Green Tea Ginger

DITL 2/6/2012

2012-02-07T10:38:00.001-05:00

DITL 2/6/2012, a set on Flickr.

DITL 1/29/2011

2012-01-30T11:10:00.001-05:00

DITL 1/29/2011, a set on Flickr.

Of Cats and Beasties

2012-01-25T13:20:00.000-05:00

Our life is flowing along and right now we seem to have a hit sweet balance between schooling and unschooling. I still maintain that we could never be unschoolers because I do not believe that humans are fully natural beings. We are shaped by our surroundings, and thus to suggest that we have a "natural" way of learning just doesn't work for me. But I do believe that if we surround our children with enriching things to read and do, they will want to learn and turn to us for guidance on how to learn better. But anyway that is likely a post for later when I feel like dealing with all the hate.

Lately the beasties have been thrown into cat obsession. Even Camille who is normally firmly in the doggie camp, can't stop thinking about cats. Why? Erin Hunter's (who is really THREE people my beasties discovered all on their own) Warrior series has crept into our household. The kids read the books, the comics, the "field" guides. My house is littered with thousands of pictures of Warrior cats battling it out or nursing kits (I love these pictures). They were just as thrilled with the complete set of the first books my dad got them for Xmas as the video games, etc. They sit at the dinner table and regale us with stories of the cats. They set up their plastic cat toys and act out warrior games.

But there were other things that were happening that I missed because I got wrapped up in what they shouldn't be doing. Let me explain. My kids love this online gaming platform called Roblox. And when I say love it's more like obsession. They'd play all day long if I let them. For the most part, I regarded Roblox as a waste of time. It was fun,and the kids had a good time playing and interacting with others. It did provide us with a good object lesson in Internet security but that was the limit I saw to its usefulness.

As time went on, I began to notice that there were things they were learning. They were learning to get along with people or not. They found spaces in which to share their interests because they didn't have the spaces in front of them. Two events hammered in how much they were acquiring by playing this seemingly silly game.

First, the girls discovered that someone had made animation of the first Warrior book on YouTube. They were so fired up. Initially they wanted to learn animation (and they still do) but they realized it was going to take some time to do this. They wanted to make a film of book 2 now. This is when they hit on the idea of making it on Roblox. They would make a call to other players, write a script and then "role play" the book. They were very excited and this lead to a flurry of script writing with lots of help from us. The thing is that we did not insert ourselves into this project. They came to us. How did they make a script that wasn't long but included the whole book? Did this sound realistic? What characters should be included? They were learning a ton of stuff that didn't involve a lesson but did involve learning opportuntities and things they had been doing with me.

Second, they discovered politics. They happened to be playing the day that many sites were protesting SOPA. Roblox had a little statement and many of the other players had their characters wearing antiSOPA shirts. Of course Umberto wanted to know right off what was going on. We had a great conversation about what was at stake for all sides, and he was quite outraged. He then went onto have several conversations with other players about why SOPA would be bad. And he was aware enough to keep an eye out for news and told us when Congress put a stay on the bill.

My beasties periodically remind me that learning can happen everywhere. Even when we're not expecting it. It's a good lesson to keep in mind not just as I home school but in my own life. I have more to post on this later but that feeling of being lost has returned, and I realized that without the direction of school and deadlines I have a hard time learning. My children do not have this and I realize they have been given a lovely gift. It's a gift I hope I can pass onto myself.

A Day in the Life 1/21/2011

2012-01-22T14:26:00.001-05:00

A Day in the Life 1/21/2011, a set on Flickr.

This is the second day in the life of the 7 week series. Saturday.

A Day In the Life 1/13/2011

2012-01-14T12:06:00.001-05:00

A Day In the Life 1/13/2011, a set on Flickr.

What'cha Doing?

2011-11-30T21:40:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago a friend wrote a blog post has stayed with me. It was one of those post that kind made me reevaluate what was going on with the beastie's home school day. She was describing how being an unschooler places some responsibility on the parent to model what one does in a day. In other words, unschooling ought to make a person look closely at how they spend their whole day. And this really hit a nerve because frankly I am a lazy type unless I have a lot on my plate. Being in graduate school kept me always moving. I was constantly reading, writing, discussing, etc. It was pleasurable and I loved it but what little down time I had was valued and used wisely. This schedule also kept me on the straight and narrow with the beasties as well.We didn't have time to catch up or to put off a project until later.

Now that I am essentially freed of these time constraints. I do nothing. Seriously. I spent a lot of time on Facebook playing really inane games. My friend's post made me realize that I am squandering this precious time that has been given to me, and that the beasties are watching me squander this opportunity. In fact, the beasties are COPYING ME by becoming hideously addicted to computer games and pushing other pursuits from their minds. This is not how I want to live my life. There are so many things I want to learn and to do.

So I made a list:
learn Spanish
brush up so I can pass a French reading test
write a kick ass paper on the comic book "Priest" with lots of great monster theory
revise my thesis into a couple of articles
read THE WHOLE OUTLANDER series. Oh yeah!
knit a sweater

This is really just a bit of what I want to do but I need to do it. I need to start using my time in a wise way so that I can do the things that really give me pleasure instead of the things I am addicted to. And I need to do this not just for me but for the beasties.

Feeding Christ

2011-11-30T11:54:00.000-05:00

The beasties have been in religious education class at the Catholic Center for a couple of months now. H and I were both a bit apprehensive as we knew some of our theological perspectives might clash with what the kids learn. Thus we grilled them relentlessly after each class, and in true beastie form, they wouldn't tell us shit. Sometimes Umberto would regal us with stories of the horrible kid in his class who mouthed off to everyone. But that was about it. We let it go figuring if something that if something so theologically shocking came up, they'd likely talk to us about it anyway.

A couple of weeks ago the gospel reading was from Matthew 25:

Then the righteous will answer him and say,
'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you,
or thirsty and give you drink?
When did we see you a stranger and welcome you,
or naked and clothe you?
When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?'
And the king will say to them in reply,
'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did
for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.'

This is one of my favorite gospel passages and the one that has lead me, a rather (snort) liberal, socially progressive person, to the Church. We studies this in RICA, and the beasties learned about it in their classes as well.

Now I've been trying for years to convey to my children how lucky they are. How they have a duty to those who have less. How we must care about the poor, the sick, the desolate, etc. How we are obligated because we care to fight for social justice. And I tried desperately to steer them away from seeing this obligation as charity but rather as responsibility to ourselves because others are us. This is not always an easy thing to pass onto a child. This scripture captures all of that feeling. It implores us to care for others because those others ARE CHRIST. Not LIKE Christ but Christ HIMSELF. This is a big deal. It means that every time we turn our back on suffering we are turning our back on Christ., This is no pansy ass scripture either. This is tough. This about judgment. Christ took the suffering of the world seriously, and he expected his followers to do the same. And this is why I love Dorothy Day. She lived this scripture in a way that I likely never will.

Back to the beasties. At least a week after this reading, we are driving somewhere, when Camille asks me "Is it true if we feed the poor, we feed Jesus?" This comes out of left field. We were just riding in silence (blissfully) so for a second I am a bit flummoxed. "Yes." I answer immediately but I'm scrambling for how I'm going to convey to this to my eight year old. She's never shown interest in poverty before so it's an important moment.

"How does that work?" she asks. "Jesus isn't here."

"Well what Jesus was saying was that he is here. He's inside every poor person we meet. His spirit is there inside them. And it's inside us. Which is why when we see someone who needs food or clothes, we need to help them. It's why Mama and Daddy get angry when rich people keep too much for themselves."

I look back quickly and can see that Camille is pondering my words. Piper is listening too.

"Does this mean we should give our food to people who need it?" Piper asks.

"Well do we have extra food?" I ask her.

"Yup. Lots. We should give some of it to people who are hungry." she answers.

"Right and then we'll be feeding Jesus too." Camille pipes up.

The rest of the trip is spent planning what food we can give to the local food banks. And the next time we go to Walmart, Piper sees the Angel tree, and wants to pick out a little girl to buy some gifts for. Both girls decided to give some of their allowance to the Salvation Army. I hope this is only the beginning of a life spent fighting for the disadvantaged and also for giving, willing and with an open heart.

Year of Pleasures 29

2011-11-30T10:41:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went over to someones house. This might not seem like a big deal but for anyone who suffers depression, they know what an effort it takes to get yourself out the door. I don't have it as bad as some or nearly as bad as I used to. But I do suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, and it's bad enough that I'd rather just hibernate then go anywhere. It also effects my perceptions. Thus I blow things out of proportion. Misread social cues. Participate in sending myself into my own pit of depression. So making myself go out to someones house was a big deal.

And it was pretty awesome. This friend is someone I knew first online, and had finally met when we moved to Athens. I didn't get to see her as often as I wanted because of distance, and because I was busy spiraling into my own pit of self-pity. But it was worth all the effort emotionally to get there. I felt very comfortable in this friend's house. We talked and laughed, and I felt were pretty real with each other. Our kids had a great time. Umberto was pretty impressed that my friend's son mixed his own music. Piper disappeared for most of the visit, and Camille had a dog to play with (what more does she need). Even Rowena felt comfortable enough to throw a huge tantrum right before we left.

I may not be a BFF kind of person but I suspect I'm on my way of making a good friend.

Obtuse

2011-11-30T00:43:00.000-05:00

I am not really sure if the universe/God really speaks to us. Perhaps the voice we listen so closely for is as H says "The Super Ego OH NO!" Or maybe that voice is something inside of us. Maybe it's all of these things. But I am not good at listening to these voices. I doubt them. Doubt myself. Second guess all my decisions. I rarely feel 100% about anything including small things like what we're having for dinner. Life is complicated for people like me. I had a friend whom answered my question about God's voice by stating "I tell him to knock me upside the head" (or something along those lines).

First I got John's response, which touched me and gave me a little faith. And then after a very pleasant day out, I was checking my cell phone for Facebook stuff, and found a post on my all telling me that my review was in the Bulletin for the Study of Religion. My first response was "What review?" And I really couldn't remember until H reminded me. I wrote a review at my post-adviser's request way back in May. Well it's finally out and headlining the journal. Smack in up across the head noted.

Ginger's Great Indecision

2011-11-28T14:37:00.000-05:00

Today I dropped H off at school because of the rain. Normally he rides his bike and I avoid the god awful traffic that is UGA. But it's raining much too hard for bike riding. After I leave him off at the library, I am stuck in traffic. I watch as students scurry off to their various classes. They look alike in their jeans and sweat shirts. Then I see some guy who might be a grad. student or a professor. He has kind of longish curly blond hair, and a beard. He's wearing a corduroy jacket with jeans, and an oxford shirt. He's in intense conversation with one of those jean and sweat shirt clad kids, and it the longing hits me. Not for him. Rather to be him.

I thought I was okay with not going. With maybe going into another field. But I don't think I am okay. I think I am trying to bury the disappointment, the fear of more rejection. Mostly I think I am trying to deal with feeling like a failure. I feel so stalled. And because I feel stalled in this area, I am stalled at everything. Nothing gets done. I sit in front of this computer and eat. But I don't know how to break free from this apathy that has overtaken me.

When I lay out things, a Ph.D seems impossible. Yes, if UGA got a program it might be doable but that means placing everything in this one basket, and frankly after the Austin rejection, I am not confident that I can get in to a new program. I am scared of putting forth so much effort to be rejected. I know it is fear but I am not sure how to move beyond it or even if I should. Maybe I am not cut out for this world, and the rejection is a sign. To fight against fate or not?

And therein lies my problem. I feel like I found something I love to do. I found something I thought I was good at...I seemed to do well in terms of grades, etc. But then that something was snatched away and I am left in this limbo of self doubt. The whole bullshit about just doing what you love, and keep on going, drives me crazy because really at some point, you have to stop fighting battles against the inevitable. If I am no good at this, there is no point in wasting my time convincing other people, I am. And then if that is the case how does one let go? How does one move on?

Untranslatable

2011-11-28T14:21:00.000-05:00

Pain is not easily described be it emotional or physical. There is no way to reach inside yourself and pull the pain out to show someone. Sometimes words fail, and even those animals sounds we make when we hurt don't fully convey what is happening inside our bodies. There is no way to full share with another human being the experience of pain. Perhaps, this is why some turn to God.

My own pain grows in my belly like a fetus. It swells throughout me, making me big with the hurt. When the pain is bad it as if my skins is stretched taut and on fire. I lay on the bed curled around myself as if I need to shelter that agony from the world. I feel as if I have swallowed sorrow.

Right Here, Right Now

2011-11-27T12:22:00.000-05:00

Last night, I took some time to do the rosary. I find that this act of praying through the beads is meditative in way that most meditations have not worked for me. I am able by the fourth or fifth Hail Mary to just enter into a space where I am not filled with hectic thoughts. Last night, I came to this moment filled with a bit of sadness and some disappointment. I was praying for grace last night. Grace for myself and for my feelings towards others. By the time I hit that fourth Hail Mary I was feeling calmer and in that space I remembered something H had said to me on Thanksgiving day "Be happy for what you have right now."

At the time, of course, I took his words like a sulky child. Unwilling to be comforted, I did not take to heart what he was telling me. I wanted something for the future and was feeling angry that I had to wait. But last night, I looked over at my sleeping baby. Her arm curled over her head. Her lips pursed into a little pout. The curls that frame her round face. I was slayed once again with the immense love I felt towards her. And then I was there in the moment.

I don't have to live with this constant leaning into the future. Right now in this moment I have what I need. I can focus on what is before me without letting go of what I dream. But I can't let those dreams consume so much of me that I forget what is right here. Right now.

This is Sparta!

2011-11-22T10:18:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we are sitting outside at Jittery Joe's. Hanging out at coffee shops is a favorite treat for us, and we're teaching R the finer arts of this simple pleasure. C and P, never able to sit still for too long, have run up a slope that borders the patio area. It's reinforced with a bricked wall, upon which Camille stands. She looks down at us, raises her arms up and yells "THIS IS SPARTA!" H and I both laugh but I'm feeling pretty proud at the same time. We've been studying Ancient Greece, and I'm pretty impressed that she's shouting things like "We are Sparta" instead of something inane.

She's pretty clever. I tell H. And how cool is it that our kids shout things like that?
H nods and I can see that he's proud to. "It's not like they've seen the movie." (the movie 300...we do have some standards around here). We bask for a moment in how awesome we are as parents. Our kids don't quote t.v. shows. Instead they quote stuff about Ancient Greece.

And then comes the humbling. Umberto tells us about how there is a sign in the game they play online (Roblox) that shows a Sparta man kicking someone off a cliff with the line "This is Sparta."

Children...they have a way of humbling you.

Year of Pleasures 28

2011-11-21T19:40:00.000-05:00

Reading fiction. I've always been a varied and prolific reader but grad. school limited my time. I read a lot of short, cozy mysteries and of course Charlene Harris but avoided thicker trashy fiction. Instead, I immersed myself in theory and religious studies articles some so bad I wanted to poke myself in the eye. Now that I'm free, I find myself laying around reading thick series novels whose only redeeming qualities are that they are well written and pleasurable.

I wish I could express in words how delicious it is to curl up with a book and just...escape. I love my life but so enjoy being able to be transported somewhere else. To another world, time, person. To fall in love with characters. To cry if they are killed off. To put off eating because I just have to know...while at the same time not wanting to the story to end....savoring every page.

This is how I read as a child and it is perhaps the only thing I have maintained into adulthood. The ability to be lost in the pages of a good story.

French Press Mornings

2011-11-20T01:10:00.000-05:00

I am not a morning person. I stumble from bed, blurry and rumbled no matter how much sleep I managed to get the night before. Having children has not improved this state of being. The first order of business is to get coffee into my body, ASAP. Most mornings H has made coffee for me even if he has already left to go to work or school. And on weekends it's a guarantee. But this morning, there was no coffee. And I was extra tired after a rather rough night with both R and P.

I groaned some kind of primitive sound and he hurried in..."I wanted to make you a French Press this morning." he said, hurrying to set things up. I repressed the urge to hit him with something because even in morning zombie mode I knew he meant to do something nice for me. You see, I love French Press coffee. It's hands down the best to brew a truly excellent cup of coffee. But it's also slow which is why I save French Press for afternoons and special occasions. I use French Press to enjoy a particularly nice blend of coffee or to make ice coffee. But never ever do I use it for the mornings. It takes way too long. It is not the fastest, most effective way to get coffee into my body (really the ideal thing would be an IV).

But this morning I just kind of leaned against the counter and watched R torment the kitten. As I waited for the water to boil, I made my breakfast in the soft morning light and listened as H sang silly songs to R while dancing with her in the living room. And then H poured the water into the press, and I wandered through the house to look in on the sleeping beasties, marveling at their still beauty, and the vulnerability of their temporary absence. These are all things that must be done in the slowness of time. There is no rushing through these moments.

As I pressed the lever slowly down through the water, pushing the grinds to the bottom, I thought that a lesson could be learned from this careful act. Life rushes by. My baby boy is going to be 12 next year. My girls are growing into these graceful, lovely creatures. Life is made up of moments both quiet and dramatic. It is too easy to lose those quiet ones. Too easy to rush through them. To easy to push forward with impatience, and to stumble right over them. And then there is the sadness that comes when we rush into things we should not rush into...knowing things too soon instead of waiting for the fullness of time.

Clearing Up...

2011-11-18T23:46:00.000-05:00

My last post was not as clear as I had intended. First, I am not pointing fingers, or calling anyone out. People who don't like me certainly have that right. And for the record no one has come out and said "Wow Ginger you suck." I am speaking of my own position where I am finding a hard time finding something.This something might not ever exist. And my expectations that this would be the place where I would find this magical something (in terms of female relationships) has not materialized.

When I was in Charlotte, I watched as the woman around me paired off. They would form very close friendships. Go out for coffee. Go shopping together. Eat lunches. I was envious because I don't seem able to form these bonds with other women. I told H that what I wanted was someone like him who was female. In other words, I long for a BFF. Some one I can be myself with. Someone who forgives me my big mouth. Someone who wants to have coffee with me and talk about things. And I hoped that someone would have kids so we could spend time at each other's houses while the kids played. I thought Athens would be that place, and it's not.

