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.

A Letter For Mikaela

After E saw my post about the plaque , she wrote this wonderful letter to Mikaela.

Dear Mikaela:

I want to thank you for finishing the other side of the plaque I gave your Mom. It really needed to have your message on it.

You are one smart pony. Every day is specially made for each of us. Every day is meant to be a good day. Every day brings with it gifts we accept and lessons we learn. To be grateful for both the gifts and the lessons - even when the lessons are hard ones - makes it a good day, not just for us but for everyone our life touches.

One of those hard to learn lessons is the lesson of waiting. Sometimes if we have to wait while someone else gets what they want, it begins to feel not at all good. We begin to think, "Whoa, maybe it's not my day after all." That's when it helps to remember that, thanks to you, there are two sides of the plaque I gave your Mom. One side - the one that came with it - says "I can only please one person at a time and this isn't your time." The other, that you wrote, says, "This is your day. Have a good day."

Both are part of the same plaque now. They go together. But how is it possible to have a good day when it isn't our time to be pleased? It's possible because we know that the people, like your Mom and Dad, who love us really want to please us. So we can wait, even if it isn't easy, for our time to come. It will. And because we're sure that it will - very wise people have called that sureness, grace - we're free to go ahead and enjoy our good day - even with all the bumps in it.

Take good care. Love,

Elizabeth

We are so lucky to have such wonderful friends. What a good day it is!

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.

Sugartown Family Fall Fest

Green Partners sponsored a wonderful event yesterday at the Willistown Township’s Sugartown Exploration Garden. We had so much fun.

Mikaela has been loving the cider from our CSA and wanted to know how it was made. Our friend Amy told us about this event and we were able to watch a cider press in action.

I just learned from listening to You Bet Your Garden that a deer fence must be 8 feet. Unfortunately the restrictions at Willistown only allow fences up to 6 feet which is a hazard for deer. They think they can jump it but often end up hurt. Green Partners came up with a very clever, and attractive solution for this. The depth of this fence scares off the deer.

Mikaela tries her hand at leatherwork.

The Local Halloween Parade

I am a sucker for little town parades. I love them. Here is part of what we saw.

Nigel loved his first Halloween parade

My sweet little bear

Wanda, the possessed ladybug

My little Mimosa Fairy. Mikaela designed her costume herself. She drew what she wanted and then we spent hours in the fabric store where she walked around feeling all the fabrics until she found what she wanted. As a former costume designer I had to really hold myself back and let her make her own decisions. I was the crafter on this project. I had to redo the skirt because it wasn’t quite what she wanted. It was so fun to be a part of her process.