The helter skelter arc of my heart
I took the day off from work, feeling crumpled and exhausted and near-to-tears. Work, post-traumatic stress, and life in general, has me feeling more anxious and more depressed than I have possibly ever felt in my life. Mostly, it’s the whole post-trauma stuff, which seems to permeate everything else. Because I am an optimist, a glass-half-full dreamer, it is unnerving to be here on the brink of sorrow. Doubt, like an unbalanced weight, threatens to pull me over the edge. And perhaps the worst part of this is I’ve always been a mind-over-matter type of person and suddenly I’ve come slamming up against the fact that I can’t just mind-over-matter this all away. My body has internalized the stress of it all, and I’ve been sick in this low-grade kind of way that has me always feeling thin skinned and raw.
So I took the day off and reveled in a morning all to myself—no toddler, no kids all asking for help in unison, no colleagues asking for favors—just me and some writing and a tall frothy latte.
Then I took a nap. It was that weird kind of sleep where semi-consciousness hovers close. Every few minutes I felt like I was almost awake, and, for a moment upon waking after an hour of sleep, I felt sure I had not slept at all. But I had, and the day outside had gone from grey to a perfect autumnal blue.
I took Bean in the backpack for an hour hike through woods, stopping every so often to listen to the sounds of the woods and smell the crisp autumn air. We’d stop, both of us nearly holding our breath, and listen to the sound of water, to the occasional crow calling overhead, and then, suddenly and more than once, to the report of a gun. Damn hunters. I sang softly walking along the spungy trail, not wanting to be mistaken.
Home again, DH and I immediately launched into an argument, that in retrospect had everything to do with the fact that I wanted to be taken care of and hardly anything to do with whatever puppet topic we pulled onto the stage. But later, after I’d left for town he called, and we talked until we came to some sort of understanding, and he met me there for dinner. It was cold out, and I was glad for my down jacket. We at kebabs and crepes from street vendors, and sipped creamy hot chocolate from the local chocolatier, and had a lovely time.
So I guess I’m stubbornly scrabbling out of the hole I’m in. It seems a lot like one step forward, two steps back, but there’s movement, and many exquisite moments. I am grateful for this—that I have not lost my capacity for joy.
(Here are a few pictures, still with the crappy camera.)
Another Morning Poem
Letting Go
I open my hand and the hundred small birds of my heart flutter out, wings rumpled from the tight fist I’ve carried them in.
They fall to the ground before flying up, knowing something of soil and grief.
I can’t shake this feeling now. Nights up, hearing the house move, the small birds flit restlessly about the room, dreaming.
With dawn the birds fly up to the rafters where I cannot reach them.
A morning poem
Like a cold draft from the crack in the lintelthe day of the killing keeps creeping back in; making my heart beat faster, unbidden. All the things I tried to avoid by covering my eyes at the movie theater again and again rush up now, in the quiet moments when I’m there in the dark rocking my son to sleep. Or in those other moments of ordinary things wiping a dish dry, or standing dripping wet after a shower. There is nothing left for me to do but dance off kilter to this new song until I turn the floor boards to tinder and the room becomes suddenly warm with compassion.
1st snow
It snowed this weekend. The first flakes started to fall in long slanting streaks just as evening tucked the valley in. We were inside with a fire going, hanging pictures (finally) on our walls, listening to a Mozart symphony. The next morning, the world was white and golden: a patchwork of the last bright leaves on the trees, and snow in icy piles along the side of the road. Enough for a snowball fight, and full Bean snowsuit regalia. (My camera is still in for repairs. This one, alas, is crap. But you get the idea. It was pretty, and a mostly restful weekend except for an unidentified allergic reaction on my face yesterday. That, and it was about a week too short.)
Because I always root for the underdog
I'm so happy Jeffery won on Project Runway! (My one tv watching obsession is hereby revealed.) I loved his couture dress, and that green striped dress with the exquisite detail. I could ever get up the guts to really let my hair down and dress my inner wild self, I'd wear his clothes. (Stop gasping. I know I never where anything but jeans, and an exciting day for me in fashion is a pair of heeled boots. But just imagine. I'm good at imagining.) Another good thing? I have off the next two days, and am thrilled to have time to hang out with my little guy, and make food, and play with friends, and in genral, catch up on life. Bean seems to have been missing me big time tonight. Every time I'd stop rocking and prepare to put him to bed, thinking he was sound asleep, he'd roust himself and say "grock! grock!" I didn't quite get what he was saying at first, but then I realized it was "rock!" as in, 'keep rocking me mommy." And so I did, humming songs in the dark, and feeling emotions rise and then ebb away as my mind gradually stilled.
