppose they keep holding out hope that we'll morph into "normal" with no notice.
2. Coffee is my enemy. Or if it isn't, it should be. I only drink it when it's loaded with cream (preferably vanilla flavored) and sugar. And yet I keep enabling myself to drink it. You'd think I'd learn the lesson and stick with tea. I suppose I keep holding out hope, blah, blah blah...
3. "Making choices the most spiritual thing we do," says Shane at Mosaic. Or he said something like it, anyway. And the more I think about this, the more I accept the truth of it. There are many things I do not choose about my life. For example, I wouldn't choose to have coffee as my enemy (think about it's sheer thorough infiltration of our entire culture), but it is. And still I choose to drink it.
Ok, so drinking coffee isn't a spiritual exercise - or at least it isn't for me, enemy or no. It isn't the drinking of the coffee, it's the choice to drink it knowing that I probably shouldn't, knowing that it's just going to be unkind in the end. And this is a huge metaphor for life, isn't it? Don't we take all these things we know and use them to make choices good and bad? Admittedly, I do occasionally close my eyes and blunder forward but mostly my choices are based on my knowledge and experience. And sometimes it seems that the problem lies exactly there: the knowledge base and experience I use to make my choices.
What do you do when your knowledge is faulty? When your experience shines the light the wrong way? How do you learn to disregard everything your head and heart tell you, guessing that they are wrong but unable to understand?
Heavy, vague questions. Here's where my real life intersects:
A great example came into harsh view over the last few days. Hang in there, the connections might take awhile. My nephew informed me that when my sister was young and "threw a fit" her (my) parents would do things like throw her across the room ("and isn't that bad?" he added in a rush). I looked at my sister, wondering about all this, and she said "I might have exaggerated a bit." And I shook my head and said sadly "Only a bit."
No, I wouldn't say my parents were abusive. They ruled with a heavy and explosive hand, though. They never apologized, never backed down, and spent almost all of out time together trying to mold us into what they wanted us to be. This doesn't sound so bad. And I often think of it this way. And I excuse the behavior as being "what they knew" and the "best they could do." But deeply do I remember my dad's kick that sent me sprawling across the floor, and then choosing to leave the house, and making a condition of my return that they weren't allowed to hit/kick/etc me anymore. I was almost 16 then and they were embarrassed that I had told my friend's mom what had happened, embarrassed enough that they agreed to my condition and actually stuck to it, for fear of being embarrassed again.
I spent years drinking behind closed doors, creating poisoned relationships, ekeing out a miserable existence. Is this because my parents were explosive and heavy handed? I don't know. And I'm not sure I care. No matter what they chose to do, I chose to respond this way. And when I get really frustrated or angry with my kids I find I sometimes choose to act in the same way. [Yes, yes, no shock there: we are imitators by nature and learn from our environment, etc.]
But here's where things get dicey for me. I can admit that I made and make some of my choices based on a faulty knowledge/experience base. But what is faulty? Can it be fixed? How do you make these sorts of judgements?
For me, I often rely on outside sign posts. No, I don't want someone to stand over me and tell me what to do. But guidance sometimes rocks. Sometimes you really do just have to give up what you know and blunder forward. But all of this means that in the end you lack a basic trust in yourself. Hopefully, my inward distrust is a healthy thing. I don't know, really, as it's a terribly hard thing to judge.
And so I suppose I'm beginning to hold on to Shane's other rather prolific comment "The past is the past." I just don't know how it all goes together yet. How it changes everything or if it even does.
4. [Amazingly, there is still more!] I haven't been to therapy in over a year. This is the longest break I've had since I started therapy 8 years ago. And I'm so grateful that I went. At the time I was poisoning every good thing in my life, putting my marriage on the line, and was ready to just not step out of the way of the end. Thank you to Marc for forcing the issue, to my therapist for not forcing the issues, and the friends who stayed around anyway. [Award speech ends here.] But it's scary not being in therapy. The real world has actual repercussions and consequences. Therapy was a reality suspension in which words could float away from me without harming anyone else. And I miss that. I should probably try writing again. It's possible that sort of thing is available there.
5. I don't have very many secrets left. I've given away a lot of them. It's strangely lonely.
I can't handle the sound of my own voice anymore. Later.
