Variety is the Spice of Life (also known as The Balls that Got Away)

I have been posting everyday and then well, I didn’t. It looks bad that the lull started right after my angry post. It makes it seem like I am still in some mood too fierce to reckon with, which actually isn’t true. I just got busy. When I read a recent post by Fierce and Nerdy I could relate:

filed in Fierce and Nerdy on Nov.06, 2009

I sometimes find that the answer to feeling insanely overwhelmed with juggling everything is to let all the balls drop, so that you can reconfigure and juggle even better when you pick up the balls again.

I responded in her comment section with:

I did more than drop my balls, I flung them all around and they are now collecting dust in various corners of the room. I often try to put on my Superwoman cape and try to keep it all together but it never works. I only manage to do a bad job at a lot of things. I am trying to mend my evil ways. On today's to-do list is only to try to discover ways to have my life feel more manageable and joyful.

And since then, I just keep thinking about what this all means, the balls, the lack of time, the anger. Is it related? I was lamenting my harried life to a friend and I asked her how she manages to keep her house clean and get everything done? She shrugged and said, “well, I don’t do anything else. I take care of the kids and when they go to bed I clean. I don’t do any other jobs." Hmm.

She doesn’t do anything else. I don’t really believe her.

What would it be like if I just took care of my kids? If I didn’t also work for the Green Burial Council and Natural Undertakings, if I didn’t also aspire to do something with my writing and keep this blog. If I didn’t have a deadline that requires me to work elsewhere after the children go to bed (why are buildings so noisy- creaks and squeaks and bumps- late at night when you are by yourself?). If I didn’t have proofreading work that is waiting in my inbox. If my parents didn’t need so much attention, if I didn’t have so many things I wanted to do. My house is filled with potential projects- a half finished knitted shawl, a started woven rug, books waiting to be read in every nook. I want a garden and chickens, I want to travel and go hiking. I would like to take up yoga and learn about medicinal herbs. I want to improve my photography skills and learn Amharic. I want to help women in Ethiopia find a way to support their children, I would love to go back to school for a long list of things. I am envious of people who just know what they want to do and they just do it. Is it a sign of a troubled mind to have so many interests, to have so many yearnings?

I am suddenly reminded of the happy dry cleaner. When I worked for a theatre company in New Jersey I used to take costumes each week to the dry cleaner in town. He was always so happy. I went to him for several years and I never saw him anything but happy. Happy. Happy. Happy. I would ask him why he was so happy. He claimed to just enjoy life. Happy also claimed to watch TV each night and love his work. He collected dirty, smelly, stained clothes and returned them to their owners less so. He didn’t aspire to do anything else. (Believe me over the years I grilled him.)

I used to send my friends to him so I could get a report back to see if he was happy with everyone, not just putting on the show to meet my expectations. He was always happy. 'Isn’t his happiness amazing?', I would ask my friends. They didn’t seem to develop the same obsession about him as I did. Happy was perhaps manically happy. To make me even crazier, I met his wife and she was, well, a b_ _ _ _. He worked 12 hour days six days a week and he had that wife. Happy had no good reason to be happy.

Maybe it was the dry cleaning chemicals causing unlikely happy hormones to overdevelop in his system. They left him content to toil by day and TV by night without other interests getting in the way and mucking things up. He had discovered the Zen of dry cleaning and required nothing more. Maybe he just saw the glass as huge and always full even if it wasn’t. Someone should do some doctorate research on Happy.

I am not unhappy. I am just perpetually seeking new anything and everything with an insatiable curiosity for it all which is where the inevitable juggling comes in.The part that gets me is that he can be so satisfied with working at the dry cleaners, watching TV and being with that wife. Repeat. Repeat again. And again.

For me, variety is indeed the spice of life. So, while my kids and I decide to investigate the uses of levers and build a lever in the backyard with a two by eight and try to pick each other up, I can’t help but be distracted by gardening plans while my kids turn the lever into a seesaw. And when we go to the Chester County Historical Museum to see the quilt exhibit it is only natural that I come home and dig out that half finished quilt out of the attic and start planning the rest of it and then I come across a box of my old writing, start reading, and become inspired to finish writing a short story that I started. And then it is dinner and I haven’t planned anything yet so I look on the internet for a good recipe and run across a web site about raw food and follow links to other raw food sites and then I realize that I still have to go print out photos for another job with a deadline that is quickly approaching. Dinner is pulled together in a flash, only partially raw. I go to OC and print the photos and long to do each activcity I see the young people doing. While the photos are printing I start to wonder how the concepts of open education, flexible thinking and natural learning could be applied to attachment therapy for newly adopted children. The only support I can find on attachment disorders relies heavily on parenting techniques I try to avoid like overly praising and reward-based training. I realize it is 2 am and I need to get home. I am babysitting all day tomorrow and having a dinner party for my husband’s birthday. Wouldn’t it be nice if the kids created large canvas paintings to hang in my husband’s office?