Sometimes I wonder if this an expectation that is just not going to be meet. And I wonder if my expectations lead me to expect things too fast. It's hard because I have a group of "internet" friends that I meet while pregnant with my daughter. I love them, and value their friendship deeply. But they have set a high standard. Their friendship is almost painful because it's wonderful but they are not "here" in a way that I long for. I had hoped that perhaps, here, in Athens, I would meet those people in the flesh.

Backdrop Athens

2011-11-18T10:19:00.000-05:00

I haven't talked a lot about Athens, and living here. I think it's because I've had a hard time putting into words my feelings about this town and our move here. Yesterday H said something to me that summed up how I felt. He said "It's not really the people in a place that make me happy. I see the places where we live as the backdrops for our story." And that resonated with me so much that I carried it tucked away so that I could write about it when I had a chance.

Athens is a wonderful town. I love the feel and look of it. The funky downtown filled with little stores, bars and eateries is an amazing way to spend a Saturday. I love the tree lined streets and the grand old houses. I love how we can walk just about anywhere. I love that everything is so close. Our little house is perfect for us. We spend evenings curled up on the couch (finally big enough for us all) and read, knit and watch movies. I love that there is lots for us to do here from hiking trials to Girl Scouts. The Catholic Center at UGA has become a safe place for me to explore my new found faith. This is a charming back drop no doubt.

But I've also struggled with feeling lonely. My expectations may have been too high for this place but I had imagined we would meet lots of fun, intelligent, engaged people here in Athens. I had these plans for family gatherings where we adults would sit and talk while the kids ran around and played. Umm...not so much. I"m sure there are these kinds of people here but they either don't have kids or they have one or two. Our big family seems to freak them out. The other mothers here all know each other and it's hard to break through years of friendship to make a place for yourself. I've reached out a few times and while the offer was accepted, it seems that the initial excitement frizzled.

For awhile I blamed myself and wallowed in a pity party about what an awful person I may be. But as time stretches out I am able to see that it's not my fault. I know there are things about me that make me hard to take. But I also know that there are things about me that make me a great friend. I am not sure though how one gets that across to people. I've also though a lot about what I'm looking for in a friend or even if it's quantity that I'm after. I've meet a few people whom I think I will end up becoming friends with, and so far the tiniest sprouts are there. At this stage, I am focusing on nurturing those bits of green without compromising myself in the process.

Thus this is the story. Beautiful town on which to continue to write the story of the beasties. I'm sure that eventually other characters will float through, adding to our narratives. Meanwhile I bask in this wonderful place and find myself thankful for the closeness I have within my own home.

Answers

2011-11-17T00:25:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday, my sponsor squeezed my hand and told me she had something special for me. During our break she gave a medal blessed by one of our Friars. I held the small silver circle in my hand, and felt tears pushing a bit from behind my eyes. For a moment, there was just nothing to say. Here was a small quiet sign from someone I did not yet know well. It was as if I was wrapped in love.

These little material things come to me when I need them most. They fill up my house and my car. They hang from rear view mirrors. They are tucked away into nooks in my hallway. They lean against olive oil bottles. They hang on my fridge holding up brightly colored pictures drawn by the beasties. These images traveled with me through states and through religions. I have held them longer than I have been on my conversion journey.

And this medal came to me when I needed an answer. When I need a little assurance. And I think that these physical things are vital in my journey of faith.They capture inside paper, metal, glass, the moments of prayer, faith, sorrow, joy and thanksgiving.

A Gift

2011-11-15T01:13:00.000-05:00

"Now Abraham can receive Isaac without guilt, as a gift.When they are walking back home, Issac is now Abraham's son in a way that he never was before. Abraham had to receive the gift twice by sacrificing it the first time"(Ronald Rolheiser).

When he gave her the gift the first time, she lost it. She did not mean to let it go but for a second when her hands flexed, it flew away into the stars. She watched it sobbing and calling out but it could not longer hear here. She spent days mourning that loss, fearing that she would never lay hands on such a gift again.

He did not know if he wanted to give the gift again. The first time had been fraught with fear. But he opened himself up again, and put the gift, different but the same, into her hands. This time she held onto that gift not with her hands but with faith. The second time she recognized that this was indeed a gift that he was giving her.

Social Missteps

2011-11-14T18:10:00.000-05:00

She remembered in Jr. High, the feeling that she was too loud, too big, too nerdy, too poor. Despite all this abundance she was never enough to be popular. Never enough to be treated kindly. No one envied her. No one wanted to be around her much less be like her. In Jr. High, she would sit at the lunch tables, hiding in a book. She read literally hundreds of books because she did nothing else. She did not go over to other kids' houses. Never meet to hang out at the park. Instead, she walked the long road home (she would never submit herself willing to the torture of the bus) and would go up to her room to read. Later she would hid behind weird haircuts, drugs, and alcohol.

But it never helped. She was always out of step with those around her. Socialness was a dance between saying just enough, being just enough, being able to judge that enough in those around you. She never gained at that ability. In college, it was easy enough to seek out those who didn't know the dance. They formed a kind of family in which it was okay to speak too loudly or not enough. To be able to fuck up and know that while someone might get mad they'd forgive you. And it was a good feeling to belong.

But when she left college, she left behind that social net. She found safety in her own family but discovered quickly that the world out there was rather like Jr. High. There still people who wanted you to be something that she didn't quite understand. In defense, she started to carry books again so that she could hid behind their covers and in their words.

Adventures

2011-11-14T00:24:00.000-05:00

Some weeks I just feel like we hit all the right notes. Our lives just fall into a beautiful rhtymn that works for everyone. Our desires and needs flow into each other's desires and needs, and we all look up satisified and surprised. These glorious weeks do not happen often and the sweet taste they leave is something to be stored away for when things are dark.

All

2011-11-13T00:37:00.000-05:00

There are days that fill the soul with sunshine, flaming leaves, and the laughter of children. Those days sweep in no matter what welcome can be expected. Today she walked engulfed in this magic with the sadness like a dull ache. The joy was too present to ignore but the pain underneath was like a sharp reminder that gray often comes after the brilliance. As she watched her lovely girls, poke in the stream and balance on logs, she felt that she was asking for too much.

But that tiny grain of grief haunted her.The little footsteps behind her and to turn and see nothing. There was no way to deny that there had been a loss. A presence that once here was now gone. But as she watched the baby taking her steps through the leaves, her first real hike in the woods, she wondered if she asked too much.

To want more on such a day seemed to spit on the fortune of the universe. But she found that while she held this all so dear and close that she did long for more. Not much more but just a small bit. She could embrace the joy of now and when she turned her face toward the golden sunshine that shown through the canopy of leaves she felt that perhaps she could put her hand out in trust, and wait for God to answer.

Christmas Away

2011-11-11T10:47:00.000-05:00

On Christmas, it was decided they would spend the day at his parents' house. They would arrive for breakfast and then she would go to her house for dinner while he went to his grandparents. His grandparents pretended to not know that they were living together. She suspected they found it rather low class, this living together stuff but she never mentioned this to him. He didn't like to think about these things.

At the breakfast, she felt conscious of her every move. Of every bite that went into her mouth. She knew she chewed too loud and yet could not figure out how one chewed in such silence. She had learned to nibble at his house, knowing she could eat later in private with no one to point out her loudness or her elbows on the table. Eating here was a tiny form of torture. A public moment where every move was scrutinized. She convinced herself it was good for her to be learning these things. Some day she would be in this social class and she needed to belong.

After dinner, came the stocking and gift opening. She was touched and surprised at the bag she was given. She had not expected to be included. His mother had smiled a bit painfully and said "Well I've always wanted a daughter." It was a nice gesture but she knew that she was not the daughter in mind. But she tried and she suspected that this attempt was appreciated. Inside the bag were tiny expensive treasures. Things she doubted she would ever use as they were so fine. She exclaimed over each thing and hoped she sounded genuine. His mother looked pleased. What she really would have enjoyed was a book and some chocolate. Something he had given her the night before. She knew that the gifts in the bag reflected what his mother thought she should want.

The whole gift opening was very orderly. The presents were wrapped perfectly like the show presents in a Christmas catalog. Everyone waited quietly while someone else opened their gift, and then there were quiet thanks. No laughing, no giddy excitement. Nothing very meaningful was exchanged. She sat the whole time her hands clenched. The tension arching through her. At these times she wondered how she could endure a life of quiet exclamations and silent chewing. Of gifts that meant so little and cost so much.

Choices

2011-11-10T10:15:00.000-05:00

There were three days until Thanksgiving and that was when the loneliness took up a more permanent residence. She had spoken to her mom that evening, and there had been a promise of a bus ticket home. One way was the only condition. Right now she was not sure why she was hesitating. What she had here was a whole list of bad decisions. First, moving here with no job, no friends. Just him. And he was proving to be just another check in that long list. Two, staying with a married man. Three, staying with a married man who told you were fat all the time and wasn't all that nice. Four, losing a good job just so she could hang out more with her friends. Five, letting him move her into a house that belonged to his wife's friend. Six, having to leave said house when the shit hit the fan. It was too much to list them out and she felt crushed under the despair that each check off caused.

Here she was lying in the guest room of another friend. She knew she was imposing on him and his girlfriend. She felt pretty sure that the girl friend kind of hated her. She made sure she was out either working or with her clubbing friends more than she was in but it didn't really make a difference. And she was lying her alone because he wasn't ever going to leave his wife. He had played this game again and again. Plus she wasn't sure if she actually wanted him to leave his wife. She wasn't sure if she really wanted him full time. Deciding to love this man had forged a whole chain of horrible decisions that left her in a darkness that she couldn't help but feel was her own making.

Going home would not involve a triumphant return. Instead she would come wounded, broken and in defeat. Those who had warned her to not go would shake their heads at her failure. She should have stayed home, they would say. And what irked was that they were right. She should have stayed home. She should have kept taking classes, and moved towards a job. Instead she had folded her doubts into a small little note and tucked them deep inside, jumping at the chance to finally escape.

Giving Forth and Getting Back

2011-11-09T11:06:00.000-05:00

November must be all about balance for me this year as I keep coming back to this theme. Perhaps it's because I have found myself rather outspoken about political concerns I have even on Facebook where I usually just keep my mouth shut. I got so wrapped up in the middle of the road that I became rather blah about everything. I've been reflecting a great deal on how balance can be good (aka post about scheduling vs. free time) but also bad (aka not speaking out about social justice issues because I'm trying to understand the other side or some other such thing). But today I'm in a rather conflicted space as I ponder the distinction between putting forth love and thinking about what do you get back. Why conflicted? Because there is a part of me that thinks that even thinking about what you get back is a bit not the point.

My whole life, I've been taught the value of self-esteem. This lesson never really sunk in as I am absolutely soaked in self doubt. I have spent most of my life trying to gain the approval of others. I was never a suck up more like a pathetic beggar hoping for a scrap. The work I did I always did with a mind as to what others would think. I did little work simply for the pleasure of doing the work. Even when there was pleasure it was tortured with the longing that someone just one person like it. I am the person who constantly refreshes their blog page hoping for a higher hit number and maybe a comment.

And in the process of understanding this about myself I realized how amazingly narcassitic is to be insecure. One is always thinking about oneself. I began to wonder if I could solely blame my own upbringing and began to wonder if a bit wasn't the culture in which we live. We live in a world where happiness is the goal. Where the end result is to love your self. To feel about good about YOU. Our care of the body books are "YOU On A Diet." Our self help books are all about helping us to become better at being us.

Over the last few weeks as I struggled with my full time staying at home role, I realized that much of my problem wasn't so much that I hated this role but rather that I felt like I wasn't doing enough for myself. But when I sat down and thought about it, it wasn't as a big deal as I had thought. What does it mean to sacrifice yourself for your family? To lose yourself in your children? Is this as bad as a thing as I had been taught? What if by doing these things I was actually becoming more confident? A better human? What if what is important is not about me but about giving out to others? Learning to let go of expectations of myself? What if it wasn't about a constant care of me? What if in the process of caring for others I was caring for me? And what if in that process I ceased to give a shit about me anyway? Was it really all that bad of a thing?

Let me try to clarify. I am not suggesting that I have become a door mat to my family. Rest assured I am not June Cleaver. I still like to take time for myself to read, say the rosary (my form of meditation), write, talk to H about Delezue and Spanish Cinema. But I have stopped fretting about "ME". I have stopped worrying about loving myself. Stopped worrying about accepting my body. Stopped giving a shit about feeling good and making me feel better about me. Instead I am focusing on giving out love. Giving out my writing. Giving out my words. I am making each act of putting forth a conscious movement towards others. I am remodeling my life to make myself a better human not because it will make feel good but rather because it might improve things around me. And mostly I have stopped keeping taps about what I get back from these actions. I am learning slowly through the readings of people like Dorothy Day that the best way to live the example of Christ is to put out love not with any kind of hope of reward. Rather we put forth love because that is what it means to be the best possible human.

A Good Life

2011-11-08T10:49:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was one of those days when life seemed clear. I don't have those days often but yesterday as I walked through the woods in the sharp relief of a balmy autumn day I felt like the answers I sought were just kind of there. I don't think that they came without any conflict but they were there waiting for me to lay hold of them and ponder.

I realized that my boat is only spinning because of me. I am paddling frantically with no sense of why. At this point, I am already somewhere. There is no place to go. I am the mother of these wonderful delightful beasties, and despite what I had imagined for my future, they are my present. And really what a joyful present! The future I am so worried about is unknown but right here I have a very material now.

Yesterday I realized that yes my kids will grow up and I will of course have to do something. But who says I can't go back to school then (if not sooner if this is what I desire?). I can write. I can read. There is so much I can do. I don't have to do all those things now. I don't have to become famous. I don't have to publish. I dont' have to live up to expectations that I'm not even sure are mine.

And perhaps that was the biggest revelation. I am not disappointed in my life. I am not unsatisfied with my life. No it is not the life I planned out when I was 25. That life? I am not sure if it was my idea or others' ideas. My insecurities make it easy for me to take other people's expectations as my own. My hatred of disappointing others lead me onto paths that I didn't really clear. I walked in the footsteps of people I wanted to love me and to admire me. It was easy to slip into their dreams for me without ever pausing to consider if this was the path I wished to follow. Now I've spent so many years struggling as my life went a way that they had not predicted or planned. I struggled with juggling their desires with my own. My discontentment came not from my own sense of discontent but from this idea that somehow I was supposed to be MORE.

But how much MORE can I be? As a mother? As a wife? As a woman? As a new formed Christian type? As a writer? I can be more in these areas but I can not be more outside of them. These are the road signs to where I am NOW. I do not regret H or my children. Once they were here it was like they were always present. I can not quite imagine a life without them. They have changed my path and made me a different, better person. I am the Ginger today not because of their expectations but because they are my life no matter what I do or don't do. And herein lies joy.

Being Present and the Art of Scheduling

2011-11-07T18:14:00.000-05:00

The title may throw you as these two things are rarely seen as complimentary. I spent most of my life that being meant throwing out the day planner. In order to be truly present it seemed a given that you couldn't organize your life. Wonder if you missed being in those moments written on a dotted line. But my life without my day planner was always a bit of a disaster. I'm not so good without plans, and things dont' get done unless I write them down. I hated this aspect of myself. I wanted to be free. I wanted to be cut away from the chain of my day planner.

With the addition of children, I found myself ever more swinging wildly between these two extremes. Because we homeschool we have both a little more freedom than schoolers and an absolute need to make sure we plan. But planning sucks and doesn't allow us to be in the moment! So I'd throw planning aside and we did nothing. NOTHING. Maybe one day we'd have an adventure but the rest of the week we sat around and ended up bored. This spurs me to create a schedule which would be so super anal that there was no room for surprises and let's face it, life with the beasties is often filled with surprises. After a few days of everything getting off schedule, I'd just stop doing anything, and we'd back to where we were before. But bitter because there was always lots of fighting with the super anal schedule.

The dilemma is that it is clear to me that the beasties and I benefit from knowing about what's expected from us each day. And a simple check list is not going to cut it. We need a schedule, an order laid in front of us. But because we are crazy wild free spirit types we need it to be flexible. How do you create something that orders but provides room for disorder? I pondered this last night as I sat down to map out our week.

First, I needed to be organized. The beasties do better if their work is laid out already in their folders. Camille likes this because she can work ahead if she wants. Piper does much better if she has her craft stuff in one place. She's more creative when everything is at her fingertips. Umberto needs the discipline of knowing exactly what he needs to finish each day. Having their work means less frantic mornings for me.

Second, I needed to make sure we had time to get out everyday. Even if it's just for a quick walk it's important that we are outside of our house. But I want this time to be flexible. Like if someone calls out of the blue or if we're having such a good time we don't want to leave. I choose a three hour block in the middle of the day. If we don't use all the time, it opens up that time for the kids to play or game or read. And this involved more than just a notation on the paper. It involved a mental shift. I had to stop looking at my schedule as the way things were going to be and more of a way the things could be. It was important that I reminded myself of this the whole time I mapped our days out.

Today it was tested. We had agreed, happily, to meet with some friends at the Nature Center. I was thinking one, they decided on two which was FINE because my map had a three hour block carved out of it. I was determined to not rush through our morning work figuring that we would simply do what we could. We had to get out because it was too beautiful to not go out. And was I glad that I had made this mental shift because today was one of those amazing, magical days.

We walked a pretty decent but short hike to a pond where the kids spent nearly an hour climbing logs to get to these islands close to the shore. They had so much fun relishing the danger of crawling across logs over the cold water. Piper was scared at first but with the encouragement of the other kids she ended up crawling out to splash on the little island. Camille, Umberto and their friend, A, took an more dangerous route to another small island. On the way back, Camille fell off the log and into the pond but managed to hold onto the log. She was terrified but we all talked her back on the log (she can swim don't worry and it wasn't that deep). Again the pride of doing something on her own! Her face was shining when she returned. The kids ran around and explore an old brick works. They climbed and slid down embankments. They were filthy and glowing by the time we got back to the van. Even Umberto who had not wanted to come was laughing and covered in dirt.