PostScript: Who's Shane at Mosaic? This Mosaic is Mosaic Christian Church of St. Louis. They meet downtown (cool for me). Shane's the pastor there. He's unlike the "average" pastor: he's not worn a suit to a single church service I've attended, he conducts a lot of meetings at Starbucks (infiltration - see?), and I'm pretty sure I heard him use the word "crap." You can look him/the church up on the web at mosaicstlouis.com
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Climate Change
All the words are scrambled behind my eyes, victims of lit monitors spewing forth endless images.
The clatter and chaos of my surroundings limits free thought -
For the most part, language goes through a process of distillation, emerging efficient and stark.
Deeply complex ideas become simple statements of truth requiring a moment of wary faith.
In this world of language drought
My mind moves in monologue;
I have become starved for conversation.
Profound moments come in quick bursts like firecrackers across my brain
Leaving little impression beyond the echo of their light.
I grapple for some method of notation before it is all gone;
I litter bits of paper around me, seeming to exist within an exclamation mark.
Taken altogether, there is a sense of missing grace.
The clatter and chaos of my surroundings limits free thought -
For the most part, language goes through a process of distillation, emerging efficient and stark.
Deeply complex ideas become simple statements of truth requiring a moment of wary faith.
In this world of language drought
My mind moves in monologue;
I have become starved for conversation.
Profound moments come in quick bursts like firecrackers across my brain
Leaving little impression beyond the echo of their light.
I grapple for some method of notation before it is all gone;
I litter bits of paper around me, seeming to exist within an exclamation mark.
Taken altogether, there is a sense of missing grace.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Weary ramblings
It's been a rough week - Christmas is coming, my kid has been very sick, and I'm amazingly tired. Life is wearing me down; not such a surprise at this time of year. But I'm surrounded by really cool people and it's not so bad.
I've been growing my hair out again. It's not the best look for me but it's easy and functional. Officially, it's getting long so that I can make a lengthy donation out of it; the truth is that I'm kind of lazy and cheap so I've missed a bunch of hair cuts. Long hair is awfully familiar.
I got out of the shower this morning and dressed quickly in comfy jeans, tennis shoes, and an old flannel. Standing at the mirror, brushing my hair, I felt like I truly knew myself. The image looking back was one I've seen so often before it was a little like coming home again, and I sighed a bit in relief. It seems odd, I know, but many times I'm surprised by my own reflection. In my mind, I seem to remember myself differently. Today I felt and looked like someone I remembered fondly. It was both startling and peaceful. Startling because until this morning I didn't realize how very often I don't feel like I know myself. And such a wonderful sense of peace that came with knowing that person standing there.
Like so many moments that stick in my head, the underlying commentary is significant. I'm so stressed all the time about carrying these responsibilities around. I never realized how hard I would strive to be a good mother - it's harder to be a good mom than I thought, I try harder than I thought I could, and I see constant room for improvement. And it's such a monumental job. Seriously, these two little human beings look to me to be something.... almost superhero-like. I'm looked to make everything better, from favorite broken toys to heartbreaking loss. And while I'm trying to be a superhero, I'm trying to teach them that the world isn't always what we want it to be or what we think it should be. It's like walking an invisible line while following rules no one told you about. And no, I'm really not trying to reinvent the wheel here. Moms are universal, good ones and bad ones and mediocre ones.
But it felt good this morning to look in the mirror and see my old, flanneled self staring back. To remember that it's not all earth shattering, monumental decision making. Some days should just be comfy jeans and flannel shirts.
In a different vein (in the spirit of my sort of stream of consciousness mode), I had one of those moments the other day. When I missed all the things I can't ever have back. I wanted to hug Mom just one more time. Throw the ball for Simon again. Those moments don't happen often but it seems that it all hits at once and I'm driven to my knees. And I've learned to pray while I'm there. It's not coherent, it's a flinging of emotion too big to hold on to... There's poetry in that somewhere. But I'm not sure where. I hope to find it soon.
I've been growing my hair out again. It's not the best look for me but it's easy and functional. Officially, it's getting long so that I can make a lengthy donation out of it; the truth is that I'm kind of lazy and cheap so I've missed a bunch of hair cuts. Long hair is awfully familiar.