Hey, what are those balls doing all over the floor?

When Anger Reigns

It is often a surprise for me, this anger that suddenly comes from nowhere and boils inside me. When everything is going wrong I do well maintaining my equilibrium. Through the gas leak, through the purchase of a new stove we can’t afford, when Nigel and Mikaela are at each other about everything and the Damn Husband is stomping around late for work, when my health goes haywire again, when my parents are sick and need attention- I manage to keep my cool through it all. But when things seem calm, it is then I feel a rage in me building at little things, at the computer mouse that won’t work, at Wanda barking, at the overflowing laundry pile. Here I am trying to hold my own beach ball underwater. Everything irritates.

I grab Thich Nhat Hahh’s book Anger, Wisdom for Cooling the Flames. I randomly open the book. The first sentence I read reminds me that I need to embrace this feeling instead of fighting it. Embrace it. I remember reading at another time how he suggests holding your anger the way you would hold a crying baby.

“Breathing in, I know that anger has manifested in me. Hello, my little anger. And breathing out, I will take good care of you.”

I realize in trying to meet everyone else's needs I have forgotten to tend to my own anger. I close the book and open it again to a chapter entitled Making Your Unwanted Guests Feel at Home.

“When you remove the embargo and the blocks of pain come up you will have to suffer a bit. There is no way to avoid it. And that is why the Buddha said that you have to learn how to embrace this pain. It is for this reason that the practice of mindfulness is so important. You generate a strong source of energy so that you can recognize, embrace, and take care of those negative energies.”

The facing page gives the Buddha’s practice of the Five Remembrances:

* I am of the nature to grow old. I cannot escape old age.

* I am of the nature to have ill health. I cannot escape ill health.

* I am of the nature to die. I cannot escape dying.

* All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them. I cannot keep anything. I came here empty-handed, and I go empty-handed.

* My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.

I breathe in.

I breathe out.

Amazing how ten minutes can tame a tiger.

Thank you, Thich Nhat Hanh.

Hair

When I read the articles and the blog posts condemning Angelina Jolie for taking very bad care of her daughter, Zahara’s hair my stomach tightened. I am grateful I am far from famous so no one writes stories about me.They just occasionally glare at me when I am out with my children. Now that I have a son from Ethiopia, I can never again casually neglect hair. I do so only after weighing the risks and there are several for me.

Pre-Nigel, hair occupied very little of my attention, although that was not the case when I was younger. Growing up, my hair was always wrong according to the popular style of the day. It was too wavy to ever be straightened into the perfect Marsha Brady hair although lord knows I tried. Now, I am beyond caring. I cut my own hair. The last haircut I got was from a hairdresser my friends recommended. I really liked the guy. We had a great time talking about music and local town events. There is a great Italian specialty food store next to his salon so I was drinking a cappuccino as I got my hair cut. It was reasonably priced too. The only problem was I didn’t like my cut. I spent a long time (too long?) explaining what I wanted but the results were not what I wanted. I held myself accountable due to poor hair communication skills. I went back, because I really liked him; I really wanted to get my hair cut there. Three days later I cut it again myself into the style I wanted and there has been no turning back. Any hairdresser who inspects it would roll his/her eyes for sure because the truth is I know nothing about cutting hair. Finally there is an advantage to having wavy hair- it hides uneven cuts. When my hair color was looking shabby I again took matters into my own hands. How would it look to go back to get a color at the salon when I was cutting my own hair? I was at the dollar store and saw hair coloring for sale. (For a dollar!) It looked good on the box. Well, how bad could it be?

Even my husband was worried. “Are you sure you want to do this? It could be pretty bad.”

I took the plunge and loved the results. It cracks me up that I have gotten stopped three times by people asking where I get my hair done. I love telling them the truth.

