Barnmaven

On understanding why life is sometimes a mountain of crap

I just posted a comment over on a blog I read fairly regularly.  If you want to read some exceptionally beautiful writing, go read Finding Your Voice.  Jennifer Lawler is a gifted writer, and everytime I read one of her posts there are three thoughts that go through my head.

1.  She has an amazing talent and prose that gives shapes to words, makes sentences into concrete things and describes feelings that punch you right in the stomach.

2.  My writing, in comparison, is crap

and 3., most of all 3., the petty things that I tend to complain about are hangnails taken in the context of what she and her daughter live with and go through.

Go read her blog, really. 

I was commenting on her most recent post and as I was considering what she had written, I thought of that old saying "you always get what you deserve," and I thought to myself, no, that's not really true.  And typed instead, Nobody ever really gets what they deserve, do they.

But then I wonder, what is it we really DO deserve?

Do we deserve anything?

And where do we cross the line, either way, into accepting what it is we've got or not got, or into being either smugly entitled or sadly feeling as if we earned some kind of terrible karma?  When is it OK to say "I earned this, I worked hard for it, and I'm proud of myself," and when is it better to just shut up and be thankful that you've had opportunities maybe other people didn't get? 

There's no universal great equalizer that I can determine.  There is always the potential of equalization, either via natural disaster, coincidence, or consequence, but the fact of the matter is that in this life, at least so far as I can see, there are always people who have more and people who have less.  And perhaps its a simple twist of fate that one person who has a great idea finds the right set of circumstances to turn that idea into wealth and fame, and another person who is also full of good ideas never finds exactly the right opportunity to make it big.  That one couple has lots of healthy babies and another couple can't have any, or they have a baby who is desperately ill or who dies.  That someone who is less capable gets into the college of someone else's dreams.  That one baby out of six other babies gets to go live with parents who were for the most part gentle and loving and the other five got a brutal existence at the hands of a pedophile and their abusive mother.  That one guy steals other people blind and lives the high life and doesn't get caught, and another guy can't steal a gallon of gas to get to work on time without getting nailed and jailed.   That a faithful spouse gets cheated on.  That some folks are unbelievably wealthy through no real effort of their own while others live in brutal poverty simply, each because they just happened to be born to a particular set of parents.

And what is it, exactly, that we are supposed to learn from this?  What's the takeaway, kids?

Damned if I know.

Or maybe, I'm not sure yet, but I'm trying as hard as I can to understand.

I am then reminded of David Richo's Five Things:

Everything changes and ends.  Things do not always go according to plan.  Life is not always fair.  Pain is part of life.  Poeple are not loving and loyal all the time.

Richo presents a philosophy that says "I can either be crushed, possessed, devastated by the circumstances in my life or I can become a witness to them."  This doesn't mean being a beaming ray of sunshine "Oh, hey, everything's great! Yep!  Never mind that my marriage ended or I lost my job or I have a terminal illness, don't worry -- I'm just FINE!"  No, what he means is that we neither stifle nor give in to the emotions that are an inevitable part of being alive and human, but that we feel them so fully that they move through us and move on. 

Neither stoic nor overwhelmed.  And accepting that there is a big pile of awful, unfair things that happen in this world that we have no control over.  Living with compassion for others and being moved by their circumstances, listening to their pain and caring what happens to them.  Caring about what happens to us. 

I don't know sometimes how I'll find that balance.  Richo and other writers like him often recommend meditation as a path to mindfulness.  Which sort of makes me feel left out of the game, because meditation and I are not close acquaintances, not now and not likely ever to be.  But I find myself more often turning the radio off in the car and using the silence to ponder life's great mysteries (and try to decide what I'm making for dinner).  I'm trying to be less of a "fixer" of other people's lives and more of a witness and a companion to their suffering.   I'm working on being willing to let my feelings be what they are and to let go of the need to assuage them somehow. 

Maybe I'll never get there, maybe I'll spend the rest of my life looking for pocket gurus to answer my questions and tell me how I'm supposed to live.  

I do believe that I'm never going to actually become a truly enlightened being, not on this earth, anyways, but I hope I at least grow and learn enough to find the beginnings of understanding.  Because I would very much like to understand. 

