It's about that time of year, and I have been reflecting and projecting like a being possessed. And perhaps I AM a being possessed.
I have about 8 more hours or so of work ahead of me before 2 glorious weeks off. Some fun celebrating planned, some surprises for the kiddos. Some alone time for mama...hopefully time to create and plan. You know. It's that time of year.
My life has fallen into a predictable rhythm with periods of dissonance and chaos, rather than the other way around. That has all happened gradually over the past few years, and it has taken some getting used to. I still find myself rummaging around for the basic elements of chaos when things get too "boring," but I am learning to settle. I am learning to be calm. I am learning to surrender and accept. Over and over and over again, I am learning.
I am also unlearning and relearning things. Unraveling that which has contributed to patterns that aren't useful, even if they appeared to be so at the start. Starting over at a manageable point to recreate the pattern. Sometimes I unravel too much, and I have to rework the same pattern to get back to where I need to deviate. Sometimes I don't unravel enough, and end up in another unworkable pattern.
But, you know...it's all part of life. I've been paying attention to things. Trees and birds, mostly...but also people. I watch the couples around me and witness their interactions. I watch friends and acquaintances get entangled and unentangled and re-entangled. I watch people put up with shit that I don't think they should have to put up with, and reject shit that to me seems perfectly tolerable. I am confounded by all of this, so I return to watching the birds and examining the intracacies of tree bark.
I have been thinking about my mom a lot these days. About the payoff and price of living a solitary life. I wonder how much of it was a choice and how much was unchosen. Being unchosen. I wonder about how much of my own solitude is chosen.
I am wondering how many times things can fall apart and come together again before I truly truly believe that things will always come together again in times when it seems that everything is falling apart.
And I am sitting here. Feeling content. Relaxed. Unhurried. Cooking some lentil soup, and cleaning up the house while the kids play some invented game with a bazillion rules all made up as they go along. I'm thinking about the coming weeks that now seem to slumber sedately in front of me, but which I know will rise up like a tiger and devour themselves as soon as I step into them...
and then it will be back to the routine. Which is how things go. And I will ride it all out until the next seasonal change. Learning and doing and changing and fucking up and falling apart and coming together again...
Like always.
Peace to you all on the longest night, and in the lengthening days to follow.
<3
to avoid television. I am telling you. I have been watching an overabundance of it lately due to having an extra eleventy gazillion hours in the day from a) not having to work and b) not having the children around, and it is freaking depressing as fuck. It is difficult not to feel inadequate as a single parent with not a whole lot of extra cash and no romantic entanglements that involve the bestowment of diamond jewelry...and I don't even LIKE diamonds OR jewelry. I feel curmudgeonly. This happens every year. The noise of Christmas never fails to interfere with my usual seasonal reflection and evaluation. My self-assessments are skewed. My self-image is distorted. My self-worth is deranged. Make it stop!
Hahaha. This weekend, the typical static of Christmas advertising was compounded by a rare Austin cold snap. So while I am being emotionally barraged with the constant reminder that I'm in this thing alone, I am also being physically reminded that, damnit, it's cold in that lonely bed, fuckers! Regardless of how mentally or emotionally ready or willing I am to embark on another relationship, regardless of the lack of available and desirable partners in my life, it's tempting to just grab the most convenient object and turn it into something that fulfills all of my practical needs. Emotional, artistic, spiritual attachment be damned!
Combine all of this with 5 full days without the distraction of children and work, and you have a recipe for utter disaster.
Thank goodness I am aware of this potential. Thank goodness I planned in advance. Thank goodness for friends both superficial and taproot to help anchor me and allow for my movement through this season and all of the turmoil it renders.
In the end, I made it through...and I did ok. I rejected the temptation to seek warmth at any cost. I spent my time, for the most part, with people who love and care about me. I allowed myself to indulge in precious solitude and bask in the presence of one who allows me to distract myself via fussing over and catering to, as well as those who are good listeners and good conversationalists. I surrounded myself with good music/art/media even though I found myself utterly incapable of expressing myself in any creative vehicle.
I am coming down now. Or perhaps I am coming up. Thanks to those to whom I have looked for oxygen. Thanks to the birds, the trees, the clouds, the reddened leaves, the fevered exchanges of passionate longing for some small breath of life amidst the dearth of emotional vitality and the overabundance of material indulgence.
The house has returned to it's state of fervor. C babbles. M emits random cynical observations with a slight stutter. The cat meows loudly, yet contentedly now that her boy is home. The dog follows me around that house in that constant state of panicked expectation. I have other, more important, things to fret about...and still the same beautiful things to appreciate. To center on.