I wash my hair every three or four days, more than that and it looks like straw. Same with my daughter and I wash my son's hair even less. Thanks to Honeysmoke, I now wash my hair with Dr. Bronner’s. On her blog she shared that she uses it for her daughters' hair. I can’t believe I never thought of washing our hair with it. It is the only soap we use in our house but we have never used it as a shampoo. The lavender fragrance is wonderful and I love the no chemical clean especially for my kids. Now I am thrilled to only have one bottle on the edge of my tub instead of several different shampoo bottles.

Mikaela, the budding photographer took this picture of my hair while we were in the car.

I now cut my husband’s hair too. His mass of curls also hides a multitude of mistakes and Michael loves the convenience and the financial savings.

My daughter’s hair is long. Very long. She loves the length because it is like a horse’s mane and she spends the majority of her time either being a horse or reading about horses. She has strong opinions about her hair. Sometimes she wants it pulled back in a ponytail because for her it is indeed going to be a part of a pony. Other times she wants me to French braid it at night so when we take it out in the morning it is full and wavy ‘fairy’ hair. And then there are the days when she has better things to do and will not sit for a hair styling. She has plans and ideas; she doesn’t have time to sit still. I let her have it her way. Once when heading to my mother’s she did not want her hair being brushed. I knew the comments I would get so I tried to push the issue. “Mikaela, I need to brush your hair. It looks like a bird’s nest.” She ran to the mirror. “Cool. Maybe a bird will try to land in it.” And she skipped off in an imaginary world that included plumbed creatures snuggling into her unkempt tresses and I laughed and let it go. Of course, later at my mother’s I heard the expected comment: “Don’t you own a brush?” My daughter laughed and shrugged and so did I. “Today, I want my hair to be a bird’s nest”, she said, and I was proud of her for thinking for herself, for not caring what other people think. I am an unschooler precisely because I want my children to grow up as independent free thinkers.

And then, there is my son’s hair.

Most of the time now I don’t leave the house without paying special attention to my son’s hair even if it will make us late. How crazy is that? Maybe not crazy at all. I can’t decide. I love my son’s curls. They are so soft and springy. I don’t want to cut them. When I spend time on them everyday they do not get dangled so it is easier on both of us to keep this daily ritual. I have to be honest, this daily ritual has more to do with other people than it does about tangles. As a white woman raising a black child I often feel scrutinized wherever I go. Take the other day for example. I was at the library and an African American woman was watching my son and I read books.

She smiled. “She’s beautiful”, she said. “How old is she?” I felt the knot of fear grow in my stomach. I didn’t think Nigel looked particularly girly in his cargo pants but he was wearing a purple sweater and purple crocs. With babies and toddlers it is often hard to tell and I have been mistaken many times with other people’s children.

“Thanks”, I said smiling back. “This is my son, Nigel. He is 18 months”

Her smile faded immediately and she looked at me in disgust. “Cut his hair.” She stormed off before I could respond.

My Ethiopian friend, Gete has the same response without the anger when I ask her about how I can better maintain Nigel’s curls. “I’ll shave him for you”, she says even when I say I like his curls and want to keep them. All three of her boys have very close cut hair.

I try not to lead my life according to what others think. Do I have to do that with my son’s hair. Can I keep his curls because I like them, is that reason enough? Or do I have to cut it short so as not to cause any more attention? I don’t want to be culturally insensitive. But I really love his curls. I wet his hair every morning in the sink, something that always makes him laugh. He loves to play with the water stream as I add conditioning oil to his hair and finger through the curls.

The truth is, I believe in equal neglect. If I am late for homeschooling co-op (like I am now because I am writing this post instead of getting dressed) both my children and I might leave the house without hair care. No one at the co-op will judge me for my son’s hair, although there are probably a few people who have judgments about the fact that I use a chemical color product on my hair. Wherever you go, there will be critics. Hopefully I will find a place that feels right for me and right for family that will not cause me undue stress in public. Is there such a thing?

For now my son loves to have his hair done. What will happen when he no longer enjoys it? I let my daughter chose if she wants her hair braided or let it fly free. Will I do the same for him? Or will I tell him that what others think matters more than his own feelings? I hope I make the right choice.

"What doesn't kill us makes us stronger."

It is 3 am and I am quoting Nietzsche. I am so weary of not being able to sleep. The rest of my family is sleeping so quietly. I stayed in bed listening to the rhythm of their breathing and finally got up.