 

The desert at night

It was a long, dark drive home this morning after dropping SG off at the airport for his outbound flight.  I gave myself about five minutes to cry, then wiped my tears and headed West.  The middle part of Washington State is amazingly stark.  The trees thin out and disappear about 20 miles out of Spokane and then its rolling hills, scorched cheat grass and sagebrush interspersed with a few cows, a way station or two, and approximately three gas stations all the way home.  Oh, and the state corrections center, let's not forget that.  (Note to self:  No picking up hitchhikers in Connell)

Its started to freeze at night here, and after I took the south exit from I-90, the first gray light of dawn started to appear over my left shoulder.  Not too many cars out at this time of the morning, and there were long stretches to enjoy watching the light slowly creep up the sky.  On the right side the sky was still velvety and dark, and out where there is no city glare, the stars are breathtaking. 

After the whirlwind of the last ten days, the peace of this slow and graceful sunrise was so welcome.  My brain has been going full tilt and dragging my emotions right along with it.  The long drive and the quiet landscape rolling by provided just the respite my tired eyes and ears needed.   The chaos has been so joyful, but I can't sustain the energy without some sort of respite. 

At some point I've got to pick up the threads of being an adult with responsibilities again and attend to work issues and school conferences and dental appointments.  Today, though, I'm just taking it slow and letting myself relax.  The roller coaster will beckon soon enough.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, whatever you are doing.

Characters

When I was really young, we lived in the city, but my parents had a Big Plan to eventually live in a more rural setting.  Dad is ten years older than Mom, and so by the time I arrived, he already had a good 15 years or so in the Fire Department.  As he got closer to his 25, my folks bought a two and a half acre patch right smack in the middle of a small island in Puget Sound.  The Island, as residents call it, is about seven miles long and maybe a mile and a half wide at the widest point.  We lived on the belt of the island, and if you stood in the middle of our road you could see water on both sides.  We could watch all the ships going into Seattle from the Strait of Juan de Fuca from our living room window.  When she still sailed, you could set your watch by the Princess Marguerite on her way to Victoria.  7:10 AM sharp she would appear between the trees.  I never got to sail on that ship, and I always wondered what she was like. 

Our small island was a wonderful place to be a kid.  It was safe.  Everyone knew everyone else.  People always waved at one another when they passed by in their cars. 

Mr. and Mrs. Kidd lived in a small white house off the main road.  They had several acres and Mr. Kidd mowed the grass between the big clumps of blackberry bushes, so it was a favorite place to ride horses.  Before I had horses of my own they had a shetland pony that someone kept at their place and they would let me ride her.  She was a nasty little pony, as Shetlands are wont to be, but it didn't stop my friends and I from pretending she was an enormous brown steed.   Mrs. Kidd would always call us into the house for a treat - usually cookies or a coffee cake she had made, served with a big glass of milk fresh from the neighbor's cow.  Mr. Kidd was a slow driver.  When he was alone on the road he would drive exactly five miles under the speed limit, but if someone got behind him, he would drop to ten under.  The island is full of a lot of curvy roads and few good places to pass.  No one liked getting behind Mr. Kidd.

When I had my own horse I spent a lot of time riding on the beach.  If the tide was out my friends and I would race along at full tilt on the tide flats.  When the tide was up, we would go up the beach as far as we could before turning around and heading home.  I would usually see Bob, the local drunk, when I was on the beach.  He was a harmless guy, probably in his mid- to late- 40's, though it was hard to tell sometimes.  He lived with his parents on the island.  I don't remember his whole story, though Dad may remember it, but I know that he was always nice to me.  He'd be sitting in the sand, using a big log as a chair back, with his big jug of Gallo.  My folks taught me to be pleasant to people, always, and because he was so very unthreatening, I would always stop and say hello when I saw him.  Later on when I went away to college, I would sometimes get cards and letters from Bob.  He even sent me a Valentine's Day card once, which I guess in retrospect was kind of weird, but at the time just seemed really sweet.   His kidneys eventually failed on him and he went on dialysis.  He died a few years after I grew up and left home. 