Here's to quiet moments, good wins, and long weekends.
Making meaning
My camera, which over the past year has become something like an extension of my eye, is in the shop for repairs, and already I've gone bumbling around the house twice looking for it, forgetting it's not here. It mysteriously started giving me 'error 99' messagesm and I am mourning it's absense. So much to capture with the lense right now. T rain-slicked backs of the water buffalo down the road; the trees, almost leafless, and bending in the wind; the moon like a splash of milk against the gray tablecloth of the stormy night sky. I'm also struggling this week to process the issues that have surfaced around all the school shootings that have happened recently--the one I was in, and the others. I'm trying to find a context for forgiveness, and trying to understand the purpose of such violence and evil--if there is indeed a purpose. I find myself grappling with faith. On one hand, I believe deeply in the intrinsic spiritual nature of the universe, but on the other hand, I feel like the weft has been pulled out from the tapestry of meaning that I've constructed over the past twenty years. I'm left with shreds, and faith is a poor medium for mending rent cloth.
One thing I know: that there is a remarkable power in forgiveness. I've written several posts about the connection I see between forgiveness and generosity. To forgive is a profoundly generous act, and I try to live by this daily, in whatever way I am able. Yet it is hard to have this be enough, when all around me people place blame, point fingers, become angry. I don't know enough about Ghandi, but I'm thinking about him tonight.
In my house, the person who teaches me endless lessons about mindfulness and abundant love, is my son. He's so fun and wild and sweet. His smile is still unadulterated and pure as sunshine--no alterior motive, no secondary list of items to accomplish with his grin. He simply is.
Tonight, it was just the two of us at home with the wind whipping rain into the windows. We painted before bed. I recently bought new tubs of acrylic paint, and used the lids from each container for him to dip his brush into. He made a wild mess. A glorious blur of streaks and color, all over his hands, the page, the floor. I love watching him do this--watching as he tries the color, or explores the way the brush spatters paint.
Being with him asks me to be more. Maybe being a mother it isn't the entire reason, but it's part of the reason I keep coming back to this hard stuff again and again, trying to make meaning, to grow beyond the very small boundaries of my self. Or maybe, being a mother has simply ripped my heart wide open, so I feel everything a little more.
20 months
Dear Bean, You were perfectly behaved. You sat in a little yellow race car chair, and only winced when the hairstylist sprayed water on your hair. Afterwards we celebrated with a vanilla milk and an oatmeal-raisin cookie as big as your face. And just like that you left your baby self behind.
Now we're in a whole new era of things: aiming for the potty, three word sentences, chasing games, and copying everything anyone says or does.
This month you’ve gained weight and grown taller. You reach for things on the kitchen counter now, and you say “thank you†(ta-woo) and ask for “more.†You also seem bigger because with the change of season, you’re wearing snug Thinsulate boots, fleecy hats, and wooly sweaters. The extra layers have not stopped you however, from your new found love of running fast down hill, your arms akimbo, the wind blowing in your hair.
Everywhere on our hillside cinnamon and yellow and vermillion leaves lie in heaps along the edges of the road, and in piles against the old stone walls that zig-zag through our woods. You fall into them, and laugh. You ask to be lifted up to pick apples with both hands, and then you eat them all the way down to the core.
Inside, you play with your new ride-on-top fire truck, and want to be like our cat. When she eats, you throw yourself on your belly next to her dish, and pretend to eat like she does. She isn’t so fond of this, but tolerates it until your adoration for her forces you to throw your body upon her.
In four months you’ll be two. This seems less miraculous to me than a year ago at this time, when I was first contemplating having a 1 year old, and you were on the brink of walking. Somewhere along the way we’ve gotten the hang of being your parents, and we’ve finally learned that your every wail or flushed cheek doesn’t always signify the worst case scenario. People tell me that two is Terrible, and that you’ll become the master of Button Pushing. But I’m not convinced. You are a pretty cool kid, most of the time.
Yes, you do throw perfect jelly-bodied temper tantrums. You melt to the floor, and wail when you don’t want to do something. You know how to shed gigantic crocodile tears. But you also know when we mean business, and you listen. You are sunny natured and easy going. You love to laugh. And somehow, remarkably, you are NEATER THAN YOUR PARENTS.
(Please remember that Daddy and I really will never mind your obsession with putting shoes away, throwing scraps of paper or dust bunnies in the trash, or closing left-open closet doors.)
Love, Mama.