Monday night Mikaela noticed that our chrysalis had turned black. The next morning we could see the orange color of the wings showing through. An hour later the monarch emerged, wet and crumbled. Over the next few hours we watched as its wings slowly expanded and dried. We released him on a butterfly bush near where we found him.

The two black dots on the lower wings tell us it is a male.

Really, how did that butterfly make its transformation? How did four inch wings unfold out of a one inch chrysalis?

I have the flu and everything hurts. Somehow it feels fitting to have my body hurt as much as my heart hurts. Last Sunday our agency called and told us to cancel our plane tickets. Although Yaebsira is legally our daughter, there are more complications and I do not know if I will ever see her again. I can’t believe I am having to write this. If any one told me a year ago what I would be facing this year, I would have said there is no way I could handle all that. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

Metamorphosis

Mikaela and I leave in 14 days for Ethiopia to pick up Yaebsira. Once again I am staring big change in the face and once again a caterpillar is my inspiration. On September 10th we plucked a monarch caterpillar from its happy home at Kathy’s pond and brought it to our house on a large stem of milkweed. Debbie donated a large pretzel container as a temporary home and Mikaela and I watched as it doubled in size every couple of days. Mikaela named her Milkweed. Every day she ate and ate and grew and grew.

This part of the change I would be very good at. It is the second part that I have trouble with. After a week of nonstop eating and a lot of frass production, she stopped. She spent the day crawling all over the container, trying out different locations. Finally she settled on the netting at the top of the pretzel jar and hung upside down in perfect ‘J’ formation ten minutes before Mikaela, Nigel and I were walking out the door for the day. We contemplated taking her with us. (We had already taken her vacationing in Ocean City) We were worried that she might not yet be anchored securely enough to travel. When we returned home we were happy to see her still hanging in her ‘J’ and not yet a chrysalis. We stayed up as late as we could watching her. In the morning she had transformed into a florescent green chrysalis. I guess change of this magnitude is a very private thing.

Here is a video that managed to capture this remarkable change.

This morning I got up and stared at Milkweed’s chrysalis. What is going on in there? I want to make a magnificent transformation in one week. I can’t help but think of Disney images. I want to be transformed into a princess. Okay, not really, but there is a part of me that would love to know what it feels like to be beautiful. I imagine stopping everything and only working on myself. Just the idea of curling up into a cocoon sounds wonderful, even if I came out the same after a few days of peace and quite. Is it like that or is it contained violence that is going on inside that chrysalis? The caterpillar’s mouth must change from one that is made to chomp on milkweed to one that has a delicate tongue for sipping sweet nectar. Just picturing those dental changes alone makes me cringe without even thinking about what would be required to create wings from a fat striped belly. I don’t think it is peaceful in there. Once, many years ago I stopped everything and did a Seshin at Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper, New York. For seven days we made no eye contact with anyone, did not speak or read. For seven days we meditated in the zendo except for the few hours we slept each night. Although to an outsider, a room filled with meditating people might look peaceful our minds were anything but peaceful. It was scary in there at times! Imagine seven days inside your head with no escape or distraction. That turns into some serious monkey mind activity. It is wonderful to remember this. I haven’t thought about this in years. When Seshin was over, I was transformed in many ways. Watching Milkweed I am wondering how I can have a similar transformation while cleaning the house, packing for Ethiopia, working…

It is time to be very present.

Can't Get Enough Contrast

Reading the New York Times this weekend, I was reminded in a very obvious way of the contrasts that exist in this world: a page spread showed bomb victims in Kabul and a model lounging in cashmere. (She just can't get enough cashmere)



It started me thinking about contrast in many manifestations.
The financial stress I feel compared to the poverty level in Ethiopia.
The calm graceful energy of Mikaela and the nonstop exuberance of Nigel.
The way I want to be and the way I actually am.
The joy I feel about Yaebsira and the fear I have about Yaebsira.
The organization I dream about in my mind and the chaos of my household.
All the things I want to do compared to the tiny amount of time I have to do them.
My cancer scare compared to my friend's recurrence.
The health I want and the way I am feeling.

Life is filled with contrast and today I am grateful for the wonderful things I have in my life and the awareness that the pain of contrast is mostly created in my own mind.

When I was dying

This is my kidney.
This is what I thought was my kidney on cancer.
This is my kidney with a renal deformity, cause unknown.



I love thunderstorms- the heavy boom of thunder that vibrates in my chest. The storm is directly overhead. Lightening illuminates the room the same time the thunder crashes. Nature mirroring my feelings. 5 am, the rare time when I am alone, a time for me to check in with myself. Here I am.