Rod and Willie's house was a favorite destination to ride my horse.  Rod was an independent home builder, and he helped Dad build both of the houses we had on The Island.   His wife, Willie, was a real character and always fun to talk to.  My first horse was named Willie Wonka and I think she got a perverse kick out of having me ride Willie to visit Willie.  I'd ride up the beach to the trail to their house, tie my horse to a tree in the yard and go in for a pop and a snack.  Willie got throat cancer and died, sadly.  Before she got real sick she had to have her voice box taken out.  She had one of those electronic voice boxes and she would talk by holding a microphone to her throat.  She never did seem to lose her sense of humor and she was always nice to me even after things got bad. 

Sometimes I would ride up the main road to and meet my friend Glenda and her horse and sometimes Lori and her appy gelding and we would go across past the Seventh Day Adventist school to the big open field behind Shold's house.  You could go over the hill and through a path in the woods to the Island's other main road (there were really only two).  The trail led you to a small group of houses everyone called "SDA Village" because that's where most of the SDA families lived.  The trail was what the kids used to walk to school.  There was one family there I babysat for.  They had a beautiful golden retriever and their kids were easy to babysit. 

A few miles up the back road was Finis Steven's place.  Mr. Stevens was an immensely interesting and erudite man.  He's gone now, but he had lived on the island most of his life.  As late as the 1970's he still heated his house with a wood stove, grew his own hay, ate from his own vegetable garden, and fixed all of his own equipment.   He had a large block of acreage on the back side of the island, and there were wide grass trails through the trees that he maintained.   He spent years establishing relationships with the squirrels that lived in the trees there.  Every day he would go walk the trails and feed nuts to his squirrels, and he had taught them to do all kinds of tricks.  I don't think he every took money to give demonstrations with his squirrels, but most of the kids and families in the area at one point or another had walked those trails and watched him run those squirrels through their paces.  I wonder what happened to his squirrels after he died.

 

Brain dump

Is it possible to be connected and yet disconnected at the same time?  To feel as though part of you is somewhere else entirely, digesting and analyzing deep and disturbing images and thoughts, agonizing over the things that keep going wrong, while all the while another whole part of you is fully in the moment, feeling the sun on her face and savoring the sweet sensation of holding her daughter's hand, the warmth of her lover's palm on the back of her neck, the laughter of children as they splash and play in the pool - is this just another way of being? 

-----

I was able, with a little detective work, to find some information on the man I found on Tuesday morning.  I know his name, and his age and I was able yesterday to contact his brother out of the state.  His brother was at work, but I spoke for a time with his wife and I learned that this man, this good man, had discovered recently that he had a terminal illness.  He didn't want to suffer and he didn't want to burden his family.  He didn't have a wife or children, but he had a good life and he had many things he enjoyed doing.  He was a good brother, she told me.  And this helps.  It helps me work blurring the images that keep crowding my mind of the shotgun and his legs and his feet in the hiking boots and his skin so pale in the hot morning sun.  The hat on the ground.  Those images have haunted me all week, almost constantly for the first several days.  The frequency seems to be lessening, and I'm thankful.

----- 

Mom, what's a sexual predator? my daughter asked me last night on the way home.  Where did you hear that term? I asked.  It was in the mail on that card, she says.  A notice from a citizen's group about a registered offender who has moved into the neighborhood.  I try to explain in a way that remarks the seriousness of this but also lets my child know that she is safe, that I will keep her safe, that no one is trying to climb into her window at night and take her away from me.  This world is such a terrifying place.  If it scares me I can only imagine what it does to my children.  I tell my children of their aunt and what happened to her and her siblings as a child.  They don't understand how her mother could let this happen, not protect her children.  They ask about adoption and why I have two mothers.  A long car ride is consumed by these discussions, and I am struck again by my children's sensitivity, perceptiveness, kindness and how much they depend on me to help them make sense of the world. 

------

I was thinking of starting to grow my hair out, not all the way but a little bit.  I held off cutting it for a while.  Then this week came along and I attacked it with the scissors and put it back to the uniformly short crop I feel so comfortable with.  And I realize that my emotions and my experiences almost always physically manifest with me - I cut my hair or I color it.  I get a tattoo.  I put black polish on my toes or I pierce something.  I buy a shirt that says something angry or shocking.  Always be wary when I'm wearing the black nail polish. 

 

Steady, now

I try not to worry.

I know life is going to bring yet more lumps and bumps and complications our way.  It always has, always will.  I try not to worry about it, though, because by now I guess I've figured out that I can make it through damn near anything. 