And...I have a whole lot less time for television. And that certainly doesn't hurt. :P
I learn so much about myself through my children. It's actually kind of amazing. I guess just being able to spend so much time with people who share your nature and your nurture really reflects back those things that you don't see in yourself. Or something.
At any rate, C is an exceptionally sensitive child. At least as compared to his brother. At seven years old, he is torn between mindfulness and appropriate protection of his sensitivity and his need to be a cool, big, maybe even macho kid. I other words, he exposes himself or allows himself to be exposed to media that his sensitivities can't fully deal with. But what he does is tough it out in the moment...and then relive those moments when he is by himself and get really frightened of the fearful spectres he wouldn't allow himself to avoid in the first place. Only out-of-context now...and that is confusing.
I'm totally able to understand that right now, because I'm experiencing the same thing. I put off dealing with things in the moment they are happening...acting as if I am tough and can take it...only to have those things (and the feelings those things evoke) creep up on me out-of-context in a manner that creates more confusion and self-doubt than would have ever been generated had I allowed my honest emotional response in the first damn place.
hahaha.
So, I guess it's nice to know that I have the emotional constitution of a 7 year old! Uh. I guess I need to work on that.
Oh, and I am not sure if this has anything remotely to do with the former, but yesterday I kept finding myself thinking: "It sucks to have elegant ideals about people, and yet to consistently be forced to deal with people in inelegant, unideal contexts."
Every once in awhile, I will get a comment on an old post over on my main blog...and in reading the post, I am reminded of why I blog. This is one of those posts. I'll paste it in its entirety here in case you are too lazy to click the link, but the original post has a pretty good comment, as well.
Oh, and...I really can't even remember who this post was about! hahaha.
Not a Self-Hating Fat Person
Dear Person I have to see on a way too regular basis,
Do I LOOK like I care about your diet? I think you look fine the way you are. And, quite frankly, when I eat a carrot, I eat it because I like the way it tastes, not because some dude who will be dead someday (most likely because he is an evil fuck who makes a living perpetuating the beauty myth by selling his bullshit theories that actually result in less health and more sexism) wrote a book that told me carrots will make me Thin and Desirable.
I'm not thin, and I don't give a fuck if you or anyone else desires me.
You are not thin, either, and it makes me sad that you've bought into that bullshit, but telling you that is not my trip, either. When I eat a piece of candy or chocolate cake or greezy cheezy pizza, it's because I like the way it tastes and not because I feel bad about the fact that some narrow-minded ass won't fuck me because I'm too fat for him. Or, hell, because some ass-minded fuck won't even talk to me because I'm too fat. Fuck that shit.
I'm not a self-hating fat person, and I don't want to hear your soft hatred directed at yourself by your constant babble of size-obsessed bullshit, or your soft hatred directed outwards at the other people who also have to unfortunately see you on a way-too-regular basis. And, um, poking someone in the stomach and asking them how they got THAT if they can't even afford dinner is, wow...I mean, I've done and said some pretty crude and rude things in my lifetime, but that really fucking takes the cake. (sorry if that made you hungry.)
Believe it or not, there do exist people in this world who really don't give a fuck about how large they are and how other people perceive their size. I know quite well how I'm perceived. I enjoy experimenting with those perceptions, but in the end, it really doesn't fucking matter to me. So, again, no, I'm not interested in hearing about your diet, or about your fabulous partner who so open-mindedly supports you in your endless desire to be thin and fuckable, just like he likes you. Or, at least, not FAT and UNFUCKABLE...because he hates you that way.
Believe it or not, not everyone hates their body the way you seem to
hate yours. Even us fatty fat fatties! So, here...have a carrot. Or a
slice of yummy chocolate cake. I don't give a fuck, just as long as you
are enjoying it.
I have been reading one of the rare print issues of LiP magazine I have in my collection (sadly, the magazine folded along with a bunch of other more prominent small press magazines. I keep meaning to write about that!). This quote from an interview with Vandana Shiva, although not necessarily about anarchism, is exactly how I wish I would have always answered people who have asked me "Isn't anarchism ultimately a selfish philosophy?":
I see living society the way I see living systems. I don't see society as an aggregation of atomized, fragmented individuals. That's why I don't go down the Hobbesian path. I see society as organic, in which every level has an autonomous existence, and a self-organizing capacity, but in relationship with other self-organizing systems. Which means that your freedom, your personal freedom, is then in the context of total consciousness and awareness of other people's personal freedom. It is that awareness which I call compassion, I call solidarity. And it's through compassion and solidarity that you do not have the irresponsibility built into personal freedom the way it has in Western philosophy and political science, with the terrorizing by these guys who exaggerate certain human tendencies. Personal freedom is real. A person is a full subject. But a person is not a subject in isolation: We are in family, we are in friendships, we are in community, we are in working contexts, we are in certain towns, we are living in certain lands—all that does define levels of who we are and our identities and therefore, also, our searching for our freedoms. Because all those freedoms have to be carried together.