As we walked back, I look over my shoulder to watch Camille walking with her friend. This was important. This was learning. This was why we homeschooled. These adventures. These moments of friendship. And they don't happen when I loose that balance between schedule and being. The schedule tells us to get out there and do something. It makes us do things at home, making those moments out even sweeter.

Suffering

2011-11-06T21:52:00.001-05:00

Sorrow is a hard thing to reconcile within the confines of religion. Of course I found no answers for it within the bounds of atheism or agnosticism either. Last week in the midst of pain, I found myself sitting in the van sobbing, and angry. Angry at some unnameable force that had taken something precious from me. In the midst of that pain so deep that it ripped through me I wondered what kind of trickster world we lived in. I remembered the stories of Tricksters from Native American stories but in the end the Trickster always got his comeuppance. In my closed world of pain no one else was tricked. Just me.

And as I suffered, I felt a bit ashamed at my self-pity as behind little hands reached from the backseat to enclose me with love. Here I had been blessed with four little beasties so wonderful and nearly perfect. How could I blame anything for my suffering? How could I be angry when there is so much suffering in the world?

This came back to me this weekend as I saw another re post of a sign juxtaposing a picture of OWS protesters with that of starving African children. The caption chastises us by suggesting that we who are the 99% in this country are the 1% in others (a notion that has been disapproven by the way). This post infuriates me because the hidden message is that we should shut up and let our country continue on it's human destructive path of Capitalism because we have it better than other people in the world. I kept responding by pointing that silence is never acceptable no matter how small the abuse when seen in comparison to other abuses. Is it okay for us to silently not allow gay couples the same right as heterosexual couples because hey they have it better than gays in some African countries? Of course not. Just as remaining silent about the abuses of the rich in our country is not acceptable. And I also pointed that we are interconnected and the 1% that abuses power here do the same in these other countries.

As I thought about these things, I allowed myself my own small pain. No it is not big in the scheme of things but for this moment in my life it is a dark hole. And it is alright that I mourn. But it is not okay for me to lash out against those who love me and that includes God, the universe, Christ, the Buddha, whoever. There is suffering everywhere. Suffering greater than my own. I do not know why the suffering is there. Perhaps this a Mystery. Or perhaps the atheist is right and the world just destroys. It just happens without any reason or meaning. I do not know. In the face of suffering I am humbled but not immobilized and that includes my own small pains.

Where to?

2011-11-05T11:34:00.000-04:00

Lately, my rowboat has been doing that spinning thing that happens in a boat when you don't know how to row. It's a surprisingly gentle motion, a kind of slow aimless spinning and I freely admit to not doing much to stop the spinning. It is also not the kind of gentle drifting that happens when you purposefully put the oars up and rest back to enjoy a bit of afternoon sun on the lake. I am somewhere, then, between contentment and crisis.

At almost 40, I am feeling a deep joy in my life as is but also a feeling that I have to be doing something....more? This may not be the right word. It's more that I feel like I need to do something that is going to bring money into my home. A feeling that someday my beasties will be grown and I will be home, idle. I certainly can not imagine spending my older years being a housewife. I am not a housewife now. I am a mother who is educating her beasties into hopefully radical beings. But this will not forever. And that is where the aimless rowing comes into play.

What next? My carefully laid plans for a Ph.D failed to materialize from dream into reality. I am not ever going to be a writer because while I have grands plans, I don't really write. And let's be realistic even if I did manage to discipline myself into writing there is only a small chance I could sell what I write. I am feeling ever more unsure of the Ph.D. But I don't know what I'd do with myself if I didn't do the academy.

A recent mini crisis has thrown this all into the light. For awhile I was satisfied with just kind of spinning around, looking at the various option through the prism of motion. But now something has happened that has brought the spinning to stop and put the oar in my hand.

Pushing Forward

2011-11-04T09:34:00.000-04:00

The loss wasn't something she could quite put a finger on. It was simply an absence of potential. An phantasmal moment gone now in the rush of blood. This future ghost had not stayed long, and she felt that perhaps she was over reacting, being melodramatic. The loss of the future of something that could not be named was a hard to rationalize. So every time she cried, or felt sad, she also felt as if she was indulging something selfish inside her self.

Still each morning, getting up was like unraveling herself from beneath many blankets. She had to push through layers of sadness, ennui, and anxiety. The day laid out before without that invisible potential that came with a very visible sign of end. She would sit at the edge of her bed, and long to just curl back up inside the warm nest and sleep until there was no feeling. Instead she pushed forth, drawing on a tiny bit of strength that remained.

Putting ghosts to sleep is not an easy step, she would remind herself. Ghosts do not sleep in the glare of morning sunshine. The only fade to the corners in a shimmering cover of light.

Year of Pleasures 28

2011-11-04T09:26:00.000-04:00

The sweet aftermath of a holiday. I love celebrating. The holidays with young children have taken on even more flavor than they did when I was a college student organizing grand parties. With children, the lead up to the holidays are days filled with anticipation, and a barely repressed quivering of joy. Everyday, they ask how many more days. They feverishly plan. And then the day arrives, and all the joy comes to a breaking point. If you're lucky you avoid celebration meltdown...
or not...

But really the best part for me is the day after...the sweet joy of just collapsing basking in the glow that remains.

A Post a Day

2011-11-04T09:13:00.000-04:00

As usual November crept upon me unaware, and I missed the first day of NaBloPoMo again. I am in a funk and finding it hard to write but meeting this commitment is always good for me. The discpline of making myself write everyday is a good one. Today I have a few posts to catch up (two after this one) and then I can sally forth.

I wish I had a theme but I don't...and because of where I am it is hard to just drum up. It is hard to just wake up when I am in this space. Maybe my November theme can be writing to exorcise these demons. Maybe not. Maybe it should be ways to find the beauty within these dark spaces. Or maybe it will just be all of the above.

Putting Forth

2011-11-03T10:34:00.003-04:00

When I announced to the general public that I was pregnant with Umberto, one of my favorite professors said "You've been longing for a family so I'm happy for you." At the time, I was a bit insulted. Not sure if this professor whom I admired was insulting me or complimenting me, I felt as if she was accusing me of wanting a child for my own selfish need to be loved. But like most phrases that carry those rather ambiguous messages, they followed me through not just this birth but the birth of three other children. Was I trying to recreate a family that I had not had in my young life? Was I birthing people to give me love that I felt I had somehow missed out on? And if so was this a valid reason to have children? To create this large family?

But the funny thing about love is that it is hard to receive it if you don't put it out. I came to my marriage wounded and not quite whole. I wasn't confident that I deserved love or attraction or even decent treatment. Deep inside I believed was a rather sordid unlikable person who was ultimately unlovable. When H seemed to be in loved with me, it took me a long to get over feeling a bit skeptical. I was never quite sure he really loved me and because of this was a black hole of need that kept sucking more and more from him and from others around me.

I wish I could have that I could give you a dramatic moment that instantly changed me but that did not happen. Instead learning to let go of that monster deep inside me has taken work (and really I am still slaying it). But I can write that from the beginning it was clear that I was going to have to give of myself in ways that I had no foreseen. This tiny creature depended on me for everything, and the love that was returned was not an active love. I gave him, and this each of his sisters, all that I had. I carried them inside me and learned to take better care of my body for them. I nourished them with my breasts. I held them against my heart as I went about the hundreds of daily details to provide them a safe home. I failed and learned to forgive myself as they forgave me. I learned the lesson of unconditional love not just from giving to them but from watching them love me even when I yelled at them. In other words, I slowly became a better person.

And along the way I realized it wasn't so much about being loved. I'm not going to lie and say that this isn't a pleasant thing. It is a most wonderful thing. The love I feel from the beasties and from H is heaven. This love builds me up when I am sad or lonely. While this love has cut away at the beast inside, what has delivered the killing blows is the love that I give. Along the way what has become important is not getting love but GIVING love.What kills the insecurities, what forces me to be a better human, is my ability to put love forth even in the darkest moments. To love the beasties when they are being, well, beastly, is how I have learned to open myself up to love. In the end, all we can be sure of is our own actions, and that when we put love forth into the world, we let go of self. With each act of love, with each ass wiped, with each mouth feed, with each scrape washed away, with every moment that I give myself into that act of love even when I do not feel it I am filling that hole inside of my heart.

Chicken Farm

2011-10-31T00:24:00.000-04:00

The summer was winding down as it drifted into August. The last of the hot days were upon us. She was staying with her grandmother after a visit with her father. This had not been part of the plan but here she was in the two story white farm house with her grandmother, her step grandfather, her uncle who was younger than her, and two older uncles plus their friend. She suspected it had to do with her accidental running over of her stepsister. Her stepmother refused to believe it was an accident but it was. She was ten and wasn't going around hurting four year old kids. But it was okay because the "farm" was fun.

She woke each day to hear her grandmother leaving for work. When she went downstairs she could help herself to sugar cereals that she never got at home with her mom. After breakfast, she and her younger uncle would begin a day of exploring. They were not allowed into the chicken barns that bordered the property letting off a foul smell that one didn't quite ever get used to. There was a good climbing tree near the barns so they would climb up high and try to peer into the slit like windows.They couldn't see anything though so they just speculated about what might be happening inside.

Often her uncle got bored and would go inside to watch t.v. Sometimes she'd follow him but mostly she stayed outside. She liked to take a book, and go hang out in Toby's, the Doberman Pincher, dog house. Everyone said he was mean but he wasn't mean to her. She'd crawl in and he'd follow her,laying his head on her lap while she read her book. She read until lunch time and then go inside to eat bologna sandwiches with chips. The older uncles would sit with them and tease her. She liked this time. They laughed at the things she said but not in a mean way.

One day after lunch, her younger uncle didn't want to go outside. She wandered over by the chicken farm to stare at a distance. Sometimes you could see the men going into the barn to feed the chickens. They'd open the doors and the roaring of hundreds of chickens "BOK, BOK" would roll out the door and over you. Today the door was open, and she couldn't see anyone. This was new occurrence. She snuck closer and closer, pulling her foot in the dirt to slow her walk as if this would make her somehow invisible. Finally she was at the door. She intended to only peep in but once there she could see much. The rank smell was overpowering and she gagged a bit as she tried to let her eyes adjust to the dark. She slided inside wanting to see beyond the shadow of cages.

Once in the gloom settled into the hard outlines of steel bars. Bits of light from the fans sent whirling bits of light over the imprisoned chickens. They were huge, and nearly motionless. They didn't even look at her as she peered at them. Some of them had sores that were open and oozing pus. In one cage, a chicken lay dead, occasionally pecked at by it's fellow inmates. There were no pleading looks. Just the a slight motion of each head pecking out to give a pellet of food in the tray before them. Worst the chickens were everywhere. They were piled high in monstrous proportions. She felt like she need to throw up and began to ran. She ran past the man who yelled "Hey" at her. She ran past the good climbing tree. She ran until she was panting and crying stopping at Toby's area. He was chained to the tree, and turned to look at her, his stumpy tail wagging. She crawled into his house and curled up into a ball. He lay beside her. She was not sure why she was crying. She knew it wasn't just about the chickens but she was too young and too ignorant to know what other meanings lie in the strip of sunlight gleaming over steel bars.

Far Away So Close

2011-10-25T23:23:00.000-04:00

This morning she woke and a few seconds later heard the sounds of her son thrashing against the floor. It puzzled her how she always managed to wake right before a seizure. She hurried from the bed and ran to his room down the hall. He was curled up on the carpet, his arms against his chest, his hands bent down. His knees were curled into a fetal position as his body jerked. His breathing came in rapid gasp "Huhhuhhuh." His eyes stared at her but not at her.

She pushed away all the Legos and books so that he would not hurt his body against them. All the while speaking to him even though she knew he couldn't hear her. When the tremors eased a bit, she gathered him into her arms, feeling the last remaining jerks vibrate against her body. His body was heavy and too big for her lap but she held him close. He was her first person, and she loved with the passion that came from him indicating her into motherhood. She had been cradling his body for a long time now.

Now that he was older, he didn't want to hug her as much. She knew it was normal and it didn't hurt her as she had imagined it would. She enjoyed watching him become a man, and his sweetness and openness made up for his pushing away physically. And now that he had seizures, she was once again holding him but sometimes it didn't feel like him she was holding. He started out with those eyes but they did not see her. They were looking out into a world where she could not go, and he could not bring her. He could not even tell a story about that world.

Slowly his limbs began to still, and his eyes began to lose the far away look. He was slowly returning to her. At these times, he drew himself to her body and she held him. For a brief minute, he was once again a baby who needed to be held and soothed. And then he was groggily getting back to his bed and falling to the heavy sleep that followed each episode. Gone to her once again into a world that only he knew.

(No Umberto is not having seizures again).

Super Special Brooms

2011-10-24T23:33:00.000-04:00

I am struggling with keeping the house in good order. I thought that the lack of a job would free up time, and it has. What is has not done is create within my bosom a deep love of cleaning or even a desire to keep things in order. There are a hundred other things to occupy my mind rather than dishes...like counting grass blades or staring at clouds. Really anything is preferable to me than cleaning the house. I love cooking, rearing and schooling the beasties but I just hate cleaning. As much as the idea of a housekeeper makes me uncomfortable, if I had the money, I'd indulge but honestly I don't know what housekeeper would take us on.

And the simple reality is that we can't afford for someone to come and muck us once a month much less once a week (which is really what we'd need). So I clean because if I don't stay on top of it things become bad. Quickly. Things get lost. And gross. And at some point, it just makes my skin crawl off my bones. Then I clean. I spend all week in a frenzy of domestic goddess energy until the house looks as close to as Martha Stewart as I'm ever going to get (not very close for the record). For a week, I'll keep up with it, and then I'll grow tired and it will return to the usual state of filth we call home. The beasties of course rejoice during these weeks because I'm so busy cleaning, I don't have time to nag them about math work. Instead they get to read whatever they want whenever they want. They're not so thrilled that I make them help but they seem to think it's worth the sacrifice to not do math work. Me? I'd prefer Math work, and those who know me know how I feel about Math.

The other day as I was scrubbing the awful white tile floor in the kitchen (I mean who DOES white tile in a kitchen? Seriously?), I started to think that my life would be better if I had a super special broom like my friends had. I am not joking. This what I thought "I remember so and so writing about a SUPER SPECIAL BROOM that sweeps and mops!" All I could think about was the SUPER SPECIAL BROOM. The only problem was that I couldn't remember the name. I did remember that they cost a small fortune but I decided it would be worth it if it made cleaning easier. All day long I thought about SUPER SPECIAL BROOM. It grew to be an epic tool of the domestic Goddess. Thor has his hammer, Domestic Goddess has SUPER SPECIAL BROOM. I imagined myself whizzing around sweeping and mopping at.the.same.time! I even dreamed about the damn broom. But I couldn't remember the real name. And i knew there was no way I was going to spend 60 on it because I'm a cheap bitch. But for awhile the thought of that broom brightened my domestic fog.

And then I was scared. Had I really become a person who LUSTS over brooms? Even super special brooms? How frightening. How not me. I used to lust over 600 shoes and now I was drooling and day dreaming about a broom that sweeps and mops. I actually felt a little sad the next day. I am not sure what to make of this housewife stuff. I love being with the beasties but I hate keeping our home the way it needs to be for us to function. I sometimes resent that I can't just sit down and read. I hate that sometimes I have to stop right in an amazing writing insight to go make lunch, dinner, or a snack. But then I imagine a life where I didn't have the responsibilities and that life is even sadder. The messy house, the endless meals, the constant cutting of applies into little slices is a sign of love. A sign that I am completed by the beasties and by H. This life may come with some drudergy but it also comes with a hell of a lot of magic. Like SUPER SPECIAL BROOMS!

Welcomed and Accepted

2011-10-24T00:35:00.001-04:00

"A conversion is a lonely experience. We do not know what is going on in the depths of the heart and soul of another. We scarcely know ourselves." Dorothy Day

When I stumbled upon this quote, I brushed it aside as not likely being much use to me.Later, I thought that perhaps I could use it as another point where I differed from Day. But as I began to flesh out this blog, the quote came back to me. Day titled her autobiography "The Long Loneliness" which seemed a bit odd to me because after reading her journal and letters, I saw that her life was filled with people. However as I reflected on both the title and the quote, I realize that to a large extent she was spot on, and that her loneliness came from a lack of connection to God, and I suspect also from a separation with the Church.

Conversion is always filled with people of course. Having spent some time studying conversion and deconversion, I know at an intellectual level that these experiences always involve other humans. We are never truly isolated nor do we come to the places without some human suggestion. But now that I am undergoing my own conversion experience there is an element of loneliness to this process. The loneliness that comes from being outside of community, outside of God even in the midst of those prayers and wrestling.

For 12 years, I have waffled on converting formally to the Catholic Church. There were, and are, many arguments against such a conversion. I fought the pull of God in that direction. There is/was so much that I disagree with the Church on in terms of formal doctrine. But for every objection I meet people on my path who helped me to wrestle with these objections. I found books to read that showed me that there was room for someone like me. But in the end, it was me and...well, God. And that was hard. And lonely. No one could be in that space for me. I had to be there alone with my doubts, my fears, my anger. Because frankly I was pretty pissed off at God/Jesus. For along time, I spoke only with Mary because that I could handle. When I prayed the rosary I didn't feel the anger or resentment from my past.

When I decided to finally convert, the loneliness began to ease a bit. I found a wonderful church in the UGA Catholic Center. Both Father Tom and Father David are good guides and compassionate leaders. Sister Marie who runs my RCIA group is wonderful. She is knowledgable, strong, and always there for a conversation. My RCIA group itself is the right fit. The conversation is interesting, stimulating, and agreeable even we don't agree. I believe that we nurture each other even as we challenge each other. And in this place, I have found someone who I think will become a very close and good friend. In other words, I have come home. I feel safe with myself in this place. Safe that I will not be thrown out or pushed away.