Whenever things are going really well, I have learned to accept that this will not always be how it is.

Whenever things are going horribly and violently askew, I know that it won't be this way forever.

Mostly, though, life is an amazing watercolor composition of dark tones and bright, together on the canvas in equal measure.  For every brilliant thing there is a lumpy thing, for every painful jerk on the leash there is a soft touch and a loving voice.  We move forward and back at the same time in the most amazing dance there ever was:  life itself.

Life was here before I arrived and it will be here long after I am gone and all will still be well in this world because -- well, because.  It will be well.  If I go through any single day that doesn't contain both a smile and a tear then I won't believe that day was complete.  I would relive every pain if that's what it cost me to also relive every sweet, berry-luscious moment of joy.  I would once again hold my raging child just to be able to once again hold her still-slick body, cord pulsing with shared life, against my naked breast and meet her eyes for the first time.  I would cradle the body of my beloved dog and throw lumps of dirt on her once again while the tears flowed if it would buy me five more minutes of kneeling on the floor next to her generous body and putting my arms around her while she licked my face.  I would go through every single broken heart and every lonely, tearstained night if it meant that I could experience the piercing, jolting, amazing realization of how incredible it is to be together with you.

The moments stream across my conscious mind in kaleidoscope fractals of ruby and gold and lapis, and as I remember every joy and every sorrow, I am comforted in the knowledge that life as we know it can be counted on to bring us both, though not always in equal measure.

So much in life is good.  So much in life is pain.  I need them both, without them I don't know how to breathe.

Admit it, you're jealous

I suppose I should have some shame that I keep bragging about my commute, but I really have a hard time not going on about it.  Almost daily I'll be in the middle of my drive home and be struck by something beautiful -- a Northern Harrier flying next to my window as he searches the field for dinner; a beautiful field of alfalfa with nothing but sun and blue sky behind it; a cloud formation so striking that it takes my breath away.

I left the island in 1983 for the city to go to college.  After college I got a job, and then another job, and then eventually I moved to New Jersey for yet more jobs.  All of my commuting, for 24 years, was in the city.  I either drove or took the bus, paid for parking, struggled to find parking, and except for my home street, pretty much all the road was a minimum of four lanes.  Four lanes FULL of cars.

I've been in Central WA for four years now, and I don't think I'll ever take this drive for granted.

This is what it looks like as I leave work on a rainy day:

No, I don't know what that smudge on my window is, either.

Then I head down the hill and into the Horse Heaven Hills for about 20 miles.  All I see is this:

Yes, I know what THOSE smudges are.  Lots and lots of dead bugs.  I don't bother washing my car much this time of year. 

Finally, I come to the really fun part of my commute.

I push the button for my 4 Wheel Drive, and I need it:

 

For about five miles its nothing but a gravel road in the fields.  So far I've seen coyotes (alive and dead), the skeleton of a dead cow and a dead sheep.  And some antelope. 

Oh, look!  Off in the distance!  TRAFFIC!

Hard to tell from my crappy cell phone picture, but that's a farmer discing his field.

All too soon, I head down the hill to the end of the dirt and back to pavement.

Still, though, I'm not struggling with a bunch of other commuters.  The locals look like this:

Its not all fun and games, though.  I do have to put a few miles in on an actual highway.  I don't like it.  I think its ugly.

Soon enough, though, I cross the Blue Bridge and turn twice, and I'm on my street:

 

That's my white fence and mailbox on the left.

I don't care that its a 45 mile drive each way and that it takes me almost an hour.  I don't care at all, because I used to have to drive on the Garden State Parkway to and from work and it took me almost an hour and I was only going 20 miles.  Being flipped off, cut off, yelled at and stopped dead in traffic was the routine. 

Here, in the spring, I squeal in delight as I see the first new foals and the calves, legs still splayed as they try standing for the first or second time.  I see endless sky and mountains that fill me with wonder.  I see the Columbia River, mighty and broad, sweeping her way past the Wallula Gap as she turns the corner and thrusts herself toward the Pacific Ocean, falling over dams and skirting thousand-foot high cliffs.  I see countless Red Tailed and Sharp Shinned Hawks, California Quail, Red Winged Blackbirds.  I see eagles, sometimes, and deer.  I see rabbits and badgers and foxes.  I regularly watch kestrels drop off the wire and grab something right next to my car on the road as I swerve to avoid hitting them.