This is my summer of dying.
I had not been feeling well for a long time. It was a slow progression that I tried to ignore. Finally, it had gotten so bad I couldn't ignore it. I went to the doctor and the circus began. During staff training in June I had the first ultrasound, which led to a CAT scan and an unexpected diagnosis: urothelial neoplasm of the left kidney-a rare and deadly form of cancer. It felt surreal. My kidneys were not part of my health complaint. Everyone seemed to feel that this cancer was an accidental finding and not related to my symptoms. When I tried to discuss my symptoms again with my doctor his response was “the cancer trumps everything else” Great. So, feeling horrible and adding a 10 to 20% survival rate for this type of cancer to the mix, I begin proactive treatments prescribe by my doctor: IV vitamin drips, home injections and mega-doses of vitamins and herbs and I start shopping around for the best surgeon.

Things slowed down, even before I cleared my schedule. There was a heightened state of awareness with everything I did. I frantically reached out to some friends for help in the beginning and then stopped. I kept thinking of the line from J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, “Don’t ever tell anyone anything. If you do, you will start missing everyone.“ Instead I cocooned myself with my children. I realized I have been missing myself for a long time. When did this start to happen? I see another doctor, I have another test. This doc says he is ‘under whelmed’ but still talks about the surgery procedure. When the kids are sleeping I read Love, Medicine and Miracles by Dr. Bernie Segal and Ken Wilber’s Grace and Grit. During my low moments I imagine others who could mother my children and think perhaps they would do a better job. I eat raw; I buy wheatgrass. I contemplate a surgery that will remove my left kidney and ureter. I question everything in my life. I mull over Siegel’s list of characteristics of cancer survivors and know I am missing many of them and wonder how to obtain them quickly. I have an MRI and head to Jefferson hospital to see one of the countries best kidney surgeons. His diagnosis: Renal deformity, not cancer.

“You have a new lease on life”, my family and doctors tell me. I stare at my shelf of megavitamins; I continue reading Grace and Grit. I am greatly relieved yet, I can’t come out of this quiet place. I still feel as bad physically as when this circus started weeks ago and I am surviving without the characteristics of a survivor. What does that mean for how I am living and for what I am teaching my children? How do I get back to where I need to be? So now, round two starts- trying to make it through each day and trying to find out what is going so wrong in my body. I start each day feeling like I just took two sleeping pills (and I haven’t!).

Every illness is a gift, an opportunity to recognize a wrong path taken, and energy lost. I spend the rest of the summer following the trajectory of my life and trying to heal my body and comfort my mind. I spend most days alone with my children. We create our own world and although I didn’t think it was possible, my love for them grows. I investigate my paths taken and not, my jobs, my relationships, my dreams, my achievements; I dissect my short comings, my fears. I tune into my body and try to remember who I am. Somehow I have gotten lost, which is okay because it is reminding me where I need to be. I am learning to listen to myself again. I start reading random old journals for clues. I find my old notes from Joseph Aldo, the medical intuitive I worked with in NYC and have a reawakening. Slowly, slowly, I start to come out of this. I start to feel a little better. My doctor appointments are now secondary to my own intuition for what my body needs. I work on cleansing my body and quieting my mind. I revive my daily meditation practice. I start to take back my life.

Change

From now on, when I lament that change is hard I will think of the woolly bear caterpillar. If in a week’s time a little creature can go from this




To this



What change am I capable of if I set my mind to it? What wild transformation am I capable of?
In early November Mikaela and I saw a woolly bear climbing up the side of our house. We brought him inside and looked up woolly bears on the web and found a site that gave a very brief explanation of how to bring them inside for the winter and then watch them make a cocoon in the spring. We decided to try it. We made a container and fed our caterpillar grass until he curled up into a ball on the bottom. Hibernation and death look a lot alike. Over the winter we would look at him unmoving and curled up in the bottom of our container. Had we cared for him correctly? Was he protected enough from the winter? We would forget about him and then remember and brush the snow off the container and observe his curled body. Frankly, I wasn’t holding out much hope. And then at the end of March, he was climbing up the stick again! We were so pleased! Mikaela started feeding him grass again. We fed him for almost a week when we saw he was at the top of the stick and not moving again. Overnight a thin web covered his body. The next day the covering was brownish orange like his little body. It looks as if all his woolly fur came off him and transformed into a blanket to cover him. When you hold the cocoon up to the light you can see his shrinking body. It feels truly miraculous. In a little more than a week’s time he will be an Isabella Tiger Moth. What an accomplishment!
How does it know it is ready for change?
Did it resist climbing up the stick telling itself, well maybe tomorrow, tomorrow I will change?
Did it curl up in its cocoon saying, oh god, I can’t do this? This is too hard and scary.
How will I change today?