And tonight I took the formal step out of my own long loneliness. I felt privileged that unlike Day I was able to participate in a formal ceremony of welcoming: Rite of Acceptance. We meet down in the recreation/meeting area where our sponsors would be instructed, and a few of us laughingly admitted how nervous we were. We were lined up with our sponsors and lead to the chapel. It was odd to march with the possession and to feel everyone giving us these questioning looks. But once the rite began it was a simple powerful moment. We announced in loud voices as one our intentions to join with this community. As we were blessed with the sign of the cross first by Father Tom and then over our ears, eyes, mouth, shoulders, hands, and feet by our sponsors, I could feel something loosening up inside me. Some area of my soul that I kept hidden way, afraid to look at began to push forward into the light. We were each give a wooden cross, and one of the women who helps with RCIA was beaming at us. I was mostly trying to hold it together.

Finally, we came to the Eucharist. I had never seen it so close (we were in the front pews directly in front of the altar). As I watched Father Tom prepare this feast of remembrance, I found myself slowly allowing my soul to open up and to embrace that mystery. And as Father Tom held the wafer over the wine cup, all I could see was the cross behind him, reflecting on the wafer. After the blessing, as I knelt on the hard floor I prayed "Jesus here I am. I am angry, bitter, and wounded. I don't know how much I can offer you but I am opening myself up to you. Again. I am here because your gospel commanded us to love each other as we love you. I don't know if I can fully embrace all that your Church offers but I can embrace you." At this point, I just started to silently weep as I felt myself filled with something I had thought long gone. Something that often scared me. I did not turn away but instead stepped into the light with my community behind me.

Ninja Girl

2011-10-22T01:01:00.001-04:00

As I drag out our green bin filled with Halloween decorations and costumes from previous years, the kids descend upon me.They've been asking for weeks to decorate but I am insistent that we will not start until October 1st. During our evening walks, we pass many houses decked out and the kids are bitterly disappointed at my stringent stance against early celebration. But the first is here, and the kids are overjoyed as they pull out our rather pitiful supply of orange lights and skull candles. Every year, I think "I'll buy stuff on clearance so we'll have more." Or better yet "This year we'll CRAFT decorations." None of these things ever happen but the beasties are thrilled with what little the bin offers.

As we peel apart the window clings, Camille gives a shout of joy as she pulls out Umberto's ninja costume from last year. She immediately puts it on and begins to run around the house, leaping on the couch and back to the floor. We had assumed she would be a werewolf or a wolf and I had already done some research to find her a mask that wouldn't drive her crazy. But it's clear now as she strikes a pose that what she now longs to be is a Ninja. I admit that I am a little reluctant to encourage her wondering what the reaction will be at various places but I push that aside. It's early yet and the kids are apt to change their minds a few times. We'll cross the gender bridge if we get there.

Two weeks later, we're allowing the kids to pursue the Walmart Halloween aisle. Rowena is terrorizing us with a giant scythe that is at least two feet taller than she is. Umberto has a fake orange Tommy gun. And Camille has just run to us with a plastic katana. "This is perfect for my ninja costume." she tells us. And I know that the moment has come. I don't think that many parents realize that this gender costume stuff comes up for those of us with girls. The big show is always the ultra cool liberal parents who allow their boys to dress up as girl characters or princesses. But you know the parents of girls have these moments of gender bending as well. And I hesitate not because I am not ultra cool and liberal (hell yeah I am) but because I am a caring parent who worries what her sensitive child will do if someone comments. And I'm guessing that at some point someone will because we live in Georgia. We will be attending costume parties at some conservative places. People are going to wonder why she's not a princess or a fairy. And they might let their horror that she's in a boy costume show. But I also know that sometimes you have to let you child take that hit. Not unprepared for sure but you have to let them decided "Hell yeah girls can be ninjas." So we buy her the sword.

We spend the next couple of weeks watching people's eyebrows walk off their faces when they ask Camille what she's going to be for Halloween and she says proudly "A Ninja!" H thinks people are shocked because it's cultural offensive. I point out that in a place where people still think it's okay to say "Orientals" that it's likely that she's a girl and that she's not going to be a princess. I don't know what's going to happen when she shows up at Girl Scout's or to the Catholic Center's "Fall Festival" but I suspect that Camille will have no problem setting the record straight "Girls can be ninjas."

Muddy Hands

2011-10-19T15:44:00.001-04:00

Piper runs into the house and over to me. I have been cleaning all day. All week actually. The house has reached that pinnacle of disaster where I can no longer live with it. Today I have tided up the kitchen and dining room and started in our living room which looks less lived than as "OMG A BOMB HAS DROPPED." Piper is yelling joyfully as she skids to a stop in front of me, her hand opened. She is covered in mud. It's been raining out and during a brief reprieve the girls have gone out to play with our new puppy. Mud covers her pants and shirt. She has forgotten to take her shoes off so mud is trailed from the back door to the living room. She has her hand opened and all I can see it black mud.

I open my mouth and then I close it. I was about to scold her for coming into the house muddy. For dirtying up the pants I just washed. For trailing mud all through the house into the area I almost done cleaning. Instead I swallow this all back and look at what is in her hands. She shows me some sprouts she proudly dug up. "What are they, Mama?" she asks eagerly. Proud of her discovery. I admit I don't know and suggest we look it up once she takes off her shoes and has a bath. She smiles, pleased with my exclamations of wonderment, not noticing that they are fake.

I go to run the bath bashing myself a bit for not being real. But I am upset over the mud. I hate cleaning. It does not come naturally to me, and forcing myself to do this takes a lot of work. Thus when I do it, it's hard to deal with it being undone in a moment. I have tried to be Buddhist about it. Tried to think of it as a lesson in impermanence. But really it just makes me cranky. It makes me feel resentful to be taken away from more enjoyable activities like reading or writing.

By now Piper has stripped down. Camille has entered the house also covered in mud. Rowena is whining because she wants in the tub now! As I frantically direct three little bodies into tub, picking up strewn clothes as they rush back with plastic horses and dogs, I see the shoots. They are tender white, with tiny green tendrils poking through. They lay on the side of the sink with a bit of dirty water pooling beneath them. I am awed at their fragility. Their smallness. And suddenly I remember what it was like to discover these things. Those precious moments of wonderment. Looking at Piper, her eyes shining as she hops into the top, I say with feeling "Those are so NEAT!. Where did you find them?"

Piper laughs. "They are NEAT! And we were just digging!"

A Year With Dorothy Day

2011-10-18T14:38:00.001-04:00

As some of you know I am converting to Catholicism. The response to my conversion has been interesting, and not often kind. I find myself listening to very silly rumors about Catholics along with challenging dialogues about some serious problems within the church itself. I am not unaware that there is much within the Catholic Church that I not only disagree but I find to be repulsive and ignorant. I often feel like I don't belong or that I can't ever really belong. I struggle with this decision every day which is why it took me over a year to decide to begin the formal process. This Sunday I will participate in the Rite of Welcoming and I will baptised sometime next week by Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory.

This is not something I have often written about on my blog. I do not wish this blog to become a "religious" blog. However this is an important, complicated move in my life and to not write about it seems as if I am leaving out a chunk of my life. I've also avoided it because I'm a bit of a coward and I fear the hate. and I know there will be hate. It will come from my liberal friends who hate that I am joining a religious organization and it will come from my conservative Catholic friends because I am not a conservative Catholic. But I have decided to make the step to start publicly writing about my experience bring what it may.

I'm going to approach this in a bit of a different move though. I'm going to talk about my conversion through the relationship I have with the words and spirit of Dorothy Day. You see I feel like Dorothy is holding my hand as I make this journey because I think in some ways we come from the same space. No I am not a single mom whose partner left when I converted. Nor am I planning on being single during my lifetime. I am married with four children. But like Dorothy I lived a wild life, and came from an extremely liberal place. We both had to learn to fit our social concerns into the Church. Dorothy in doing so blew open the rigid pathways that the church followed in terms of charity and peace. While I doubt I can ever live up to her works, I can use her as an inspiration.

And this does not mean that Green Tea Ginger is becoming a religious blog. I'll still have my other writings as well. This will just be one aspect of my life.

Year of Pleasures 27

2011-10-12T01:16:00.000-04:00

New Friendships.

I had high hopes for making friends in Athens. It seemed like the perfect place to meet like-minded people. But after the first month I was feeling pretty discouraged. I hadn't meet anyone in the area I really connected with, and it seemed like the homeschooling folk were hiding out. It was a lonely month for all of us.

And then September happened. First, I meet up with "an internet" friend's group. I liked the other moms and Umberto was thrilled to meet a bunch of boys. They usually meet at a park that's a bit of a hike for us but totally worth it a couple of times per month. I finally screwed up my courage and "invited" a woman I meet a PE class to be Facebook friends. She's a very peaceful person and I find her really calming. She's easy to talk too and we share a common interest in religion (on a personal not academic level). Then I hooked up with an old friend from Charlotte and her son who is a bit older than Umberto but not by much. We had a great time talking academic religion. And finally I meet the family above at the UGA Catholic Center. The mom is interesting and fun, and great to talk too. We share a lot of parenting ideas so that's nice. She had THREE daughters much to Camille and Piper's delight.

We started October with a bang too and it looks like we found an excellent Girl Scout troop. Plus I'm making friends in my RCIA classes.

I feel so fortune to be building up a community. I"m hoping good things grow from these seeds.

Year of Pleasures 26

2011-09-23T23:38:00.000-04:00

The view from the kitchen sink:

H loves to work in our backyard. It's funny how much a back door can make a difference for back yard enjoyment. In our NoDa house, we never used the backyard. You had to go out the side door and then around the back. Plus once the kids were out there you couldn't really see what they were doing from the front area of the house. Now we have this back door and window so I can see everyone. H and R really seem to love just being outside. I'm looking forward to some cooler fall weather so that we can spend even more time out there.

And how wonderful to look up from such a menial task as dishes and see that scene. It makes my heart leap up in joy.

Body Bag

2011-09-21T00:39:00.000-04:00

I am not a morning person so in order to make it to my job on time I stay up all night. This is not as difficult as one might imagine. I am allowed to come in when I choose as long as I am done by noon. The public buses start at six so I can be to work at 6:30. I sometimes sleep a little with my sweat shirt wadded up into a pillow. I don't dare lean my head against the glass. Mostly, I stare out the window watching the city slip by me crumbing apartment building after crumbling apartment building. Sometimes I will see a person hurrying to their car but mostly it's deserted. No one on the Earth but the bus driver, a few passengers and me.

This time of morning finds us all quiet. There is a young black guy who is plugged into his Ipod but he does not move his head or sing. He sits totally still staring down at his legs. In the far back, a woman, who appears homeless, stretches out. Her snores echo against the steel roof. The three of us pretend that the others do not exist. The bus driver is surly and drives too fast over the shitty road, sending us sprawling every time he hits a pot hole.

We come to a stop where we are required to wait. No one ever gets on but each morning we stop. Today there is a flurry of activity surrounding an abandoned building on my side of the bus. Dozens of police cars, their lights whirling without sound, surround a partially boarded up door. I can see the blue of their lights reflect on my hands in the quickening dawn. From the door way, a man ducks down with a stretcher. He is followed by another man who performs the same manuver. On the stretcher is a black body bag. A man with gloves hurries over to unzip the bag. I am glad that I am too far away to see. A white van pulls up and several people disembark with tool boxes in their hands.They scurry under the board. It is all silent.

"Must be that serial killer."

I turn to the voice. It is the young black guy who never talks. He's looking over across the aisle.

"Excuse me?"

"You haven't heard? Some white guy is going around killing hookers. That's a hooker hang out there." He jerks his head toward the building.

He puts his headphones back on as the bus lurches away.

Playing House

2011-09-18T01:21:00.000-04:00

They had only just meet. Not the brother and the sister but the rest of them.They were young and soiled. Damaged goods some might say. It begin with a simple car ride that they turned into a week long adventure. Pooling their money together, they rented a hotel suite for a week. The sagging two story structure formed a sad L on top of a hill. The white paint peeled in long layers exposing gray weathered wood. Weeds grew bravely in the patches of dirt outside the office. On the rickety balconies, drunks sat in plastic lawn chairs, paper bags at their side. Women with worn lipstick and sloppy bodies leaned over the railings, breasts almost falling out of tank tops, cigarette ashes falling to the ground.

Here they moved in with a few bags of clothes. They went shopping at the Shop N' Save down the road. They bought Ramen Noodles and potato chips. Cases of soda. They stole cartons of cigarettes and expensive, nice smelling body supplies. The brother's girlfriend lifted a fifth of Kahlua. They spent the evening sitting outside drinking milk and Kahlua and smoking. They ate dinner a card table.

As she lay in bed that night, she though that this playing house was a prediction of her future. A future spent in run down hovels with strange men pretending that she was creating home when what she was really doing was running away.

Under Kitchen Tables

2011-08-31T00:04:00.000-04:00

Crouched under the table, I am surrounded by the jean clad legs of my aunts and my mother. At the head of the table are my grandmother's legs. I stay close to hers because if I need to I can always lean against them. She will ruffle my hair and maybe even slip me the last drop of her coffee, sweet with cream. They are talking about people at our church. They say things like "I hate to gossip." And then they tell stories about flirtations, betrayals, scandals. I know many secrets, and sometimes I look at people on Sunday and think about what I know.

Mostly as I sit there, playing sometimes with Barbies or more likely with some paper and crayons, I imagine the day when I will join the ranks of these women. I like to think about me sitting there with my own cup of coffee. I will wear make up like my youngest aunt. And I will wear bright jewelry like my mom. I will toss my head like my middle aunt, and be bold as she is with my words and opinions. I want to sit with my grandmother like an adult and share confidences.

Today my grandmother pulls me to her lap, and I snuggle into her even though I am too old for such things. She smells like Oil of Olay and Mary Kay make up. She kisses me loudly and says "You are never old to be my baby." And the aunts laugh. But I think it's true, and am unsure if this is something to mourn.

Almost 40

2011-08-20T09:36:00.000-04:00

Another birthday blog. They keep adding up. I'd like to say this birthday snuck up on me as I sat innocently at the computer but when you have beasties, you never forget your birthday is coming. It started a week ago with "Mama your birthday is when?" and went on like that for seven days. And as soon I stumbled my sleep deprived myself into the living room, H had made a beautiful card that sat waiting for me....in front of the computer. So no sneaking here. Just a big slap to the face. 39. Wow. People I'm almost 40! But that's okay because I've decided I'm going to live to 100. So I have another sixty one years left.

What has stayed the same? I'm still married to H. Almost 12 years now. Still insane about him. The beasties are still wrecking the most beautiful kind of chaos onto my life.

And that sameness has taken on even more import this year when so much has changed. From not getting accepted into a Ph.D program to moving to another state, my life is a bit upside down at the moment. We moved to Athens a few weeks ago so that H could begin his Ph.D program. Right now I am not working (well I mean I'm working my ass off...four children people!). I love Athens but I am scared of my future. I wish that there was some kind of neon sign flashing a big arrow towards my life career but alas that has not happened.Instead I spend a great deal of time worrying about what I should do. Should I become a nurse and then a midwife ensuring myself a job? I think I would like it but I know already that I would not love it as I do the academic stuff. But am I up for studying my ass for the GRE? Putting all my hopes into one school because there is ONE school I can apply to with H being here at UGA. I just don't know and I have to make a decision soon.

But yesterday I set those thoughts aside and enjoyed the richness that my life is. Surrounded by my family and good friends who are visiting from Charlotte, I talked about religion and music. I enjoyed gifts from far away (chocolate and yarn). For a moment I let my future remain in that hazy path ahead.

A Day in the Life...Moving

2011-08-14T00:43:00.000-04:00

I ate breakfast surrounded by boxes and odds and ends. Strangely we left the table cloth on until the very end. Not sure why....I suspect one could make a psychological explanation.

The two little girls woke up early with H and I. And this is our final picture of "the chair." Yes it was hard to not shed a little tear when we left it at the dumpster. This chair was given to us right before I had Camille. I nursed three babies in that chair and H spent many an afternoon napping with a wee baby in his arms. But alas it was time to say good-bye. The thing was a safety hazard at this point.

And the two older kids slept in as usual...we had moved the mattresses to our room for the final night.

The first arrivals. This is the early team of helpers.

The evil homeschooling shelves.These suckers were heavy...

We kept telling him he had to be careful with his back!

In the beginning was the biggest U-Haul van ever. Everyone gave me shit because it was a monster...but wait until you see the after picture.

Pondering where things should go...note the woman behind them just doing...Go Buddha Janna Go.

The Xbox was the very last thing to leave. I still think we should have worked them into a fine exhaustion.

The woman work while the men play Words with Friends upstairs. And do note how fill the van is...not everything was in at that point. Ginger for the win with world's biggest U-Haul truck.

Lunch on our bar...almost done!

Everything is out...my mom vacuumed for us...it was starting to get pretty real.

The evil trailer...more on that later. But yeah we hauled the Accord behind the truck.

I think Jason and H were feeling pretty manly about mastering the tow.

My mom and Umberto. We were both getting teary eyed at this point. And then we were off driving into an ending thunder storm. We had initially planned to spend the night in Charlotte but our landlord wanted to meet in the morning so we figured it would be best to spend the night in Athens. It took us forever to just leave Charlotte. We stopped to get coffee, and then had to drop a movie off at Blockbuster. This wouldn't have been a big deal except that H had to back up the U-haul in order to get into the parking area by Blockbuster. He spent about a half hour getting the car back on the tow harness. Then we had to get gas...we finally left Charlotte around five. But we couldn't go faster than 55 because of the tow. Nor could Horacio back up. This made everything from getting gas to eating a royal pain the ass. At one gas station, the truck was too big to get into the gas line but we couldn't move because H had to drive through this area that was filled with cars and bikers. I think we sat there for about 15 minutes. We didn't get to Athens until 10 and then H almost got stuck under a railroad bridge. Thankfully he was smart enough to stop. The police came along and helped him get the car off the trailer and then the trailer off the U-Haul which he had to back up.And then they gave us an escort to the hotel.. It was utterly exhausting...but we made it, and the next day we unload everything into our new home.