I wouldn't trade this for any city job, ever.  I dont' ever see myself going back to "civilization."

 

Morning coffee

5:00 5:09 5:18 5:27 am.

I drag myself out of bed, let the dogs out and head down the hall.  I slap the button on the coffee grinder and pour water in the machine.  While my fix percolates, I think about making lunches.  I get distracted by a phone bill and write a letter of complaint to my service provider.  I turn on the news, listen for a few minutes and turn it off.  There's a lot going on in the world today.  I want to be insulated from it.  I toss a load of laundry in the dryer and clean the litter box.

The coffee is ready.  I pour a skoosh of milk in the bottom of the cup and then fill it to the top with steaming, brown, lovely coffee.  Smell and then sip.  Best part of my morning, that first taste of liquid motivation.

I log on, read email, blogs, Twitter and Facebook.  Write a couple of comments, hope they communicated what I meant.  Remember that I forgot lunches.

Second cup of coffee.  Make sandwiches, pack juice boxes, applesauce and snacks.  Gird my loins for the Waking of the Kids (similar to the annual Running of the Bulls, this event is a real adrenaline-fest).  Some days the effort involved in rousting them from their beds is herculean.  Occasionally God smiles upon me and they wake themselves up, smiling and happy, ready to face the day.  More often than not, though, they resist until the bitter end. 

Breakfast, getting dressed, brushing teeth, taking meds.  Feeding dogs, feeding horses, dogs in crates, coats on, kids in car, off we go.

Routine.

Predictable, boring, as vital to my life as the caffeine that starts my day. 

I know beyond a doubt the wild child of my twenties would not recognize the old fart I've become.  Routine?  Predictability?  Evil words uttered by a walking tool of the Machine.

How did I get here?  And even more importantly, when did I start to LIKE it? 

Our routine, when we begin our day on a predictable schedule, helps us to do better.  Most of the so-called experts agree that kids and adults with ADD do much better with routines.  For that matter, most kids who don't have the kinds of issues my kids have do better with routines.  For us, routines are the building block of the day.  We all know what to expect:  We will eventually get up, eventually get fed, and mom will be late to work again.

When we miss any of the tick marks on the schedule, it causes a slump that will fall into the toilet, dragging the rest of our day with it. 

The dogs even know the routine.  Right now, as I type this, it is time for them to eat.  As if on cue, they surround my chair.  Roscoe bumps my forearm with his nose, knocking my fingers off the keyboard.  Hercules starts moaning at me.   T Bone put his head on my lap and looks at me with soulful eyes. 

Time to go.  Interrupting the schedule is not allowed.

 

 

Fog, lifting.

Today is...what, Thursday?  Yes.  Thursday.

Ironically, I took this picture last week, on the way in to work.  We drove over the big hill and down into the valley between Jump off Joe and Plymouth, and were greeted by a wall of fog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Its the perfect metaphor for how I've been feeling.

I have been sick since Saturday.  Sick in that sinus-crushing, chest-gurgling, ears-plugged can't-think sort of way that makes one want to stay in bed for the rest of ones' presumably short life.  I managed to make it to work one day this week so far and God willing I'll make it for the last working day of the year. 

I haven't blogged but once, which in retrospect I probably shouldn't have posted because it makes about as much sense Schrödinger's Box making a guest appearance in Gone with the Wind, and for which I heartily apologize, but I'll simply say in my defense, "It was the cold medicine speaking."

I think I'm starting to feel a little more human, although as luck would have it, the wee man got up from his half eaten dinner last night and ran into the bathroom to throw up. I'm guessing things around here are going to be off the wheels for a good while yet.  Sadly, I'm used to that.

 

 

 

At the same time

For some reason, its a concept that doesn't seem to permeate my steady state of consciousness.  I forget all about it, and then suddenly, WHAM! - it smacks me on the forehead and I remember.

I remember that it doesn't have to be one or the other.  It really can be both, you know.  My marriage taught me that.  Parenting taught me that.  Winter reminds me.  Christmas reminds me.  My grandmother's birthday reminds me.  My dogs, those present and those no longer with us, remind me.  A lifetime of love and happiness and grief and loss.