I have finally finished the bird mix. There are so many songs I wasn't able to fit in, I might have to make a bird mix 2. However, my next mix will be songs about or incorporating wind. If you have any suggestions, please send them my way.
Anyway, the playlist is:
Black Wax Machine - Fluttering Free
Low - In Metal
John Fahey & Cul de Sac - Gamelan Collage
Dead Can Dance - Bird
Animal Collective - Tuvin
Dirty Three - Flutter
Wilco - Hummingbird
R.E.M. - King of Birds
Jimi Hendrix - Little Wing
The Beatles - Blue Jay Way
Charlie Parker - Blue Bird
Bob Dylan - Love Minus Zero/No Limit
The Handsome Family - Flapping Your Broken Wings
Coctails - Starling
Spiritualized - Spread Your Wings
Black Wax Machine - Flamingo Sounds
It's available for download, for a limited time, here:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/69000p
If you can't access it there, please feel free to email me: drublood at gmail dot com.
Enjoy!
BBC News has a feature about Iraqi bloggers that I thought provided an interesting (if disturbing) snapshot of life in Iraq today.
***
Redneck Mother reports on A visit from the homeschool inspector, and illustrates why it's important to know your rights.
***
I happen to have a personal affinity for oysters, so
this article was especially disturbing to me:
If present acidification trends in the world's oceans continue unabated, mussels, oysters and other shellfish could become extinct as early as 2100.
***
Michael Pollan provides clarity on the farm bill issue in Weed It and Reap:
Americans have begun to ask why the farm bill is subsidizing high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils at a time when rates of diabetes and obesity among children are soaring, or why the farm bill is underwriting factory farming (with subsidized grain) when feedlot wastes are polluting the countryside and, all too often, the meat supply. For the first time, the public health community has raised its voice in support of overturning farm policies that subsidize precisely the wrong kind of calories (added fat and added sugar), helping to make Twinkies cheaper than carrots and Coca-Cola competitive with water. Also for the first time, the international development community has weighed in on the debate, arguing that subsidized American exports are hobbling cotton farmers in Nigeria and corn farmers in Mexico.
(via Treehugger)
***
And on that note, I'm going to go make some oatmeal. Have a good day!
Casey put a name to the piles of stones we found over by the creek that runs through Pease Park. She called them Cairns, but I guess hikers also call them ducks. Normally, they are used to mark important spiritual areas or to help people stay on a path. These structures, however, seem to exist just for the sake of existing.
It took some doing to get to the spot where the rocks were on display. Both myself and my mama friend got a bit wet in the going there (thankfully all of our electronics arrived without damage!) and one of the kids totally slipped and fell in a puddle of muck. At one point, too, I looked up to find Coley on the other side of the creek, balancing precariously on a very steep rock face, with about 20 yards to go before reaching a more reasonable incline, and about 5 feet up from the shallow, rock filled water. There was nothing I could do but try to be encouraging and ready to spring if he fell. He had confidence in himself that he could do it, so I cheered him on, but once he reached a safer vantage I had to say "I am so proud of you that you were able to do that...DON'T EVER DO IT AGAIN!!!!!"
I was pleased the cairns were still there. We first saw them last Sunday, but didn't have as much time to spend with them as I would have liked. So we planned a field trip for Friday to go down and admire and create some of our own precariously balanced sculptures of rock. I was delighted by the fact that the children spent a good deal of their time working together and/or at the very least not totally picking on each other. Neither did they seem the remotest bit tempted to knock over each others' creations or the creations that were there before we arrived. For some reason, these structures, impermanent as they are, seem to demand a certain amount of respect for their mere existence. I loved the offhand life lessons they seemed to generate in the unconscious conversations of the children. One of the kids accidentally knocked a small pile over and was regretful. But I pointed out that the beauty of ephemeralist art is its fragility. A brisk wind could knock one down. They aren't created for any other purpose than the joy of creation and perhaps the thought that they might be observed and enjoyed for what they are.