We're in love but we still need furniture. Once we have everything I'll post some pictures of our new home.

Box by Box--Day Two

2011-07-04T01:34:00.000-04:00

Camille freaked out a bit by the emptiness of the shelves and the growing pile of boxes. "It makes me nervous." she said. I knew it would and have struggled to come up with a may to make it easier on her. Of all the kids, I worry the most about the move's effect on Camille. She is so sensitive to change. The promise of a dog eases some of her worries but I don't think anything will completely evaluate them, and now she has to deal with constant reminders that we are indeed picking up and moving away.

And it is a bit disconcerting to see our book shelves empty. H swears he can already hear the echo of empty space.There are piles of things that need to be taken to recycling or the used book store. There are clothes that need to be dropped off at Goodwill. And there are now boxes of the things we love that will make the journey with us to our new home.

As I sorted through books the other day, I remember how long ago I blogged about how our book shelves speak to people. Not just the books we have but how they are presented. As I put books into the "not coming with us pile," I found myself thinking that this act was even more indicative of the face I wish to present to the world. I realized that one reason it was hard to let go of the religious studies book was that I am not quite ready to let go of that identity. These books tell people who come into my home something about myself and my past. I am not ready to fill those spaces with anything new.

Tomorrow we go to my mom's for grilling, but I hope to go through clothes. I wonder if this act will be quite as poignant as going through books.

Box By Box--Day One

2011-06-28T14:00:00.000-04:00

I had planned to start packing on Monday. We are moving in 33 days, and we have lots of stuff. My goal is to purge about a quarter of what we own. But I am feeling over-whelmed and scared about the future so it is easy for me to find other things to do. The actual act of packing makes those feelings sharper. So yesterday I went to the pool, and napped and read mysteries. Those things did not keep my insecurity from rearing its head but it did prevent me from doing anything productive.

A conversation about writing with my mom and H helped me to push past my feelings of failure in that area (Why oh why does no one read my blog? And that does mean I am a craptastic writer?) We talked about what my goals are for writing and how my expectations might not be realistic (what a shocker, right?) But I also got very excited about a mystery series I'd like to write, and I think I got them excited too. So the day wasn't a total loss.

But today I determined to start going through our books. I had sworn to be merciless because let's face it, moving boxes of books in July is going to suck. I started with the homeschooling/kids books and managed to go through all of H's school stuff at the same time. I weeded through those books quickly, and ended up with three piles: recycling, used book store, and keepers. As I was doing this, H decided to go through his Spanish language books, and it hit me that I needed to go through my religious studies books. A pang hits, and I consider just putting it off.

My first impulse is to throw them all out but I suspect that is a petty impulse that I will regret. However another part of my brain says "Why are you hauling all these books when you're not going to do this ever again?"

"I think I'll go through my religious studies books," I tell H. "I suppose I shouldn't just throw them all out."

H looks at me in surprise.

"Ummm...no you shouldn't throw them. You might use them again."

And I realize that there is still a bit of hope inside me that I will use them again. I am not ready to fully let go and say "I"m done." But there is no peace with this realization. Realistically there is very little chance that I will ever get a Ph.D. H has at least four years to get his Ph.D, and who knows where he will end up. I suppose I could apply to Emory but if I didn't get into a state university what are my chances of getting into an elite Ivy League university? Plus do I really want to drive a four hours a day to do school? But I am not ready to let go of something that I have been doing for a long time now. Something I thought I was pretty good at. And as I go through the books, it is only a small pile that I am giving away. The rest will come with me perhaps to only serve as reminders of what I am not doing.

Year of Pleasures 25

2011-06-23T15:07:00.000-04:00

Night swimming.

The days have finally been hot enough to heat up the nights, and once again we find ourselves suiting up at 8:30 to head to the pool. Night swimming is a sweet pleasure in the South when the days are seriously too hot to spend by the pool. The nights are prefect. Balmy with no sun beating down on you requiring constant vigilance and layers of sun screen. Instead we can swim with abandon with no worry. The pool's lights change our limbs into ghostly shadows beneath the water. We float and look up at a sky full of stars with purple edges heralding the last traces of sunset.

Last night as I held R pulling her through the water, her fat legs kicking out behind her, I happen to glance up and saw a shooting star. In that rich moment, hearing the laughter of my children and my husband, it took me a minute to think of a wish.

Year of Pleasures 24

2011-06-23T14:57:00.000-04:00

My mom.

Another great thing about summer is that we see my mom a lot more (she's a teacher). I'm relishing this time with her in particular because it won't be so easy once we move. But hanging with my mom is a big part of my life. When I need someone to whine and complain to, I always call her first. She's suffered through years of these calls, and seems to know when I just need to vent and when I need advice.

I have only lived really far away from my mom once in my life. And now we are moving pretty far away again (although not as far), and I'm feeling pretty sad that she will no longer be a quick drive away. Spur of the moment grillings, and visits to the pool, will be no more. We will of course see her often but it won't be so easy to call and say "Hey we're headed out to Barnes and Nobles, want to join us?" And I value those unplanned times when we just talk and laugh. Sometimes silent but comfortable.

Closer

2011-06-20T16:22:00.000-04:00

I lift you up onto my shoulders, and you wrap your tiny, fat fingers into my hair. As we move towards the not so towering trees, you squeal and wiggle. My ear is pressed against your chest, and when you go silent in wonderment at sunshine through the leaves of a branch, I can hear your heart. It occurs to me as I listen to that small, steady sound that I have not heard your heart beat since I was in labor, and they pushed the Doppler against my abdomen to check for safety. Already I feel closer to you, remember that this heart once beat inside my body. A tiny gesture of life each time I heard it. A reminder that you were there and a live. Inside me. Now you are out of that warm dark womb and out here in the big world. I feel helpless to protect you sometimes. Weak with the fear that something could stop that small rhythmic sound. I hold you closer with my ear pressed to that chest, and banish the fear with small, semi-formed prayers. I consciously move my thoughts to the celebration of life that you are. You are a joy bringer. A life saver. A series of moments captured in the flesh.

Not Going It Alone

2011-06-19T11:39:00.000-04:00

When I fell in love with him, there was no defining moment. There were a series of moments that came together to form a mosaic that I could touch upon when things got rough or seemed dark. There was of course that first moment when I saw him on the lawn. Illuminated by the porch light. And I suspect it was my loins more than my heart that reacted.

As we grow older, and our marriage takes on the kind of longevity that makes people's eyebrows go up in surprise, there are different moments that make me fall in love with him. It is the moments when I see him as a father because in those moments all that is good about him is there before me. His compassion and empathy. His sense of fun. His intense love and devotion to his family. These are the things that make my heart beat faster. That make me want to pull him to me. These are the moments that I pull out and savor.

This first moment came the day of Umberto's arrival in the world. I wish I could say it was that second after birth but I don't have much memory of that time. I was shell shocked. Too stunned to be aware of much. Instead, it was later while we were resting. I woke up and turned to look for my baby who was not in his nursery crib. No my baby boy was snuggled beside his father on the cot beside me. H was softly reading T.S. Eliot to him. And I thought that I could not survive this love. But I did. Only to have repeated three more times.

Seeing his hand on Camille's little head, eyes filled with tears. Him and I birthing Piper. His smile as he got to finally cut the cord on one of this babies. Our eyes meeting as they pulled R to my chest and knowing that we were going to make it. Really. Fill in those moments with thousands of images of play and care. Him in the pool playing "Water horse" with the beasties. Him talking us into walks around neighborhoods while we whine and cry and finally settle into enjoying this time with him. Him cradling Camille as her chin bleeds onto his tee-shirt. Him telling Umberto, "It's okay. Just wrap your arms around me and I'll be here the whole time." right before Umberto seizes. Him reading to kids or playing board games.

It is not that he has morphed into being just a father. It is rather that being a father has sharpened all the qualities that make him someone I love. I love him because he has allowed his children to make him a better person.

The Not Good Enough Parent

2011-06-18T11:32:00.000-04:00

A long time ago I once said to H "Why don't you read parenting books? You spend hours reading books for your papers and you do NO RESEARCH for raising your kids." He tried to explain to me that it wasn't the same thing and at the time I really just didn't get it. I felt angry and resentful that I seemed to be the only one doing any research but now years later I get it. About a year after I said this to H, I stopped reading parenting books myself. I can remember the exact moment where I stared to question the research I was doing. We were at the park for a homeschooling event. A friend and I were venting about our kids fighting all the time. Another woman shook her head at our failure to keep peace and said "My girls NEVER fight. I suggest you read....." For a second I wanted to slap this woman. Her children were kind of awful and frequently beat the hell out of other kids at the play dates. They might not fight with each other but they certainly vented their aggression out on everyone else. And really this was just a microcosm of every parenting discussion I had. Someone would make comment that their kids NEVER did whatever horrible thing my kids did and then the recommendation of a book.

Initially I read all the books. I couldn't bear the thought that I was going to screw up my kids so I read every damn book I could. In some ways this was pretty normal for me. I am an academic and academics are trained to read and research. I approached child raising the way I did an academic paper. But there were a few key differences between writing a paper and raising a human being. Like the fact that my kids were not some kind of generic sample from a parenting book. They were a unique combination of biology and culture with pretty distinct personalities. They didn't respond the way the books said they should. And unlike a paper I couldn't mess with my data to make things look different. So when I read "How To Talk So Your Kids Will Listen...", I felt utterly frustrated when Beastie Boy mastered the language and used it to manipulate the crap out of us.

The second problem had to do with how this reading made me feel. When I researched for an academic paper I usually felt pretty good about myself. The accumulation of knowledge to tackle a theoretical problem made me confident and prepared. I could go into the paper with a solid plan that 99% of the time panned out. And on the rare occasions when it didn't, I had an arsenal of other theories that would likely work. It seems like this is what parenting books would do for me as well. Well no. Parenting books basically just confirmed that I sucked and that I was a "NOT GOOD ENOUGH PARENT." I had a list of sins: I said no too much. I made too many decisions for my children. I praised them too much. I didn't praise them enough. I gave them too much freedom. I did time outs when I shouldn't do time outs. I didn't do time outs when I should. On and on. Every time I read a parenting book, I was more and more aware of what a shitty parent I really was. I was screwing up my kids for life. They were going to need years of therapy.

And hanging out with other parents just confirmed what the books were telling me. No matter what group I hung out with, they had read all the books and unlike me they had mastered the skills. For every problem I faced with my kids there was a long list of what I should be doing that would make things better. But it was clear from their sideways looks and condescending tones that I just sucked.

One day watching my kids play in great joy at the pool, I realized that it was all a load of bullshit. As my kids jumped in the pool again and again, laughing with joy, I thought "They are the happiest kids I know." And I realized that their joy was a reflection of the kind of life that we had given them. I also realized why H didn't read parenting books. There is no hand book for raising up tiny human beings. In some ways, we will never get it perfect and why should we? Our kids should watch us fumble. They should have parents who yell sometimes and then have to apology for being mean idiots. They should have parents who sometimes make decisions they don't like. They should be able to fight with their siblings and figure out ON THEIR OWN how to smooth things over because at the end of the day they are each other's best friends. My kids might not have parents who have mastered any set of parenting skills but my kids do have parents who not only love them but are crazy about them. They have parents who let them be kids. Who read to them. Who play with them. Who paint rocks with them. Who bring them to coffee shops and buy them books.

On that day I let go of the guilt. I stopped trying to justify my parenting choices to people. I made a decision to not except the guilt that other parents tried to place on me for decisions they did not make. I refused to read books that did the same thing. I refused to label the we parent. I cut myself free from all that baggage and stated to parent my children.

Year of Pleasures 23

2011-06-16T14:01:00.000-04:00

Family Movie Night.
Yes we have one. Take a few minutes to get over the shock. I know, it's such a suburbian family thing. And normally we just don't get behind that shit.
But...
Well Camille LOVES it. And it totally has our little twist in that movie night is never scheduled. It happens whenever we have a cool movie that we all want to watch. This means it could be three times a week or once every two weeks. And again Camille LOVES it. She writes stories about it. She tells random strangers about it:
Camille to Walmart clerk: We're going to have a family movie night. I love it. We sit as a family and watch a movie. Sometimes we have pizza."

I admit that I love them as well. We lay on the floor in the playroom (we don't have a t.v. in the living room). We always have an array of snacks. But mostly there is the pleasure in simply watching something wonderful together. Last night it was The Cat Returns. We all laughed and then imagined Strike on his midnight adventures. These moments make me realize I need to spend less time here and more time there.

Year of Pleasures 22

2011-06-15T00:37:00.000-04:00

Summer vacation. One neat thing about being in the education field is that you have perpetual summer vacations. When May rolls around, the feverish anticipation of two months off begins. The calendar starts to get marked with red Xs. I'm not normally one to wish away time but I can't help it when it comes to the count down to summer vacation. It reminds me of being a kid when that last month was a bittersweet time filled with waiting and the slowness of time. The last week of school was filled with good byes, packing up of random bits of artwork, and teachers just trying to fill up days with coloring sheets and movies. Once you're a teenager, it's a bittersweet moment because if you're carless you're not likely to see your friends all summer.

And there was the joy of planning. Day dreaming at your desk about all that you would do. In Maine, it was swimming in lakes, sleep overs with the cousins, time spent with my dad. It was long days outside playing baseball and riding bikes. It was hot afternoons spent in the cool, old stone library across town. I usually finished the reading program fast, and the old librarian would challenge me new goals. One year I read a hundred books, sticking little half circles to a caterpillar shape to mark each story.

Now that I am older it's more than just feeling that excitement with my children. It's somewhat muted here since we home school but the joy is still there. Summer comes whether go to school or not. Now their (and mine) joy comes from knowing that H will be home with us. There is the kickoff party/grilling of Umberto's birthday. Swimming season starts and we spend nearly every afternoon at the pool. We grill three or four times a week, enjoying the smoky taste of hot dogs and grilled veggies. There are late walks when the heat of the day dies down. There are afternoon movies. Late mornings. The sheer joy of time coming to a still.

Good Morning Baby Boy

2011-06-13T21:18:00.000-04:00

By June, it just felt as if I could not expand anymore. My body was swelling to gigantic proportions. I couldn't move much or far anymore. I spent a lot of time reclined in the recliner watching "A Baby Story" and panicking silently about giving birth. There was a deep terror that I couldn't name that this baby had to come out. For 9 months, I had been lost to the reality of pushing a baby out but each episode of A Baby Story was chipping away at the hard coat of denial. When I wasn't reclined I slept. A lot. The waiting was rough, and I had nothing to do in these final weeks. We had moved but everything was unpacked. I had no classes. I felt too restless to read.

One day I woke up with renewed energy, and I insisted that we pull down every blind in the big house we were renting. I carried them outside with a bucket of soapy water and scrubbed them down. H stood helpless, worried as I scrubbed for hours. It was such a useless task but it had to be done. I knew this with a compulsion that I could not explain. The next day I was sore and exhausted. I could barely get out of bed to go the bathroom.

A few days later we brought cake and pizza to my mom to celebrate her birthday a day late. We laughed and ate. All of us on the cusp of waiting for this baby to come into world. I felt his presence strongly as I had ever since we made a beach trip a week earlier. I alternated between being impatient and being fearful content to let him gestate longer. Tonight I was just relaxed enjoying good food with my mom and my friends. I was not thinking about babies or birth. And then it felt like I peed myself but I was pretty sure I hadn't. I went to the bathroom and a trickle of water dripped out of me. When I came out everyone was quiet, looking at me. I had thought I had made an inconspicuous exit.

I think my water is breaking.

Everyone exploded into talk and activity. Plans were made while I just stood there terrified.

Of course nothing was ready. I hadn't planned on even giving birth until July and here it was early June. We went back to our house where I packed my suitcase. My mom made a list of things I would need: nursing bras, robe, food for them. I was excited and tentatively waiting for excruciating pain to suddenly hit and leave me prostrate on the floor. But there was nothing. We loaded ourselves into my roommate's car and we started the drive to the hospital which was 45 minutes away in another town.

After a side stop to Walmart, we arrived at the hospital which was quiet on this sleepy Saturday evening. It was too early for the drunken ER visits. The nurse checked me and said that my water had not broken and that I was not showing any signs of labor. Disappointed we squeezed back into the car and headed home.

We returned to my mom's house to finish off her birthday cake. I was embarrassed but secretly a little relieved. And then while munching down on cake in my mom's kitchen, my water did break in a wave that left no doubt about what was happening. At this point, I started to cry and shake. I was terrified. H held me while I sobbed in terror. We got everyone back in the car and once again made the journey back to the hospital. This time I felt crampy and my back hurt but I didn't realize at the time that this was contractions. I shook most of the journey and attributed that to sheer terror. I kept asking my mom "Is this going to hurt worst than the burns?"

At the hospital it was determined that my water had broken but the nurse told us to get some sleep as we wouldn't likely see any action until the morning (it was about 11:00). They settled H and I in a room, and put my mom and my friends in the nurse's lounge. I was initially much to excited to sleep although I tried. How was I supposed to sleep when a baby was about to come out of my body? Seriously? But I did sleep. A fretful sleep that did not close of my senses to the room around me. I woke up a little than an hour later in pain. I shook H awake and told him I was hurting pretty bad. He went to get a nurse who came in already annoyed.

"This is just the beginning!" she snapped when I asked for medication to help with the pain.

Even with the awful pain that radiated up and down my spine and around my stomach couldn't help the shame I felt at her words. Obviously I was supposed to be much tougher than this.