Life can be simultaneously painful and joyful, both things can take your breath away and sometimes you won't know exactly what it is that makes your voice catch and your eyes swim with tears, but there you are in the middle of it all, feeling both.  The emotional component of each is different, but the physical reaction can be the same. 

Sometimes, during those years where the marriage cracked and crumbled and eventually dissolved, the feelings were so overwhelming that I wasn't sure what I was experiencing.   Anger turned to sadness turned to grief;  intermingled with these were the joy and the delight over those moments with my kids or with my friends or even with my husband on those days when we could connect in a meaningful way. 

There were times when I though that all I was feeling was sadness.  Or anger.  Whatever the emotion du jour happened to be.  And yet when I let myself just be, in the moment, I realize that emotions are not simple, primary-colored boxes of paint.  They are complex, perhaps shaded darker by the strongest and deeper reaction to what's happening in my life, but many-colored, shot through with strands of the blackest black and silver shining light. 

Maybe that's what my friend Charles was trying to tell me a few weeks ago.  He gave me the analogy of a stack of paint cans - or the dead folks he talks to regularly gave me this analogy, whichever you prefer.  He said that he could see the cans all toppling together and that it might seem like it was going to be a horrid big mess, but that in the end the colors would all turn out right.

Christmas and birthday, I've written about them before.  My favorite and least favorite time of year, simultaneously. 

Birthdays are, for most people, a time of celebration.  At least until you reach the age which you never thought you'd actually reach, the age you consider to be "old," and then they lose their luster...but that's not the crux of the matter for me.  Its the dichotomy presented by birth, a joyous occasion for most people, but not for everyone.  My birth wasn't something that was celebrated, my birthday was a day that brings back painful memories for at least one person that I know of, and for me it was the day that I lost a mother and a family, but unknowingly got a chance at a life much brighter than would have otherwise been possible.  Still, I cannot ignore the feeling of loss.  The loss of what never was, what never could have been.   I mourn the shadow birthmother, the one of my dreams who was perfect and loving in every way.  She didn't exist, really, but in the fertile imagination of my growing-up years, she was a real as I am.  So.  Joy and sadness.  Because I got that loving mother, I just had to wait a little bit for her, and then thirty or more years for events to unfold that allowed me to truly appreciate what an enormous break I managed to get.

Celebration and grief.  Joy and sorrow.  Forever entwined in every life.  The joy of talking to a dear friend on the phone and catching up on life; the sorrow of her terminal illness makes every conversatio more precious.  Finally really enjoying a relationship with a relative and realizing that the years left to have that bond with them are few.  The satisfaction of watching your child teach himself to read, early, comingled with the frustration and sometime hopelessness of knowing the struggles that lay ahead because of his particular issues.  The sweet piercing sensation you get when you look at your breathtakingly beautiful daughter; the tears you shed for her when someone at school whose opinion matters to her doesn't like her or treats her badly. 

Watching them grow and succeed and stumble and fall, all at the same time.  The utter beauty of this wrecking ball of emotions grabs me by the throat and will not let me go.  I am shattered to the core by the depth of feeling we are capable of; no surprise, then, that I spend much of my life doing 'busy things' to avoid that bottomless well of emotion.  Sometimes, though, I must remember to just sit and let the feelings come.  Embrace them in all their beauty and their ugliness.  Its what life is about.  Sometimes the feelings are all we have.

 

How...lovely (sort of nsfw)

"Mommy, I made an angel for you!"

"Oh, baby, that's so nice.  How sweet."

"It has a picture of baby jesus on one side."

"That's wonderful, C."

"And the angel's on the other side.  Here you go, Mommy.  I love you, Mommy!"

"Thanks buddy.  She's...she's...ummmm..."  awkward silence.   "...are those boobs?"

"Uh-Huh!"

"Why is your angel naked?"

"She's not naked!  She's wearing pants!"

"I see."

"Pants!  And an invisible shirt!"

"Um, thanks C.  I really love it." 

"Uh, C?  Could you maybe not draw boobs anymore?  For a while?"  Til you're like, 30, maybe?

 

Because there will be plenty of time for boob pictures when he's NOT IN KINDERGARTEN.