I have always been fascinated by ephemeralist art. In this age when everyone strives for more storage and more permanence, it is good to be reminded that sometimes beauty can be fleeting, and that's ok. Some beautiful things aren't meant to be preserved or put on display or even shared with anyone else. I know I am experiencing that in my life on a regular basis lately. I don't know if it is my age or just a phase I am going through, but I tend to not want to share the beautiful moments in my life with more than maybe one or two people at a time. Sometimes I even keep them all to myself! Of course, as I type this, I am uploading my images to flickr and I realize I am capturing the moment here in words, after having spent my entire time there ensconced in the glow of various technological devices recording in various ways my enjoyment of it...but I am nothing if not absolutely hypocritical, and you must learn this and deal with it. :P Also, I found it perfectly ironic in a most wonderful way that as I sat there, I mourned the fact that I did not have a copy of "Scriptures of the Golden Eternity" with me, so I popped onto the internet on my phone and found a copy online that I read and forwarded to my twitter friends. Hee hee.
At any rate, the children busied themselves with building. M seemed to enjoy construction the most of all, which was absolutely delightful to me. M, who spends so much time in his freaking brain and so little time allowing himself to step outside of the safety of rules and structure. It was good to see him creating something that couldn't possible be symmetrical. It was a lesson in the balance of asymmetry, actually, and I think it was a well-spent 4 hours for him. He kept asking me when we had to go home, reminding me that he had chores and homework to do, and I kept telling him to just relax and enjoy himself for damn once! And then he would go on building and creating and observing how some rocks seemed to fit together even though it seemed impossible that they would...and how some rocks appeared perfectly matched, but provided poor balance. Marveling, as well, about how sometimes structures gain more stability when more weight is stacked on top. All of these such wise ways of looking at the world. Ah, the wisdom of rocks. Ah, the wisdom of play.
Cole spent the majority of his time making up games and building cities in the water. I'm not terribly fond of the creek, but I am sure they have exposed themselves to more horrendous things before...and they were having such fun they did not even want to leave after 4 hours.
Anyway, it was a lovely day. I spent much of my time down by the shores clicky clacking away on my new toy. Taking photos, writing things down, doing some voice recordings, talking to C - the other mama present - and trying to keep the kids from injuring one another. The weather was absolutely perfect to the point of being unremarkable. I watched damselflies and dragonflies dance and mate on the water. Very few people passed through. It was absolutely refreshing and rejuvenating. :) I think it was my favorite field trip so far. I am so glad my guys enjoy such things. It reminds me that I don't have to worry. Sure, they are a bit obsessed with video games and other things that I would prefer they not spend so much time on, but they are also able to spend an afternoon playing with sticks and rocks in the sunshine and enjoying the beauty of those delicate moments that exist for no other purpose than absolute enjoyment. It is in those moments that it becomes abundantly clear that the best lessons are the ones we learn by just living and observing. It is in those moments when I recognize that so much of life is abstract, and takes on whatever form I perceive it to have. It is in those moments when it is clear to me that I have everything I need, and all I need do is relax and enjoy it.
I have written this story at least 7 times, I hope to write it many many more times. Each time less bitter, more sweet. Each time less painful more pure.
My little lark was named in threes. Jazz and bird and big, strong tree. And that's how he exists today: spontaneous, sturdy, fluttering free. :)
I promise I won't make this whole post rhyme. heh.
I am remembering things. A month ago or so, Monk and I were wandering around by Zach Scott theater, taking photos. We came upon Casa De Luz, and I remembered my last dinner there. It was about 7 years ago, too. I was experiencing the beginnings of labor pains while I ate yummy food with a tableful of other single mamas. I was "coming out" as a single mother, although it would take years and years for my divorce to be finalized. My friend M was there with me. M was one of these people. I don't know if anyone else has ever had this happen, but I seem to have people that come into my life and exist there for awhile when I really need them...and then disappear. As if they never existed...but not in a bad way. I'm sure whereever M is, she is doing great. I'm also sure that if she ever decides to come back, we will get along famously again. While she was here, she was an angel of strength, a beacon of gentle guidance towards some unknown destination. She reminded me CONSTANTLY that I would be taken care of. That whatever happened, I would be ok. That I could do this. And she wasn't just talking about the birth. She was talking about the rebirth of me.
My life was changing so rapidly at that time. I was planning to quit my well-paying, but life-draining corporate job. I was losing my husband who, in spite of our tremendous difficulties, was really the only family I felt I had EVER had. I was facing the idea that Monk would view his baby brother's arrival as the event that caused his dad's departure. And, of course, I was feeling like everything was all my fault.