"You should be trying to sleep." she lectured annoyed at having to deal with me.

"I can't." I whispered.

"Fine. I'll set you up in the delivery room and we'll go from there."

H helped me walk to another room. We meet my friend in the hall and he trooped along with us. The nurse got me into the bed, checked me (3.5 cent) and hooked up to an i.v. She asked me if I'd like to try to the tub and I said yes so she started to fill that up while she left to do something. I chatted with H and A when the pain wasn't too bad. After about ten minutes, I started to shake uncontrollably and needed to throw up. I refused to do it in a plastic bowl, and H helped me to the bath room where I threw up pizza and birth cake. My back felt like it was breaking in two and I was hot and cold. As I laid back down on the bed, I thought "If this is what labor is like with drugs, I can't even imagine what it's like without drugs."

The nurse returned, stopped the water and then checked me again. She looked up surprised and asked how I was feeling.

"If I could just get my back comfortable, I'd be okay." I answered.
"If that's your worst complaint at 9.5 cents then you're doing good." she smiled. "I'm going to get the Dr. you'll be ready to push soon."

H, A and I all looked at each sort of astonished. I had gone from 3.5 cent. to 9.5 in about 20 minutes.
"I'll go get your mom and K. "A said. I nodded and grabbed H who helped to the bath room where I threw up again. I was shaking hard at this point. The Dr. came in and encouraged me to get comfortable. This meant getting on the bed with about five pillows bracing me from behind. The nurse took my blood pressure and looked over at the Dr. I didn't know it at the time but it was high. They kept me hooked to a blood pressure machine. My mom arrived along with K . They both looked sleepy. I smiled tentatively at my mom as I shook.

H stood beside me, moping my face with a wet wash cloth. My fear was reflected there, and occasionally I would grab his hand and smile to reassure him. Then the urge to push came and it hurt. I went from teasing A about being there to moaning through contractions. Every time I pushed I could feel water pouring out of my body. The nurse no longer critical but kind was beside me, holding one hand, H holding the other. I pushed and pushed. Breathing through each horrible contractions. My back felt like it was spasming with each contraction. It felt unbearable. And then after an two hours of pushing, the contractions started to fade.

Panicking I said to the Dr. "They're stopping."

"I know, " she said. "I want you to push as hard as you can with each one now. I can see the baby's head." She had been saying this for awhile now so I didn't really believe her.

"Shit." I yelled as another contraction hit, and then I whispered "Sorry mom." who looked worried in the corner. And then I knew I just had to do it. I had to buckle down and work this baby out, and that is when I started to roar. Deep throaty roars that came from some place that I had not known existed with in me. I was part of something old and ancient as I roared Umberto into the world. A connection to every female before me and after me. Someday I would watch as my daughter's roared life into the world. All this passed through me, and I pushed Umberto into the world as the birds began to call up the sun outside the window. And then he was there, still and bluish. Slimy. And beautiful. H was crying quietly beside me. My best friends and my mom joined as they handed me my baby.

"Good morning baby boy." I whispered into his ear.

Role Model

2011-06-10T11:23:00.001-04:00

Camille sighs and looks up at me from her chair at the table. "I'm worried." she says. "I keep over-eating." H looks at me with one of those looks. The looks that convey meaning. I have to turn away before I can answer. When you have children your words too often come back to haunt you literally. I am not sure how to answer. Camille does not over eat. She's the only child I know who will stop eating a candy bar midway through because she's full. But it is apparent that she has a new thing to add to "the stuff that makes me anxious" list. And this thing came from me. It's my own anxiety being manifested in the body, the very thin body, of my eight year old.

The day before Piper had lifted her shirt up, and stuck out her belly asking me "Is my belly too big Mama?"

I am shamed. My own bad body image is shaping the bodies of my beautiful little girls. I thought I had modified my talk. I had worked hard at trying to not insult my body in front of them but obviously I have failed. It is so easy for people to lecture me that I have to love my body for the sake of my girls. I want to shake them and cry out "Of course I know this! I studied theory too. I am a women's studies minor. I know these things." But how do you eradicated a life's worth of body hate? How do you erase the cultural influence of a lifetime? How do you teach people to eat when your own relationship with food is dysfunctional and unhealthy?

But here are my beautiful girls already worrying about their weight. And I know it's going to take more than just not talking trash about my body in front of them. I know that somehow I have to push past the self hate into some kind of place where I love this flesh. I have to figure out a way to capture those moments when I revel in this body that grew and birthed babies with such ease. This body that loves to move. That loves to hold little bodies against it. This body that has nourished and feed the tiny beings that orbit it. There is so much to love. And yet I spend so much time hating it. Trying to change it.

"You're beautiful!" I tell the girls again and again. "You have to eat with love and to be strong." Perhaps if I tell them again and again, not only will they start to believe it but so will I.

Happenstance

2011-06-08T23:45:00.000-04:00

The first inklings came from a grocery store run before a long drive back home. Our college's "Free Thinkers" club had gotten the university van, and joy rode to Portland to hear Hans Kung speak at some center. We left filled with optimism about the future of the Catholic church and about theology in general. We sang Ministry's New World Order, an apparent favorite phrase of Hans Kung, because even while we were quietly moved by his words, we were young enough to be able to poke fun as well. And then I was starving and insisted we stop a Shop and Save before making the trip through the late dark night. Once there I was insatiable and all the food had taken on an aura of beauty. I choose fresh bread, pepperoni(I was a vegetarian at the time), and olives. When I spread my feast out, my friend, yelled "You're pregnant!" And we all laughed hysterically. But I was pregnant.

I remember driving back, my head on his shoulder so in love and thinking that it would be pretty wonderful to be carrying his child. And I fell asleep fantasizing about our future. How was that we had meet when we came from such far away places? What were the odds that we would fall in love? That we would create life? When I woke up, it was with his eyes on me, and his hand in mine.

Food

2011-06-06T23:55:00.001-04:00

Lately the hunger has been deep and insatiable. I sit down to eat hamburgers with cheese, chips, salads that flow out of big orange bowls. And it is not enough. At night when everyone is sleeping, I eat in the dark. Peanut butter on whole wheat bread, cheese sticks, bits of candy hidden away high in the cupboards. I lean against the counter, and unwrap Hershey kiss after kiss, slipping them into my mouth and savoring the chocolate, letting it melt against my tongue.

But I am still hungry. I do not feel sick as I eat melon and grapes. I am still hungry after bowls of black bean soup. I prowl the house looking for something to do besides eat. I knit and write blogs but my mind is filled with recipes. I imagine what I will cook for supper as I sit knitting. As I drive to work, I plan my meals with loving detail, salivating.

This hunger is often a little frightening. It does not fit in with my plans to become the thin girl. The hunger packs on the pounds as I wish inside to wear the clothes from two summers ago. I try to banish the hunger by standing naked in front of the mirror forcing myself to see the fat rolls. "Look!" I hiss at my reflection. "How can you be hungry when you see THAT?" But the only thing these exorcisms banish is my self-respect.

Normally I eat to keep feelings away or to bury them in the daze that comes from too much food. But I am not doing that. I am not eating until I am sick. I am eating because I am so hungry. Life is a little crazy right now but it's that kind of exciting crazy. A crazy filled with possibilities. Why this hunger? Is it possible this is genuine hunger?

Year of Pleasures 19

2011-06-01T11:25:00.000-04:00

Pool days. I admit it. I love pools. LOVE THEM. I love our lazy summer days spent hanging out at the pool, beer in hand. I love having friends over while we float, talk, and get some relief from the heat. This is really R's first year for pool day fun, and she took to it as fast proving herself, yet again, a true beastie.

In Maine, there were whole summers where I went without swimming. Seriously. It was never that big a deal. But here in the South I have become a pool junkie. To the point, where I joined the Y when we lived in NODA so I could have access to a pool. I just couldn't live without those lazy lounging days.

The kids are pretty giddy about it too. And they are true swimmers. With a little help from H they all learned to swim super fast, and they're in the pool as much as we'll bring them (although they don't stay as long as we'd like to stay).

The only bad thing about our little house is no pool:( We seriously considered a complex in Athens just so we could have a pool but I realized that pool days might not be so fun with hundreds of college students. Likely we'll join the Y again. Pools are a necessity for this newly minted Southern girl.

Year of Pleasures 18

2011-05-31T11:08:00.000-04:00

My mornings are a bit more peaceful now that R has discovered the playroom. I enjoy this time where I can drink my coffee and play around for a bit before the onslaught of chores and class prep takes over my day. And there is also that joy in watching R become more independent and in seeing her become a proper beastie.

I love watching quietly from the door as she becomes incorporated into the play of the older beasties. Watching as she explores the toy bins looking for treasures. Watching as she tramples, baby style, the little worlds created by the others. They scream in mock horror turning her into a giant baby monster. And even though there is a wistful longing for that newborn beasties, I relish the quiet time knowing that soon she will come back to me, seeking the comfort of my lap.

Growing

2011-05-30T21:00:00.000-04:00

R toddles around carrying things: books, various pieces of clothing, cameras, toys. She throws them at me, laughing, eyes gleaming because she knows she's being naughty. She growls at Umberto, holding up a plastic white tiger. She is busy these days. She has a duty to walk into each room to check out what is going on with various people. And as she walks away from me, I remember, not necessarily fondly, how she used to cry if she crawled into another room. Now she is pushing boundaries, walking away from me to be elsewhere with other people.

Now that she is one, she is becoming more and more a separate person. Not as much part of me as she used to be when she was tiny and I wore here everywhere. Her personality is growing along with her body. Each day we learn new things about her. We have learned that she has a sense of humor. She likes to tease people. She likes books. She likes to play with her siblings but really hates it when they're on the video. She loves music and she likes to clap. And I marvel at what we already know with the knowledge that there is so much more. These ever unfolding folds of knowing a person, like flower petals peeled back again and again.

I waver back and forth between sad and over joyed. There is always a twinge of sadness to each moment as she gets bigger. There is no longer the tiny baby that we hold close. The one who smells like creation. But how can one mourn when there is the joy of energy that fills her movements and discoveries. She is like a new beginning over and over.

After she destroys the book basket, spills a glass of water, rips the wires out of the back of the computer, explores the depths of the container cupboard, she comes back to me. She holds out chubby arms until I scoop her into my lap, and she nestles into me. She nurses, her huge eyes gazing up at me, and we both sink into the wave.

Swirls of Colors and Bodies

2011-05-29T21:32:00.000-04:00

Oh So Pretty....

2011-05-26T15:24:00.001-04:00

A friend posted this picture on Facebook last night:

Sorry for the blur but I think you can still see enough to understand my horror. "Yes my darling little pop- bellied toddler, you SHOULD wear a tee shirt that totally emphasizes an unachievable tiny waist and a low cut neck line to boot." This comes on the tails of the news frenzy over the mother who botoxed her little girl. And it comes at a time when I'm already thinking about gender.

On a gut level, my response to these things is just intensely personal. Why would I ever suggest in any way or form that my beautiful girls are some how not already perfect? Yes, I know, say what you will about perfection but my girls are perfect to me. When I see them, I literally have to catch my breath at their beauty which is reflected not just in their looks but in their strength and their minds.

The issue on a cultural level is two fold. First, when companies develop these lines of tee shirts, the subtle message that your body is not good enough begins. It's the start to a vicious cycle of body hatred and dieting. It plugs children right into that huge market. Capitalism in so many ways feeds on the not good enough mentality. Your T.V., your car, your house, your clothes, your body....never good enough. Buy some more and maybe you'll get a little closer to that good enough moment.

Second, is the emphasis on beauty attached to the gender designation of female. Not only is the market aimed at little girls but it's a market that suggests that girls need to be concerned with physical appearances. They need to be pretty like a princess. And this in many ways leads back to my last blog post. Would this shirt be ANY BETTER if a boy wore it? Would the offensive message it contains be more platable if a child with a penis wore it? I think not. I wouldn't want this on my son anymore than on my daugther. I was really quite pleased that NONE of my children ever really wanted to look like princesses. Piper went through a stage for about three months but then it was over. They still have the dress up clothes in a bin but it's bin they rarely get into anymore. And when they do they come up with...odd...pairings. Darth Vader capes with Snow White dresses.

Essentially I have to wonder if revolution is going to come from allowing our boys to dress up like princesses. Maybe a better question is to ask what kind of damage we are doing when we suggest that anyone should desire to be a princess.

Oh Gender, Wherefore Art Thou?

2011-05-26T00:12:00.000-04:00

Oh how I tried to not want to write this post. I did not want to be the person who commented on this issue but I keep thinking about it. I am not going to spend a time promoting this couple because frankly I feel that they are cashing in on their 15 minutes. To say that you don't want to make gender the center of your child's life but then to spread your story all over the world, well, you're making your child's genitals pretty central.

What interests me about this story is first the idea of gender as a choice. What an intriguing notion. These people say they want their child to have the freedom to choose their own gender. What a statement! Choose is such a complicated word. It plays into our notions of freedom and democracy. But choose is also a word that speaks of a kind of privilege. Coming from parents who are very concerned about social justice, I wonder if they have considered this aspect of choose. In order to have a choose one has to have a certain amount of things. Things like education, protection, comfort.

You see whenever we make a choose I think we should be aware of those who do not have the choose. I think of transgendered people who come from poverty, stricter cultures than ours, and who do not have the luxury of choosing their gender. And I wonder how much choose can we have in a world that does not offer it to all. Yes, perhaps, I should say "I'll start at home and let my child choose and then the world will turn to rainbows and be filled with unicorns and gender will be no more." But I don't think that happens. I think what it dose instead is it causes us to focus on our individual selves. There is no conversation going on about structural abuses of gender in this story. And that to me is the real problem.

I am not convinced that gender constructs in and of themselves are the problem. The problem lies in that fact that things, ideas, thoughts, discourses, become attached to genders. The problem lies in the fact that our society makes certain characteristics inherently male/female. It's not necessarily that we name our gender, perhaps but rather that the discourses we have about gender all too often oppress a certain group of people. And perhaps the problem is that we are not allowed to choose what feels right to us on many levels. We are not just not allowed to choose to be male or female. We are sometimes not allowed to choose what those words mean.

My second problem with this secret of gender is that the assumption that we can some insulate our children from culture. Not only do I think such isolation is impossible but I think such isolation is dangerous. Perhaps the issues is not so much about not allowing our children to see and experience stereotypes but to allow them those experiences with conversation. If our children do not know how to deal with these stereotypes then one is never going to be able to disavow them. If one does not what gender is how does one pick? How does one choose? And if they do not choose what will happen? Is it a revolution? Or is it just one person in the face of great violence.

I don't think I have answers. I have my opinions. I write this as a feminist who is about to become a stay-at-home mother. I have three daughters and a son. Two of them like video games and Nerf guns. They all love to read. None of them really like to wear nail polish although one of them tried it once. One of them likes to wear dresses. I do not know if these things matter. What I do know is that I have raised a boy who when his sister cries he pulls her onto his lap and comforts her. I have a daughter who climbs trees in princess dresses.

If they are oppressed from the obnoxious choose I made from them, I do not know. But I do know that they are creatures of culture just as I am. And I feel as a parent I must raise them to be able to function in society. But I can raise them to be critical of that culture. To understand that being a woman or a man is not so cut and dry. I can raise them to think intelligently about those things. That is my hope. Not to make them genderless but rather to make them gender conscious in the best of ways.

Fighting Beasties

2011-05-23T11:59:00.000-04:00

Lately the girls have been going at it. Bad. They fight the way my brothers and I used to fight. There is lots of hair pulling, shoving, yelling of mean things. I feel at a loss. Yes I've read the sibling rivalries books, and I attempt to implement what I've read into our daily lives. But yet we still have fighting. Frankly I think the books are bunk (I don't read child rearing how to books anymore but that's another post), and I think my girls fight for the reasons all humans fight. Other people can be annoying. Alliances are drawn and some people get left out. We're inherently a bit selfish and living with other people involves compromise. In sum, one could learn about world relations by watching children interact. But what do you do? Whole nations don't seem to have the answer hammered out much less parents. For me, it's become about working on bringing myself to a different space.

I can't remember where I picked this up...I'm guessing in a class on Buddhism...but I remember hearing that Buddhist don't see children as sweet innocents. Rather children are seen as amazingly immersed in self, and that it is an adult's job to train them towards being more compassionate souls. I buy this totally. I love my children, and I think they are wonderful but I also see that they can be selfish, cruel, unthinking, and impulsive. I am all of these things too which makes raising my children to not lean towards these things difficult. I am not so naive as to realize that I am not immersed in the ego self. I am. Totally. But because I have children whom I want to raise to be compassionate beings I realize that part of that training involves making me a better human as well.

This was driven home the other day as I watched Camille and Piper go at it. They fight a lot and it's very physical. Piper's reaction to Camille mirrored my own angry reactions to things. When Camille yells and runs from us, it is my actions that she reflects back at us. My children deal with their frustrations and anger the way that I deal with my frustration and anger. Yes, I have moved beyond hitting but you know I do hit in my mind. Sometimes I feel like I have to walk away from arguments because I am afraid I will punch the wall or throw something.

And I get angry over the same things. I get angry because I don't want to give, compromise, give up space, etc. When I am the angriest it's a reaction to living in a community and having to deal with the petty irritations that being in a community necessarily involves. It's also about not reading myself well enough to know when I need a break, or some time alone to reflect. In other words, it's about being mired in the self. Even when we don't take the time we need, it's often not about the other people, it's about us being too proud or too angry to ask for that time. To admit that we need to get away. I always try to push through like I am strong when in reality I am breaking up inside, and the strong thing would be to go get the time I need to function. It's also about sometimes shelving what I want as well. This doesn't mean giving up everything but one has to compromise when living in a group which means not always getting what you want.

Today as the beastie once again begin a day with fighting I am attempting to rethink the situation. As I open my mouth to yell at them to stop fighting, I am moved to stop and think instead. What are they fighting over? How can I teach them to take a different approach? What do they need to do to get a long with each other? How do I create alone spaces for each of them in our small space? How do I teach them to go to those spaces when they need to? How do I teach to talk to each other? To communicate as opposed to yell? This morning, I realized it was a journey we would all be taking together.