Thursday mosaic
“Mama!†he calls out, and a smile as bright and pure as the flight of swallows, arcs across the room from him to me. I reach out for him. DH wraps his arms around both of us, and for a minute there we are, just breathing. Then we wrestle on the bed for a while, feeling the weight and warmth of each other.
When we go downstairs we are a flurry of arms and legs and knees, making snack. We’re a tall family, the three of us, and already, Bean’s head comes up above the dining room table. He’s standing on the rungs of the stool now, by the counter, wanting to help me make chocolate milk and peanut butter and jelly tortilla roll-ups. The light outside is perfect: the last of the maples are the most exquisite hue of orange in the late afternoon sun, and the light falls across the room in long slanting rays.
We go for a walk along our dirt road which is thick with new mud from the first real rains of autumn. They say snow is in the forecast for tomorrow, but I can’t believe it. Today the air has that perfect crispness to it, not too cold, but sharp enough to make you feel alive. We walk a little over a mile to where the cattle are grazing in knee-high mist. Among them are two water buffalo that are quite friendly, and when they see us, they amble over, grunting in their earthy way. They lick the salt off our hands with their rough tongues, and eye Bean curiously in his running stroller. We promise to bring them windfall apples next time.
On the way back, we walk with our arms around each other’s waists the way we used to do in college and it makes me smile.
In contrast
In contrast, I spent today indoors, watching the sun move across the square diorama of my window, sending long rectangles of bright and shade onto the carpet and tables and the tousled heads of kids. It was a PMSy, moody day with near-tears moments and and no-reason exhaustion by the end. Sometimes the sheer volume of 20 little kids is enough to drive me up a wall. My head reverberates and I feel utterly fragmented. Then I realize I haven’t eaten in hours. On days like today I catch myself longing to be teaching college students—longing to be that me I’ll be in five or six years from now.
Perfect
Time to really watch this little boy of mine who is growing so fast—who is talking now in two word sentences. Under his Gran’s tutelage he has become an aficionado of all things nature: he eats wild apple after wild apple, puckering up his face at their tangy, bitter sweet. He gathers acorns, and picks dandelions, and climbs rocks with ease. Today he followed our cat into the woods, farther than he’s ever gone before—a good acre away from the house. He climbed over the old stone wall that zig-zags in and out of the trees and found a woodchuck’s burrow which he promptly filled with leaves. Then he straddled a fallen birch, and sat there contended for a while, as the cat slipped off into the dappled sunlight further up the hill. Here are more pictures from our day.
Last week I didn’t have any of these moments of simple pleasure. Without my weekend (we were in NJ) everything collided every day, leaving me exhausted—unable to climb out of the stress and into the beauty of now. But with today, I feel efuled, and, after spending the past two hours writing lesson plans for the week, feel excited to jump in again. I just wish, somehow, that I could get a thirteenth hour every day. Wouldn’t that be great?
What would you do with a thirteenth hour?
Every day
Every day I tie a dozen shoes, I hug kids to my hips (their heads come up just that far), I smile often, I furrow my brows. Over and over I say, "sit criss-cross" or I say "make a good choice," or I say a hundred other things that remind, encourage, repremand, demand, console, inspire, complement, or direct.
Every day I get marker on my jeans, I write messages to my kids, I sing songs, I answer questions, I model, I redirect, often all at the same time. Every day I am filled with wonder that these children are all somebody's babies--their Beans--and I look into their eyes and try to create a wide open space in my heart for them, even when they push buttons, or tease each other or tattle on each other or do not finish their work.
Every day I feel like I am not good enough, that I do not do enough, see enough, say enough to be what I am to them: the person they see more than their moms and dads all week. Their teacher. Every day there is a stack of unfinished work, of things I need to do, of meetings, of lists, of books. Yet every day I am also greatful for this opportunity to always come up short; to be challenged to grow; to be filled with wonder.
Morning Poem Snippets
Until I catch up with my life again, a handful of snippets will have to do. Here are a few unedited lines that surfaced in the midst of my morning poem chaff over the past few days. I am so inspired by your lists of life-altering artists, writers, etc. I want to compile them into a sidebar feature--with links to all your amazing blogs. Thank you for filling me up with new places to look for wonder, for solace, for joy, for sustainance. I spent the evening in a bookstore, with a stack of books about two feet high. So good.
*
We twirl gradually towards better days, our knees scraped, our hearts drenched in the honey of love.
*
The moon bright and white, caught in the corner of the window like a lone daisy petal or a wedge of chalk.
* Night comes too soon after sunrise now. The days, turning towards winter, have me stumbling again towards the center in me.