When people gasp in disbelief about the pain of birth, and shake their heads about homebirth and how silly it is for a woman to endure that pain unmedicated...well, I have to say they just don't get it. Medication is fine and hospitals are fine if that's what you choose. If that's what you need or even if that's what you desire. I wholeheartedly support a woman's right to choose any method of childbirth or non-childbirth. But I have to say that giving birth and experiencing that tangible pain provided me with that evidence of experience that is absent in a medicated birth, and was absent in my entire life at that point. I guess I prefer things that way.
Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself. In the months leading up to the birth, I also had the support of a wonderful, warm, kick-ass midwife named Susie Terwilliger. My appointments with her were so totally different from the appointments I had with my ob/gyn when I was pregnant with Monk. I dreaded the prenatal ob/gyn visits, where I would arrive, wait, strip in a cold and sterile appointment room, get poked, prodded, weighed. God, it was like being a fucking pregnant cow.
Susie first saw me naked the day of the birth. My visits with her were hour-long counseling sessions. She took all my vitals within 5 or 10 minutes, and we would sit and chat about my life. We concentrated on overcoming the grief I carried from my first birth and from my current life situation. We formed a relationship. God. I still love that woman. All she did for me. God I am so lucky to have had such wonderful people in my life.
The day of cole's birth I was up early. I was feeling labor pains, but it might have been false labor. I never really felt false labor, so I wasn't sure what the difference might be. It sure felt real to me. It was a deep, intense, rolling pain deep in my uterus. The flutterings that I was accustomed to feeling from the movement of the bird weren't anything like this.
I am losing interest in the re-re-re-re-telling of this. Hahaha. I don't think anyone needs the play-by-play, and I don't need to write it. I just need to remember the strength and love that surrounded me that day. I've gone over the events of the day in many posts throughout the years, and in many forms. I took Monk to M's house and she gave me a massage in exchange for me showing her how to use photoshop. Monk played with A. M's mom was there. I drank Valerien tea to calm the cramps. We were all operating under the assumption that it was false labor, because it was not debilitating. My midwife told me that if I could talk through the pain, I was fine. I should just go about the day.
Those who know me well know that if I am comfortable enough with someone, I can talk through anything. hahaha.
I will skip the difficult and emotionally painful events of the day, because I have been reliving them in my brain all week and seeing them typed does not make them go away. Believe me when I tell you that the actual birth was not the most painful thing I experienced that day. And the pain of childbirth dissipates instantly anyway.
I remember being with friends before labor really kicked in. I remember being alone in my house when I felt the first contraction that was undeniably real. I remember leaning against my bed, naked, with my ass waving in the air as my midwife arrived.I remember a candlelit bath with C whispering words of encouragement. I remember my midwife scurrying about preparing the birthing bed while I was in the tub. I remember her telling me to breathe INTO the pain, which is something that made total sense to me then, and only makes sense to me now when I am severely distraught about something and can't find my bearings. She also taught me to breathe from deep in my lungs, rather than from the shallows, and that serves me well both when I am upset and needing to take a breather as well as when I want to emit a very heavy, mothering sigh. hahaha. I remember being on my hands and knees was the only way my body would let me position it without unbearable pain. I remember none of the pain. None. I remember suddenly there was a little person in the bed with me. I remember looking back, seeing his little weenie waving in the air, thinking "it's a boy!" and saying "I DID IT!"
I remember big brother Monk crawling into bed with us as I birthed the placenta, and reading his Thomas the Tank Engine book to his new brother.
Weeks later, my now-ex husband would tell me he knew I really wanted a little girl. I responded that, no, I think I little boy is just fine. I said "I think the universe is trying to correct something here."
Anyway. He is here, and he is wonderful. I love him. I love him. I love him more and more each year. My little lark. My sweet bird. Sensitive and emotional and empathic and dramatic. Sweet and affectionate and artistic and smart. Just yesterday, he demonstrated so clearly how special he is. He had hurt his friend in an argument. Unintentionally. But his friend was upset with him as he was leaving and was wanting to be left alone. You could see the regret in Coley's eyes over having hurt his friend, and even though he knew he had to leave, he didn't want to go with his friend upset with him. We started out the door, and the bird brightened and ran back into the room where his friend was secluding himself. There were instant peels of laughter, and coley came out all proud. "I KNEW that would cheer him up!" He said, totally pleased with himself for having corrected the problem he had caused.
My birdy just can't stand to see the people he loves feeling sad,
whether he is the cause or not. I could write more and more and more
about him, but I'm missing out on the zillion and one birthday hugs and
kisses. I hope you have a wonderful bird-day. :) <3