Meditation on Never Catching Up

2011-05-22T11:33:00.000-04:00

I always think to myself that I'll catch up as soon as I have some free time. This is my mantra. But I never catch up. I'm not sure if it's due to me being lazy or if it revolves more around having a huge list of things I need to catch up on.

Lucky me got a summer class. Lecturers don't usually get a summer class so it was pretty awesome to get this one. We need the money for the move and it's not too horrible a summer job. But I only had as week between putting final grades in and this class starting. I thought that I would catch Umberto up on math during this week. Like an intensive math workshop. He's doing so great on his reading, and I don't really have to do much with him on that aspect (who would ever have guessed this would be the case a few years ago?) but now he's falling behind in math. I figured we'd spend a few hours each day on Math and have him established in a routine by the time school started again.

But that didn't happen because I also had to "catch up" on the housecleaning. The apartment was trashed and really needed a deep cleaning. I dusted, folded clothes, wiped down counters, put stuff away, etc. I also had to tweak my syllabus which was fun. I had to work on a book review for a journal. In other words, I caught up on everything but I wanted to catch up on. Yes we worked on some math but not nearly as much as needed.

And now it's Sunday and I'm utterly frustrated with myself. I have to figure out a way to balance things. I ended up being able to focus on one thing at time and then everything else gets left behind. It won't get done until Ginger chooses that as her weekly focus. I'm still striving towards this place where I do lots of little things each day. Now that my summer classes is starting up I am already worried about dropping everything and just focusing on the class. It would be easy to do as I teach M-Th for two hours in the evening. I can totally see my whole day as a big focal point for that one two hour span.

I'm thinking that perhaps I need to stop thinking in terms of catching up. I need to print out the schedule I made from my friend's template and I need to stick with it. This little things each day seems a much better system then my intense devotion to one chore at a time. Spending a week cleaning is all well and good when one doesn't home school. But it's not so great when your intense focus means that you let everything else go. I mean my kids are feed and clothed. They get out and do things. But then sometimes I feel like that focus needs to be on them not on the house. I guess in some ways this is the dilemma of motherhood.

Year of Pleasures 17

2011-05-19T12:58:00.000-04:00

Walking. I'm always happy to wait a bit for this milestone. Walking kicks baby rearing up a level. Being on hind legs opens up the world in all new highly destructive ways. Ahhh...the wonderment. So when my beasties don't walk at a year, I'm pretty okay about it. However there comes a time when walking just needs to happen. Who wants baby crawling on a nasty store floor or outside in the dirt? Gross. Plus they get so whiny right before they take off. Thus when R stood up on her own and started walking yesterday we were all pretty over joyed.

Year of Pleasures 16

2011-05-18T11:49:00.000-04:00

It has been weeks of birthdays. I both love and hate this time of year. Our birthday marathon now starts April 15 and runs through until June 11th. It is a time of feastings, trying to decide if we're going to do parties, gift buying, etc. This all translates into money we don't really have as we're headed into summer aka the time teacher's don't get paid. But still how can you not be joyful when your beasties are entering into a new year of their lives? It's exciting to imagine the changes in store for them.

We're come to a place where we just don't do the big parties with friends. We have the kids pick a favorite meal, sometimes it's a restaurant sometimes it's just pizza. We always have a cake of their choosing and they usually see my mom. This tradition arose from necessity. The girls don't have many friends (any really) and we always felt bad that Umberto's parties were well attended and the girls parties were rather lack luster in that regard. We decided to level the playing field and well Umberto seemed fine with it...Perhaps Athens will be different and we'll move back to parties with friends. Perhaps not because there is something intimate and special about these small family celebrations.

I find myself not wanting to share my child on this day. I want to hold close this moment of remembrance. This time when they came from my body into the world. I wonder if perhaps birthdays are meant to be more intimate. The births are why not these moments? Of course this is likely my reasoning for not spending a small fortune on huge cakes, gifts bags, food, rental spaces but it is a nice rationale. I find that in these quieter celebrations we remember to tell the birth stories along with other stories of this child's growing up. We share with them their history.

Vocation

2011-05-17T18:57:00.000-04:00

Last night I had a mini-anxiety attack. As I finished up the summer class syllabus, I realized that this was the last syllabus I would need to write for who knows how long. And I freaked out a bit. The last time I didn't work was when Umberto was a new baby and it sort of sucked. We were really poor. I've worked most of my life. Made my own money or contributed to our household income even if in a smallish way. At one point, I was the primary earner. It's a little scary to be heading to a new place in my life. I am not good about losing control, and not earning money makes me feel very out of control.

I started to run through all the things I could do if I can't find a teaching job. I started to search midwife programs again. I started to think about nursing. I wondered if I could hack teaching again. None of these things felt very good or right. A couple of them sent me into a sort of sad space because I knew I would be miserable if I did them. H reassured me that it was going to be okay and I was able to sleep. But the worry was there waiting for me when I woke up. Worry is funny this way.

After doing some chores, and eating breakfast I exercised to a podcast from "A Nun's Life." What's funny is that it was not the podcast I thought I wanted to listen to. I realized just now as I searched for a link that I was listening to an entirely different session then I had thought. Which makes what happened even cooler. I'm half listening because, well, I'm exercising and it's been awhile and when I finally tune in, the sisters are talking about they have no regrets about the lives they have chosen. This was their vocation. They were called to this life and there was no room for regrets.

And as I walked in place with ole Leslie, I started to realize that I had no regrets about this life I now lead. There are many things I regret about my life but never have I ever wished that I was not married to H or that I had no children. It has not always been easy, and there are times when I want to scream in frustration. There are times when I'm so bored I feel like poking my eyes with my knitting needles. But never have I wished my children away. This is my vocation in the religious sense of the world. While this may not be the path I had envisioned for myself it is the path that has come to me.

Things are going to be okay I realized. I am where I need to be.

Unsympathic Mama

2011-05-16T11:26:00.001-04:00

I have a confession to make. I'm not so good with crying. When a beastie gets hurt or they're really scared, I'm good for about five to ten minutes of crying depending on the level of emergency. But you know when it gets past that mark, I find myself getting a wee bit impatient. When it crosses the twenty minute mark I get pretty snippy. I am not proud of this but it's where I am.

Last night, Piper fell down the last three three stairs of the outside stair case. It wasn't a bad fall as she was holding on the railing but she did get scrapped up and pulled her hand a bit. I held her feeling bad for her wounds as she cried, softly leaning into me. But then she just didn't stop crying. And it got louder. Within five minutes she was WAILING as if she had cut off her hand. At that point, I found myself getting annoyed and snippy. H remprimanded me when I finally snapped that she need to stop.

And I felt really awful. I don't want to be impatient with beastie crying. I want to be sympathic and loving. I don't want to deny them their pain. But I can't help but feel that there ought to be a level of apprioatness to their responses to pain. It's not so much "Toughen up" as "Really do we need that much DRAMA for a small scratch?" I feel as if there ought to be a middle ground.

But to deny someone their response to pain seems a bit sadistic.

When I was in the hospital with my burns (2nd and 3rd degree on my thighs, I was seven), I used to scream every time they changed my bandages. It hurt beyond words. When the nurses peeled off the bandages, they usually peeled off skin. They were incredibly immune to my pain. They would shush me and urge me to be brave and tough. I tried. By the end of my stay, I could tolerate the changes with just tears. But then they gave me a bath. It was horrible. Like being dipped into acid. I fought them as they held me in the tub and when they finally let me out, I ran, naked and howling to my room to my mother who they prohibited from coming. The nurse was yelling at me to "Shut up!" as she chased me down those echoing halls. Whenever I am in pain, I hear those words coming back to shame me. Even in labor, I tried so hard to not cry out or make noise. With R, when my midwife chastised me to not yell but to breath, I felt like I had to keep that pain quiet, manageable under control.

And now I am worried that I will silence my children's own pain. It is as usual this struggle for balance. I do believe pain is cultural as much as physical and that part of my job is to teach my children to negotiate the cultural world in which they live. But on the other hand, I do not wish to deny them their pain. It is a fine line.

Bedtime is the Pits

2011-05-16T00:35:00.000-04:00

Since we are a bohemian household with no bedtimes and not much in the way of a schedule, my children are just getting into bed. I'm on the computer...finishing up a syllabus? Okay I'm doing that but also playing on Facebook and looking at real estate I can't afford. And just now Piper flies, a streak of bright, through the hallway sobbing.

"What's going?" I yell.

No answer.

"Umberto! What happened?" I yell again.Piper is sobbing in our bedroom.

"Nothing. I don't know." Umberto yells.

"I"m sick of this!" I moan. "I thought six was going to be an easier age. That it would get easier."

"It will" H mumbles from the chair where he is half asleep.

Umberto comes out and explains to us why Piper is sobbing in our closet.
"She said she smelled something and for some reason thought it was my arm pits. The last time she thought that she tried to put deodorant on me and covered me from here to here (he demonstrates a wide arch going from his armpit over his chest tot his neck and then down to his other armpit). It was gross and I told her to stop it."

H laughs. I say seriously "It's not funny. She can't do that."

H answers "Do what? Drive by deodorants?"

Moving On Up

2011-05-14T21:48:00.000-04:00

Camille does not like being a little girl. She resents the inability to control all aspects of her life. She does not care for being told to her clean her room, brush her teeth, eat her dinner. It is not that she does not wish to do those things. She is perfectly fine about cleaning her room, brushing her teeth, eating her dinner. Rather she just hates that some one has to tell to do those things and she is not able to pick her own time and way to execute what needs to be done.

When Camille feels really fed up with being treated like a child, she acts like an adult. She looks down her nose, over her book and makes proclamations which make her mother say "Don't you take that tone with me, Missy!" She talks like a grown up, inserting her opinions into grown up like topics. Not that the grown ups always take time to listen or appreciate what she offers.

Camille plans her grown up years carefully. She will always wake up at the same time. She will have the same breakfast. She will eat her breakfast carefully while reading. She will fold her clothes neatly. She will got to her job. She will walk her dogs. It will be an orderly, neat life.

Her mom says "Oh Camille do not grow up too fast. Enjoy your childhood."

And deep down Camille does enjoy some things about being a kid. She likes her toys. She likes being able to climb into bed with mom and papa when she's scared. She likes running wild outside, screaming and shrieking. She likes jumping into pools, rolled up in a tight ball, splashing water everywhere. She likes tea parties with her younger sister. She likes to curl up in a warm chair with a good book and no worries. Sometimes she thinks that being a kid really is the best. Not that she'd ever admit it to her mama.

Waiting

2011-05-11T11:15:00.000-04:00

Life as a mother has often been about these moments held in suspension. Waiting each second for something. All around life dances in a fast forward blur while the special effects of your mind bring you to a stand still. I find it hard to do anything in those moments when I am consciously waiting. I never feel like I am done waiting but something the waiting takes on an urgency. And when those times arrive, I find myself held immobile under the pressure of something about to be.

Last night, my son came to us, wide eyed, quivering. The violent storms that rolled upon like us woke him up. Always a dangerous thing for my beloved boy. My husband lead him trembling to the bedroom and laid down with him until he fell asleep under the safe eye of his father. But I lay awake. Waiting as I have waited so many times for the tell tale thumbing on the floor, the hectic labored breathing that comes with each seizure. I listened to the storm, scared at its violence, worrying about tornadoes and how I would save my family. Finally with the coming of dawn, the waiting gave out to the exhaustion, and I slept fitfully because the waiting never really ends. It just sometimes becomes a side thought to something more urgent.

And then the waiting ends. The moment that you are waiting for, gut clenched, nerves stretched taut, comes, and you are unprepared. The waiting does nothing to prepare you for that second when you hear child on the floor convulsing, twisted limbs. And as you hold him, whispering to him that you are hear, you hope that the tension in your muscles will ease. But it doesn't. You will go back to waiting because you just don't know. You can never see into that fog which is the future.

Ready?

2011-05-10T10:34:00.000-04:00

Saturday, we meet up with a friend of H's at the park. It was late and we had to shop but we needed to catch the crisp spring day so we arranged for this small walk around a pond. On the way out to the park, we had received The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe in the mail so Umberto was reading it as we walked. In fact, there had been a squabble over the book before we exited the van. Umberto beat Camille out. As we walked, careful to steer my reading son, H's friend commented positively on Umberto's love of reading. Love obviously as he couldn't put the book down to walk. And H and I both laughed because a few years ago we were worried that our son was NEVER going to read much less love it.

People often ask me how we raised kids who love to read. I never have a good answer ready. I certainly never have a quick answer. Part of it is a mystery. Part of it is that we just did what we love to do which is read, talk about what we read, and surround our children and ourselves with books. It's not a very scientific answer, and I don't have reams of studies that back up my methods or ideas. But there are a couple of things that I've learned in this journey of homeschooling and child rearing, and those things have helped me in more than just preparing my children to be readers who love books.

First, readiness. I am likely square in the middle between nature vs. nurture debate. I don't believe that nature fully shapes but I do believe that we have biological tendencies that work with culture to shape who we are, how we learn, and who we become. For those who know my academic work, this is likely a shock as I am very much a cultural construstivist theory person BUT having four kids has forced me to rethink an extreme position on this. Readiness is one reason why I have had to reevaluate.

Kids have to be ready for whatever development/educational goal you have planned. Push too soon and you're going to get snapped back in a variety of ways. With Umberto we began pushing reading at 5 as he headed into Kindergarten. His initial reaction was to hate books. That was a hard blow and a big part of why we pulled him out of school. Umberto had always loved books and he loved to be read to until he started school. I spent about four years pushing and pulling back. I'm stubborn and I had a lot of pressure to get him reading so I had to learn the hard way. When I pushed Umberto, he pushed back with anger and resentment. We both ended up tears and I would apology before going into my room to be worry without him seeing me. I was terrified that my son couldn't read. Worried that we had gone wrong, that there was something wrong with him. I struggled with sorting through what was reasonable to expect for him and my own expectations. I floundered with feeling inadequate as everyone else bragged about their four year olds reading.

But then one day, with the help of his meds for epilepsy, it came together. Slowly Umberto began to read. When I worked with him, he didn't push back. My mom worked with him and he responded well to her instruction. He was ready. Interestingly his sister who also likes to read while she walks was reading well by six. She was just ready at an earlier time. With Piper, her readiness is coming later like Umberto but I have a feeling will come sooner than his did. This lesson about readiness is important because as a parent I've learned it applies to so much than just reading. It's important for things like weaning from constant nursing (Rowena), toilet training, introducing new foods, etc. The list goes on. And it's a tough lesson because it involves knowing your children very well, and being willing to back away when you've pushed too hard, too soon. And yes it involves knowing when you need to push harder, to push through laziness, etc. It's an act of discernment.

Year of Pleasures 15

2011-05-06T11:30:00.001-04:00

Yesterday we were at Amelie's, meeting with a homeschooling group. Per usual I was the one with the most kids. Most of the people we know have one or two maybe three kids. Sometimes, I walk into these situations feeling almost apologetic. Embarrassed a bit about my excess that is hard to hide. I feel like all eyes are on me, judging me, scrutinizing me for any sign that I made a mistake by having such a big family. I suppose that most people really don't think these things but I know that many do because they have made comments to me to that effect.

But today when I walked in, I felt a new confidence in my large family. There is not a child surrounding me that I would give back. They are now satellites in our orbit. Surrounding us with their energy and light. How could I wish one away? We wouldn't be complete if it weren't for each of them, and their unique offerings to our family life.

Yes, we gave up some things when we decided to expand our family. We will likely not get to Europe until we're much older. We do not have date nights (well we do but it involves four beasties plus us). We take up a lot of space. We don't eat out often (which is a mixed blessing. We save money and our waist lines by not doing so). It's an operational mission every time we walk out the door. There is very little quiet in my house, and I often stay up much to late to get what there is of that bit of quiet.

But there is such LIFE here. There is joy, anger, laughter, tears. The beasties are endlessly amusing and endlessly frustrating. They have forced me into being a better person. I've developed patience, kindness, firmness, discipline, and a whole range of other qualities that have made me a better human being. They've also made clear my faults which is humbling.

As we sat at Amelie's, me not always being able to chat with grown ups because I was wrestling with a nursing toddler, I hoped that no one was feeling bad for me. I hoped that no one was thinking "Wow I bet she wishes she had a few less kids." Because I was feeling joy.

Year of Pleasures 14

2011-05-04T12:06:00.000-04:00

New Beginnings.

As we moved slowly closer to July, I find myself filled with both excitement and dread. This is more than just moving to a new home which I really do enjoy. We are uprooting from a city that has been home (for better and worst) for almost ten years. It took us a long while but we eventually made friends. We are comfortable here. We know where to shop, where to hang out, where to get good coffee. And soon we will be packing up our things and moving to another town in another state. It's a little scary to leave.

And of course it's also exciting. We love Athens. Plus there is a sense that we are starting something new. It's a big way to make some changes. It's like a birthday and New Year's all wrapped into one. I'm a little nervous as it's a chance to focus on my writing and my children. I'm not sure what will come of either venture but boy is it heady to be giving it a try.

Big Families Not For Christ?

2011-05-03T11:14:00.000-04:00

Ummm....are there any big families out there just for the sake of having a big family?

I've been thinking a great deal about my big family (which yes at four I do consider big), and I've thought about the kind of rude responses I get from utter strangers and from people I know. I knew we had crossed the line between acceptable and too many when people started to do the head count thing as we walked through the door of a store. I've had people say "You must be Catholic" which is somewhat true but not the reason we have four kids. People comment on how "My hands are full." which is again true but really annoying to hear when you're doing a damn good job of shepherding wayward kids through Target.