*
Like a pale china bowl, upturned overhead the sky is glazed pink and shades of lavender.
*
Tree silhouettes are becoming sharp, crowns of twigs amidst a hillside of fire.
*
Its hunting season again. Bucks rake their antlers across the sky in anguish. Stars scatter earthwards, becoming dew. Fawns, full grown but knowing nothing of mistrust, lurch to their knees red blood spilling onto the brittle end-of-summer grass.
Wanting more
On Friday I took an airplane down to NJ to meet up with DH and the Bean who'd gone on ahead (the prospect of a 7 hour car ride with toddler suddenly overwhelming after a long week of six year olds.) The plane took off through a partial cloudcover just after sunset, and as we lifted above the ash and indigo clouds, the atmosphere above was smudged with vibrant orange, fading to pale yellow, and then to a hundred delicate shades of blue each growing darker as the vast distance of space increased.
Looking out the window, feeling the odd weight of my body pressing back into the seat, bucking gravity for liftoff, I was struck by how miraculous it is that as humans, we've grown used to this. To flying, miles above the earth. To this view above the clouds. Something about it still feels risky to me; I can't help thinking of Icarus falling in flight away from the heat of the sun. It will always feel brave and terrifying to me, to lift off the ground inside a metal jet. To fly without wings, trusting aerodynamics to lift the weight of steel and small human life into the air.
I brought the newest Elle and Vanity Fair magazines to leaf through on the plane, and spent the flight skimmingt through the pages of models with smokey eyes and skinny jeans, to linger over the book reviews and essays. This happens to me sometimes. This sudden thirsting for stuff beyond the parentheses of my small world.
It's a feeling that almost leaves me breathless. A craving. An intense realization that I am somehow parched for culture, for books, for time to delve into novels, read book reviews, attend theater, re-learn the myths of our culture, or wander through galleries. Without intention, my life grows narrow. I stop moving beyond the vocabulary of everyday. I stop pounding on the window that defines my view. And then, suddenly, like then on the plane, I run smack into my narrow vantage point.
All of the morning poems I've been writing this month have acted as a catalyst for this, I'm sure. They've stirred up something deep in me; made me reflect on the gaps I have in my ability to construct metaphors that matter, or to encapsulate with precise langauge, a specific circumstance or emotion.
The thing is, I'm not sure how to get beyond where I'm at. I'm not sure how to pick up a rock and throw it into the window. Not sure even, what the window or rock look like any more. But if giving ten haphazard minutes poems every morning has changed me, I can gather the same courage to toss myself towards books again, towards learning.
So what I want from you is this: what writers, or poets, or artists or films have had a lasting impact on the way you think and live your life? Name five.
Self portrait challenge: Elements (Water)
Sun high on the meridian, humidity making my hair curl and the cat nap, a sprawling stripe of fur on the windowsill. Reason enough to head down to the local hardware store for a blue plastic kiddy pool. Cold water splashing on our sun-hot skin. A perfect afternoon
Morning Poem # 6
All night the cat slept curledon the chair opposite the bed, content to hear the heartbeats of her humans lost in slumber. Now she wakes and stretches a beautiful apostrophe of feline ease, becoming a comma, then an M before she struts away.
What it's like
This morning, all I could muster after a too-busy weekend with houseguests and rainstorms were these few lines written in dark ink, the words running together as water dripped from my hair.
I throw myself into the face of the day waiting like an expectant martyr to be handed alms or be run over.
I’m at that point right now, before things feel easy, but after things have been at the hardest part. It’s that point between exhaustion and sweetness. That point at the end of being sick for a full week, and not having had two nights of solid sleep in a row---but after spending an evening in the curve of DH’s arm, watching firelight and making love so many times. We celebrated our anniversary today—-waking up to a leak in a pipe in the wall above the kitchen sink and a sick baby.
But we also woke up to another day together. Another day where what I wrote to him when we were first together, still rings true. Now more than ever: your hand fits the curve of my hand and your mind fits the curve of my mind.
Learning about showing up
A week of waking up, stumbling to the shower, making my way to the coffee pot and out the door just as the pale fog is lifting. I drive along the dirt road, the gravel slick with mud from the evening rain, and watch each how the leaves are turning. Now, at the end of the road all the maples are golden. I want to hold my breath. I want to slow things down enough to be able to drink up the beauty of the early morning light falling on the backs of grazing horses, and the mountain rising up tall and humble from the patchwork of trees like an old monk seeking alms. I want it to go slow enough to remember the breath of my sleeping son, eyelashes long and delicate in the first light of dawn.