When the Dark Side Rules

I should go climb into a hole and reread Dark Side of the Light Chasers. Tuesday I was Mommy Dearest. It all became a little too much: a sick father who is wasting away, a crazy mother who is torturing us all with her grief, a daughter who has the flu and cries whenever I leave her side and a new baby who still might not love me but freely covers me with bodily fluids of all kinds and can screech at decibels that can cause ear damage. Truly I had forgotten how moist and loud motherhood could be. Perhaps I have also forgotten how hard it can be, how lonely and how thankless at times. The Damn Husband called to tell me he was going to be late from work. Great, no problem, it can’t get worse.
“Are you having a bad day?” He asks with a lot of trepidation. He knew what was coming.

Can someone please remove all of my needs so I can parent more effectively? This will all go much better if you do. How about an instant dose of antidepressants that can turn me into Mary Sunshine for a few hours (or days) until I can find my footing again?

From Amazon.com Review of Dark Side of the Light Chasers:

‘We know the shadow by many names: alter ego, lower self, the dark twin, repressed self, id. Carl Jung once said that the shadow "is the person you would rather not be." But even if you choose to hide your dark side, it will still cast a shadow, according to author Debbie Ford. Rather than reject the seemingly undesirable parts of ourselves, Ford offers advice on how to confront our shadows. Only by owning every aspect of yourself can you achieve harmony and "let your own light shine," she explains. "The purpose of doing shadow work, is to become whole. To end our suffering. To stop hiding ourselves from ourselves. Once we do this we can stop hiding ourselves from the rest of the world."’


I am thinking about the woman who drowned her kids and understanding where her impulse came from.
“How could a mother EVER do that to a poor innocent child” my mother said when she heard the story. She shook her head and patted her chest, “Really, how …could… you… hurt…an innocent…child” said the woman who made welts so deep under my diaper that my older sister said it looked like I had 'OC' for Ocean City, (where we were living) tattooed on my behind. Hello, mom, what is that dark formation lurking behind you? Oh no, you don’t have a shadow. You just have a love for wooden spoon discipline on diaper-aged children.

I see the bad side of me that could so easily go south, but it hasn’t. We are a delicate balance of good and evil. Hello Dark Side, I know you are in there.

I am covered in snot and drool. Nigel screams and uses his hands and feet to push against me so I cannot hold him close. I close my eyes and think of giving him what he wants, of letting go of him- he falls out of my sight and I am free. For a second. Then I open my eyes. Then I softly sing in some obscure tune ‘no mommy won’t be crazy today’ and I place him gentle on the couch and find something to distract him. And it passes and we are all fine. Sometimes a version of this repeats twenty times a day sometimes not at all. I do the same with the damn husband (but I don’t sing him anything afterwards) A thousand times I have pictured smacking him over the head with my heaviest frying pan and watching him bounce around with stars circling him like in an old cartoon, boing boing boing boing boing. The feeling came on yesterday when I asked him to please order a new charger cord for my GPS THAT HE BROKE. The cord connector that joins it to the GPS is bent at a 45-degree angle and will no longer make a connection. He wouldn’t admit that he broke it (for the second time, he already ordered a new one once) and instead argued nonsensically that I broke it by hanging the GPS too high on the car windshield and it had nothing to do with the fact that he shoves it into a small compartment between the seats every time he parks the car because he is constantly paranoid that someone is going to break in and steal it. So, now a day later, I don’t think about the frying pan anymore but I haven’t forgotten that he refused to apologize for making the story up because he was at work and the other guys could hear him talking with me.
Me: You need to admit that this story is BS and you need to apologize.
Him: I will later. (in a casual voice)
ME: You don’t want the guys to hear, do you? Oh yeah, if they were listening I’m sure that story made lots of sense to them. Hanging a GPS cord straight down has often made it spontaneously bend upwards against gravity. I’m sure they've heard other similar stories.
Him: Okay, I will talk to you later.
I groan and push the end button on my cell as hard as I can wishing it made a load sound on the other end. I miss that loud emphatic sound of slamming down a land line phone. So much more satisfying.