I got out of the shower this morning and dressed quickly in comfy jeans, tennis shoes, and an old flannel. Standing at the mirror, brushing my hair, I felt like I truly knew myself. The image looking back was one I've seen so often before it was a little like coming home again, and I sighed a bit in relief. It seems odd, I know, but many times I'm surprised by my own reflection. In my mind, I seem to remember myself differently. Today I felt and looked like someone I remembered fondly. It was both startling and peaceful. Startling because until this morning I didn't realize how very often I don't feel like I know myself. And such a wonderful sense of peace that came with knowing that person standing there.
Like so many moments that stick in my head, the underlying commentary is significant. I'm so stressed all the time about carrying these responsibilities around. I never realized how hard I would strive to be a good mother - it's harder to be a good mom than I thought, I try harder than I thought I could, and I see constant room for improvement. And it's such a monumental job. Seriously, these two little human beings look to me to be something.... almost superhero-like. I'm looked to make everything better, from favorite broken toys to heartbreaking loss. And while I'm trying to be a superhero, I'm trying to teach them that the world isn't always what we want it to be or what we think it should be. It's like walking an invisible line while following rules no one told you about. And no, I'm really not trying to reinvent the wheel here. Moms are universal, good ones and bad ones and mediocre ones.
But it felt good this morning to look in the mirror and see my old, flanneled self staring back. To remember that it's not all earth shattering, monumental decision making. Some days should just be comfy jeans and flannel shirts.
In a different vein (in the spirit of my sort of stream of consciousness mode), I had one of those moments the other day. When I missed all the things I can't ever have back. I wanted to hug Mom just one more time. Throw the ball for Simon again. Those moments don't happen often but it seems that it all hits at once and I'm driven to my knees. And I've learned to pray while I'm there. It's not coherent, it's a flinging of emotion too big to hold on to... There's poetry in that somewhere. But I'm not sure where. I hope to find it soon.
Friday, December 05, 2008
And I just churn in circles
I realize that too much of my energy goes into negativity; things like worry, fear, and stress seem to permanently occupy a portion of my heart. I work very hard at letting it go, turning it over, focusing on the positive, but my success varies wildly.
Right now I'm very worried about two things: my daughter and a friend. We've been working with our daughter on her behavior, but it seems that no matter what we do, her bad behavior just gets worse. She's recently started lashing out physically when she's angry. I've heard the phrase "It's just a phase" too many time. A phase is only a phase after it's past. I've also had people allude to the idea that if we weren't so strict we wouldn't be having so many problems. But somehow I don't think that lowering our standards is the best way to approach this problem. Then we circle the homeschool point: are we making the situation better or worse by staying at home? I just don't know. In my heart, I do think she's better here where we won't force her into mainstream behavior treatment (i.e. medication). But it's so hard to know what the right thing is.
On the other subject, a friend is having some serious medical problems. The doctors haven't given her a firm diagnosis yet, but it so far the tests indicate that she has MS. The situation is very challenging and will be difficult for her family. I worry about how they will cope with the situation.
I know that these are two subjects that I really just need to let go of and turn over. Some days that is much easier to do than others.
Right now I'm very worried about two things: my daughter and a friend. We've been working with our daughter on her behavior, but it seems that no matter what we do, her bad behavior just gets worse. She's recently started lashing out physically when she's angry. I've heard the phrase "It's just a phase" too many time. A phase is only a phase after it's past. I've also had people allude to the idea that if we weren't so strict we wouldn't be having so many problems. But somehow I don't think that lowering our standards is the best way to approach this problem. Then we circle the homeschool point: are we making the situation better or worse by staying at home? I just don't know. In my heart, I do think she's better here where we won't force her into mainstream behavior treatment (i.e. medication). But it's so hard to know what the right thing is.
On the other subject, a friend is having some serious medical problems. The doctors haven't given her a firm diagnosis yet, but it so far the tests indicate that she has MS. The situation is very challenging and will be difficult for her family. I worry about how they will cope with the situation.
I know that these are two subjects that I really just need to let go of and turn over. Some days that is much easier to do than others.
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