I turn at the end of the road, onto the highway full of cars and make my way towards the brick school building where I work. I love it there, as much as I can. Some days my heart feels tightly wound like the pieces of an old pocket watch, and I tremble thinking of my little boy at home. Thinking of how my life now is like a grapefruit, torn up into sections of bittersweetness. But I’m growing used to the rhythm of this—getting up, leaving, doing what I am good at, and returning in late afternoon. Often I come home to my two guys sitting in the back yard in our two lounge chairs, side by side, sun splashed and handsome. I try to shift gears, feeling an internal lurch: longing for down-time, for solace, and then throwing myself full-throttle into the daily act of devotion that is raising a child and loving a husband. Some days DH and I reach out and touch, hold each other, drink each other up hungrily, and laugh. Other days, we have nothing to give, and in our emptiness we starve eachother. We bicker and get snappish. We hold on to little things, and forget how much we love.
But I am learning to be patient with time. Learning that things will come to fruition and fall into place if I give them space to do so. Like the morning poems I’ve been writing. I start with a handful of scraps, a few random lines still drenched in the half-consciousness of dreams. If I’m patient and I return to these lines later in the day, I find small gems I rarely expect. Things I’d never think of if I wrote later in the day, when impatience and busyness saturate my pores. So I’ll keep showing up next week. Showing up at the page. Showing up at the now of my life.
Morning Poem # 3
I wrap my towel like a turban around wet locksand suddenly I am ten again, tossing rocks with the new girl who wore a turban and was not allowed to ever cut her hair.
We were fast friends, for those short months just shy of summer at the end of our fifth grade year when the sun filled the afternoon with dry heat and even under the sycamores the shade was warm.
She joined the class late, and left before the autumn brought us back, our shoes brand new and pencils sharpened. But in the time between, we played hard and did not stop to ponder how our worlds were really separate stanzas.
Instead, our friendship took place between the parentheses of joy; where sparkly black eyes met blue and spelled out mischief.
It didn’t matter that she wore long cotton pants under her dresses, or wrapped her hair in yards of cloth. What mattered was our wildness, running together faster than any of the other kids, or hiding in the barn where, (I offered her a silver pair of scissors and she cut some of her hair.)
Morning Poem # 2
In the gradual lightening of day,I wait for words to come. Outside my window, the bright flames of leaves speak the language of planetary tilt and early sunset.
Like the widespread skirts of a peasant woman the sky trails tattered bits of clouds; a lone jet streaks overhead. Behind me trail remnants a dream,
smeared with sweetness: the addict gets better, the killer pauses before the bullet breaks glass, and turns away.
The dawn clouds turn to golden and the cup of memory spills. The day begins.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
** I loved reading your morning poems. Post more & link to here!
19 months
Dear Bean, You sit at my feet making a picture all by yourself with the skinny markers I keep in a jar in my studio. Carefully you uncap each one, recapping it after you have added its color in bright stripes to your page. It is raining out and for a few short moments, we’re both working quietly—contented in the semi dark of the room, rain splattering the glass. This month has been all about times like this with you—times of longer concentration, conversation, and activity.
I love watching you close doors or pick up shoes after I’ve asked you to—a grin always spreading across your face like sweet jam. You spend time drawing now, or looking at books. You bring piles to anyone who will comply: climbing into their lap, saying “buh! buh!†And you’ve started to build with me—block towers ten or twelve blocks high. Of course, you’re favorite part is still knocking them down—but I’m excited that we’re on the cusp of this new kind of play. Construction.
This month you’ve become obsessed with walking in my shoes—literally. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that you can walk in them with such ease—you’ve already shown us a thousand times your natural sense of balance and coordination. I’ve stopped worrying you’ll fall and break your neck every single time you slip into a pair of my shoes—and instead have taken to wishing I could freeze you like this forever: goofy, and adorable, and still so small.
Other things you are obsessed with: stuffing toilet paper down behind me while I’m sitting on the loo. Eating peanut butter and jelly tortilla roll-ups. Climbing up onto the picture window sill. Riding on my shoulders. Visiting the neighbor’s sheep. And playing guitar with Daddy.
Driving home after work today I was thinking about how much I look forward to seeing you at the end of the day. How delighted I am to come in and find you and scoop you up. I love your gutsy little laugh as I tickle your tummy. The way you wrap your arms around my neck. And even the way you blatantly ignore me now, when you’re in the middle of a project.
Like always since you came into our lives, each month seems to go too fast. Yet, like always, the lesson you teach me again and again is to slow down, be present, and enjoy the pure intensity of every moment.