I love the story Anne Lamont tells in her book Operating Instruction about not being able to stand her son’s screaming any longer. She thinks about putting him outside on the porch for the night. If he is still there in the morning she will consider it natural selection and bring him inside again. I love that she admits to thinking about this and I laugh because I know she did not do it.

It is when you deny your dark side that the trouble begins:
No, mom, I am not angry with you.
I love every moment of motherhood.
Oh no, I don’t mind, you take it.
I’m sorry I broke the GPS cord, sweetie. I don’t need another one. I’ll use map quest.
It was a big leap in my life when I finally got it about the Buddhist offerings each day to the hungry ghosts. They aren’t wandering around the world; they are inside of us. Here you go guys, a little morsel to keep you at bay, nice little ghosts, stay where you belong.

My mother, wayward priests, the woman who drowned her kids, did they go so far because they felt they were not suppose to have dark feelings and so they denied them? Like a balloon you try to push under the water so no one can see it, it is bound to explode out the moment you get distracted.

I once called a friend after she just had a baby. How is she doing I asked her husband when he answered the phone. Well he replied, she hasn’t held him by one foot and swung him in circles above her head, I think she is doing well. Fifteen years later this story still makes me laugh and the image can instantly change my mood when I become frustrated with my kids.


I don’t hit my children, drown them or swing them above my head. Thinking and doing still remain a world apart. I am doing my best to live my life, feel my feelings, sort out my past and change my current reality. I am imagining my world the way I want it to be and I am walking towards that goal one step at a time with an occasional few steps backwards.


Our answers are always around if we look for them and they come just in time. In an article by Tad Waddington in this month’s Spirituality and Health magazine I am reminded of the story about three bricklayers. The first one was trying to make a buck, the second was building a wall and the third was building a school that would educate children for generations
Same job different perspective. Where have I heard that before?

I am still covered in slime but today I am raising young minds that will change the world.

God is everywhere, including my blog

Here I am, working away at my blog but not really telling anyone about it. I thought sooner or later someone might find it, but who knew it would be God? He is currently the only follower signed up to receive updates from my blog. (Shouldn’t I be the one, following God?) He never posts or comments but I know he is there. How like God to always leave me guessing as to whether or not I am in good graces. It is hard to tell if God is on my side or only watching me in a you-are-in-charge-of-your-own-destiny kind of way. Anyway, welcome God to my wandering blog.

This got me thinking what it would be like to be God. Would it be like creating a work of art and then sitting back, taking it all in, thinking about what you find works about the creation, and what you would do differently next time? Or would you constantly rework it, change little things, answer someone’s request, kick up a big storm? I don’t think I would be able to be as hands off as God the now seems to be about some things that happen here. When I make something (small things like potholders, not big things like galaxies) there is always things I wish I could change but often I worry that going in and trying to fix things will only make it worse. If I were playing God, I would start small. For starters, I would make chocolate the most nutritious food possible, one that we should eat several times a day to keep our bodies healthy. A little change that would truly make the world a better place to live. I think I could take a little lesson from my dad. When I was young, I would cringe when he would train our dog, but now I can see some advantages for this style in other situations. My father was old school when it came to dog training. When he was housebreaking our dog, Sam he would grab her by the scruff and drag her and push her nose into any mess that was found in the house and holler, Bad dog, No Sam. Then he would push her outside and leave her there for a while especially if she barked or whined. I think I would like to use that same technique with several people that have left big messes around our planet. I would start by grabbing George by the back of the neck: Bad George, No George and leave him in Iraq even if he whined.


My daughter playing with her wooden train set gave me another idea. I really appreciate that God lets us make our own decisions, but sometimes I think people need a little help in learning how to get along with others better. They need a little nudge to help them make the right decisions. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to police the world, just a little? For example, the guy driving right on someone’s tail (usually mine) or swerving in and out of traffic. I picture being able to reach down and pluck the car up with two fingers like my daughter does when a train section derails. I’d look at the culprit, shake my finger at him and put the car down in some inconvenient place to make sure he learned his lesson. Like on top of a building or up in a tree.


If God were in human form I think he/she is either a gay man or a woman but I lean towards a gay man because you’ve got to admit the overall design of the universe is pretty lavishly over the top. This planet is a beautiful work of art. If you doubt this, watch the BBC production Planet Earth.