I've been playing around with the idea of writing an article about big families as the only ones I've seen in mainstream magazines either focus on those with three kids or those with 17. There's a middle ground and I thought it would be interesting to find it. But when I started to do a blog search to see what was out there every on was a Christian family. Are there big families that are having lots of kids not for Christ but just because they like having a big family? I'm not knocking the big families for Christ (although I have have opinions about quiverful that I will not share here) but I'm kind of curious to know how secular parents talk about having a big family.

Now we're not 100% secular but we're very liberal and progressive. I struggle with guilt about over population just like any good liberal but with the added test that I have a lot of kids. And while I value my religion, it is not what propelled me into having children. I have no problem with birth control. But I do feel that my life is more complete with all the beasties. I feel like there has to be more big families not for Christ out there. Are they not blogging? Are they harder to find? Anyone want to send them my way?

So Alive

2011-05-03T00:11:00.001-04:00

Piper wakes up at screech. Her mouth opens for her first yawn and doesn't really close much for the rest of the day. She's talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming. She covers the full range of human passion in any given 24 hour period. There is nothing small about Piper's personality. She feels big. Acts big. Is big. She's just so much more than the average person. It's both exhausting and exhilarating to be in the presence of such intense life.

For Piper everything is new. Every experience is a new one. Even if it's just a walk to look at Renfrow's chickies for the one thousandth time. I think it's because Piper has a young soul. There is something new about Piper, and we're privileged enough to be able to touch that newness. When you stop to look at the world through Piper's eyes it is so fresh and raw. There is a brilliance to Piper's experience that you can see if you open yourself to see. Every tree is made for climbing. Every hill is made to roll down with complete abandon. Every hurt is a tragedy that must be worn.

Piper whirls around me. A tiny ferocious life force that spins all around the house. She is never still. She is always dancing, prancing, running, leaping, drawing, creating. She is oh so alive.

Off Days

2011-04-29T19:47:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was Piper's turn to have an off day. Everything set her off from rolling out of bed (on her own time I might add) to having to choose something at Smelly Cat instead of the nasty old convience store down the road. There were lots of tears, silent ones, that broke your heart a bit. Defeated. She'd hang her head, shuffle behind us, as fat tears slid down her checks, her hair partially hiding them from our view. These moments are not quite as annoying as they are sad. They are not the full out toddler meltdowns with lots of screaming and limb kicking. Instead these seem to be the emotional overloads that I can utterly related to. I have those moments where everything just seems so sad, so against you. Like life is rubbing you raw with steel wool.

I commented to H that this was Piper's day to lose it, and he said "Yeah when you have four there is always one. When the good days align together it's like a miracle." And this is true for us. I see some families were it really does seem like that alignment comes often but for us it's rare. It made me realize that I need to pay attention more to those moments and hold them close like the rarity they are.

Theme

2011-04-23T11:36:00.000-04:00

One of the strangest things about starting to write a memoir is the attempt to give one's life a theme.

My life is a series of chaotic events loosely tied together by the fact that this body is somewhat the same body I was born with, and the fact that there are reoccurring characters. These incidents filled with messy randomness don't comb down neatly into a story. Instead they are an unruly mass of events that don't always make much sense. I am not sure what my life's theme would be. I am not sure what the hook would be to lure people into reading about my life homeschooing the beasties. When I lay awake at night, I try to organize those moments into a story that makes sense. I try to build up a foundation. But that foundation doesn't always feel all that stable.

In the last two weeks, I've been through several themes.

Theme 1: Joy. While going to graduate school was hard, I still back upon it as one of the happiest times of my life. I loved the freedom that H and I during that time. We worked hard but it felt like so much of that work was done in the midst of each other and the kids.

I sort of nixed that one because it's just so common place. And it's big. I suspect the joy will manifest itself in my writing.

Theme 2: Survival. The two things: school/homeschooing feed off each other in terms of surviving each. They provided a balance that made the other thing more bearable during rough times. When I felt like I might strangle a little beastie, I could escape to school. And when school was making me want to sob in a dark corner curled up in a fetal position, I had the beasties to remind to be present in my body.

This theme is still on the drawing board.

But for the last two nights, I've been thinking a lot about how having children has made me present. School was good but it's not good for feeling centered in one's body. In fact, it's one of those things that makes it quite easy to forget (or pretend) that one has a body. But the children need that body for their needs. Sometimes quite literally in terms of breastfeeding. The children gave me a base upon which to spring off in other areas.

Next step? Piecing these random events into some kind of sequence while being aware of a theme. Life is not fiction, as Alice Bloom reminded us so often.

Mirror, Mirror

2011-04-21T21:12:00.000-04:00

The other day Camille was in the store with H. At the check out line, she was reading a loud the magazine covers including the issue of People that names Jennifer Lopez as the most beautiful woman in the world. Camille looked up at H and said "Well that's lie. Mama's the most beautiful woman in the world."

Of course this comes at a time when I feel about as beautiful as a turnip. When I look in the mirror all I see reflected back are rolls of fat topped by a wrinkled tired face. I turn my head when passing a window or a mirror. I hate putting on clothes, and hate shopping for them even more. Thinking about my looks makes me want to cry. Things are so bad that I find that I don't even want to make an effort. Everyday it's more of throwing on comfortable yoga pants and a BIG HUGE tee shirt and just hoping that I can slip through life unnoticed.

And then my daughter thinks I'm more beautiful than J-Lo.

What's happened over the last few months to make me feel this horrible about myself? There are times when I feel like I've been catapulted back into middle school. The crippling self image that comes from an unhealthly obsession with one's own body is something of a flashback nightmare. I have no way to view myself with any kind of realistic expectation. And it's not a fun place to be, nor a fun thing to deal with when you have girls who listen to your words and WHO THINK YOU'RE MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN J-LO.

Perhaps its because I am getting older. Losing weight after this birth was much harder than it was after Piper. Those young women whom I am friends are sad that they are five lbs away from their goal weight and I sit in silent self-loathing as I see my goal weight as their fat weight.

But really what it comes down to this is this: I started hating on my body again. I am caught up in a vicious cycle where I say things out loud and online that I wouldn't say to my worst enemy. I have become my own personal mean girl. She jeers at me when I try on clothes. When I eat something fattening. She compares me to younger, prettier mothers and sneers at my stretch marks. She holds me to expectations that are impossible and when I fail them she mocks me while I try to soothe myself with French fries. I am never good enough for this mean girl who silently urges me to just give it up. And so I do.

The difference now is that I have these lovely daughters. And I think that if anyone said to them what I say to myself, I'd want to kill that person. And I realize that if I keep saying these things to myself, out loud or in the privacy of my head, my girls will develop their own mean girl. This mean girl will be more vicious then any mean girl they could ever encounter. She will introduce them into the cruel ritual of never being good enough. How can I want this for my daughters? How can I bequeath upon them this mean girl?

It is time to weed this girl out. Time to realize that if I was the disgusting creature I think I am that I would not be married to such a hot man with these beautiful children. Even if they are only the best of me that part exists on my body. It is time to see what Camille sees when she looks at me.

Another One...

2011-04-16T12:04:00.000-04:00

When H first broached the subject of another baby, I was like "No way." I had lost all the previous baby weight, and was frankly enjoying not having someone constantly at the breast. I was enjoying have a bit more freedom in terms of my own body. And while I was just as moved by H by the deliciousness of baby beastie pictures, my ovaries were not crying out. But H kept at me, and the idea was planted. And I woke up one morning and realized that the only thing holding me back was weight. A week later, I was pregnant with Baby Beastie.

That pregnancy flew by (until the very end where it was more like "GET OUT NOW!) in a hazy bliss. This was what I had always imagined pregnancy would be like for me. I felt goddess like, beautiful and tuned into the growth inside me. Each day was just this wash of pure joy. Perhaps it was because I had almost lost all of this due to my own insecurities. The amazement that this family, this love, these moments were still mine was intoxicating. Each second of each day was like a small gift. Even the hard moments of frustration and impatience were moments to be held close because they had almost not been.

Her birth was nearly perfect. The slow build up to that earth shattering moment when you catch a glimpse of that veil which separates us from creation. And oh the look on H's face when R came to us in this world. I knew without a doubt that all was forgiven. We belonged to each other, to this family, and now we had a physical presence to remind us of that bond every time we looked at her lovely self.

And now a year later, R has become a person. She has grown into her soul.mischievous, energetic, chatty and bright, with her eyes always sparkling. The sweet promise of the future lies on her breath as she snuggles, in sleep, against me. I try to slow down time as I hold her pressed against my body. This year was so fast. I wanted it to end so that we could begin our next adventure. I hate H's job and I know it's hard for him as well. He longs to be freer and to do the work his mind is suited towards. But I also wanted to slow down and savor R's moments, her first moments in life on Earth. The dilemma of moving forward and living in the present was always upon me. And now we are here, a year later filled with tears and joy. There are no regrets...only more joy.

A Room For All

2011-04-08T11:28:00.000-04:00

I read Virgina Wolf's poignant essay "A Room of One's Own" when I was an undergrad. Likely around 24 or 25. At point, most of my space was, well, my own. It seemed quite clear to me that a woman could not create unless she was a lone with space carved out to belong to her. In her solitude she would create as men create. The monastic image was strong, and it was an image that is repeated throughout both the world of art and study. One can not create unless one has a cell in which to worship either art or academic theory. Without this cell there is nothing.

And I held that image close, vowing to always have a space of my own come what may. I held it, that is, until I started my master's degree. At this point we had three kids, in a two bedroom apartment. There was no space for me. I wrote papers on the floor while I nursed Piper. I read theory while at the park with half an eye on beasties running amok. I wrote my thesis at coffee shops distracted by the human drama playing out at the table next to me. Sometimes I longed for space that was mine but there was no solution. Anything better would be unaffordable. The sad irony was that in order to do what gave us pleasure we had to expect a smaller scale of living.

When we finally were able to move a bigger house, we were so used to living together in a common area
that we didn't really adapt well to sitting at a desk in a quiet room to work. I finished my thesis on the living couch surrounded by the beasties and H. That felt right. I ended where I had begin. A venture that started in the home life and ended there as well.

Now I am wanting to honestly put forth some effort into my writing. I don't know if I can make a living from it. Likely not. But I feel that I am put that part of myself off for a long time, and that now it's time to give it a chance again. I can not deny that a part of me wonders if there is a way to write, well, without that room. I worry that I didn't get into a program because everything I did was half assed because I was always half distracted by the chaos of my life. I never wrote anything without some kind of noise, questions, minor explosions happening about me.

I worry about these things as I type, nursing Rowena, with the keyboard precariously balanced between a boppy pillow and my knees. It is not comfortable, and I have to stop every few second when the keyboard slides down or R kicks me in the neck. If that's not enough, there's always Piper with her five year old chatter begging me to do go to see the chickies.

As I began to envision our little house furnished, I fret about this room. And this in turn makes me ponder the possibility of being an artist and a mother. I feel that I being asked to choose just as I was asked to choose when I was an academic. Can I write and still home school four beasties? Do I just shelf the writing until they are older? Do I shelf the mothering so that I can write? Is it possible to write what is in my head with any kind of beauty when I am answering questions about poop?

And then I get angry because Woolf wrote from a position of privilege. Yes, I know she had many issues but you know what? She had money. She had the luxury that so many women at the time did not have. Money and space. What would happen if instead of challenging women's right to have a room of their own, we instead challenged the bourgeois assumptions about how and where art should be created? What if we asked ourselves what would art look like when a mother creates it in the midst of chaos? What if we really honored the idea that women could be mothers and artists? Mothers and workers?

Because the reality is that even now we are not supported in our multiple roles. We are allowed to be one thing at a time. We are not given the resources needed to be either thing very well. And when we try to create in the spaces of where we are, our work is dismissed as "mommy writing" or "crafts." The reality is that most women I know are too poor to afford spaces of their own to create in so we make do with what we have. Perhaps we need to continue the fight to haul art's ass out of the world of the rich and smack it down in the middle of life.

My art is not always pretty. Often it is hasty, chaotic, filled with errors. But it is art that is created in the vital pulse of life. My writing is always done in the center of joy, love, frustration. It is made in the midst of bodily functions like shit and piss. Poetry is created in between loads of dirty diapers and tiny bright pink clothes. I develop characters while I scrub oatmeal from dishes. I type while I feed my baby from my own body. I bounce ideas off with my partner while we push girl beasties on swings or walk with them through lovely woods. My art is not solitary or privileged. It is art in the heat of living.

Year of Pleasures 13

2011-04-07T23:14:00.000-04:00

This guy right here. He's sexy, smart, and a great dad. He's my best friend. When it really hit that I wasn't going to be doing a Ph.D program, at least in the near future, I feared that I H would not want to be with me. A big part of our life together has been a shared love of the academic. I was scared that he would want someone else. But it was a silly fear. We have a shared love of so many things, and the academic is only a part of that love. Throughout all this change, H has been my rock, as always. He has reassured me. Held me. Given me strength. Reassured me.

H is quite simply the foundation of joy.

Ginger' Farm

2011-04-06T11:06:00.000-04:00

Now H and I are not into property ownership at all. In fact, it's almost become a point of honor for us to have a family and not own. We do have many philosophical reasons for this, as well as practical reasons. Our extreme leftist leanings (dare I say the C word) make property ownership a complicated matter. We don't believe that we have any right to own this kind of material, etc, etc. And then on the practical level...well we move a lot. And we don't really know where H is going to end up after the Ph.D. We've always known that we don't want to live in Charlotte, and despite having been here for 11 years this has always been a temporary stop for us.

But now...well now we are moving to a place that we both love. Each time we visit, it just gets better and better. And suddenly we're wondering if this will be the place we end up. H noted that a lot of the professors did their Ph.Ds at UGA so it is a possibility. And we find it a very pleasant possibility. So we started the discussion about buying. It's still a tentative discussion, and it involves lots of financial planning which we are not good at for various reasons. And of course it's dependent upon H finding a tenure track position in the area...and this is all several years down the road...

Yet last night and this morning, I started to browse real estate. And I found this farm. It's perfect. The house is eccentric and beautiful. I love the windows, the wood stove in the living room, the wide open kitchen. I love the cozy bedrooms and the little nooks upstairs. There are garden beds, and a hen house and a greenhouse. The big outbuilding would be perfect for company. There is room for animals. Horses and goats. I can imagine myself here for a good long time.

Funnily it's not the life I imagined for myself even last year but today it seems just right. Now to scrape up 400, 000.

Year of Pleasures 12

2011-04-05T10:49:00.000-04:00

Change.

I am scared of what the future holds, and there is a certain discomfort that comes from having no clue about what I'm going to do next year or for the rest of my life. But there is a pleasure in this wide openneess. There is a playfulness in being able to imagine oneself in all kinds of different roles. I feel like a child playing make believe as I indulge in "Maybe I could be..."

Last night as I walked, I thought of myself in about 10 different careers.

At the Bus Stop

2011-04-04T18:13:00.000-04:00

Today, insulated in my van with the air conditioning blowing, I stopped at the traffic light that is adjunct to a bus stop. Two men were talking. They were an unlikely pair. An old white guy with longish white hair and beard. A baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. The other man, young, black with a do-rag and earphones. They were laughing as they waited in the sweet breeze for the bus to haul in front of them.

I thought of a friend who had meet someone on the bus. Someone who became a friend of his wife, and whom I meet a hike. A wonderful person. And I thought of that meeting might not have happened if he drove to work like almost everyone else in this city.

And I wondered how my own world would look, I talked to random strangers at bus stops. If I unplugged myself from the insulation of private transportation. What stories would I be able to share if I sat at bus stops, and talked to unlikely strangers?

Creativity

2011-04-04T00:34:00.000-04:00

The beasties haven't been getting much in terms of formal education but as always they blow me away with what they do on their own. So often they just need a nudge from me. I am still not an unschooling convert but I get closer. I don't think I'll ever be a radical unschooler but I do think that when you give children a nudge and work on their own interest they are quite capable of doing things on their own.

So here's a taste of the girls' beasties projects of late.

A couple of friends recommended "My Neighbor Tortoro" which was a big hit with the beasties (and us!). Camille and Piper were immediately inspired to make lots of drawings. The top cat is Camille's work and the bottom two pictures are Piper's drawings. They also spent lots of time thinking about what it would be like to have Tortoro as a neighbor.

And as noted in my last post, we've been reading "Little House on the Prairie" and the girls spent most of Sunday morning playing covered wagon. They turned their bunk into a wagon, and Rowena into "Baby Carrie." They gathered all their toy pots and were cooking up mush and prairie hen hash before too long.

Umberto is still a hard one to please. But I did come up with a good idea, and H with another one. Between the two of us we might be able to get him more excited about slightly more intellectual pursuits. I'm going to introduce him to fan fiction to feed on his interest in all things Halo. H suggested that when he plays games that have a historical bent to push learning that era. So he got a game on the "Wild West" and sure enough is now super excited to learn more about Westward expansion. I'll keep everyone update on this all pans out.

"Why Don't You Like Indians, Ma?"

2011-04-02T10:57:00.000-04:00

For the last three days, I've been reading Little House on the Prairie to the beasties. I have fond memories of this book, and all the books in the series. Memories of creating covered wagons from bunk beds. Building log cabins from fallen branches. I longed to travel in a covered wagon. To build a homestead with crops and animals. It was, and is, a very appealing vision. As a friend commented to me, "They're basically the DIY books of that time period."

But as I read, I kept finding myself stumbling over racist images of Native peoples. Again and again. Ma doesn't like Indians. Ma has heard they'll be opening up Indian Territory soon to the settlers. Indians are red savages with Tomahawks. Pa knows about Indians because he knows about wild beasts. It's horrifying even when one knows that the books are dated. I find myself, stopping, and giving the beasties history lessons: "You know it was horrible when they opened this territory because this is where the Natives lived and we killed them to get their land." I talk to them about racist imagery and how problematic it is. And yes these are all good lessons but I do sometimes wonder if I should be reading these books to them. It's the problem with the classics (which is whole entry onto itself).

What bothers me is that I did not REMEMBER this racism from when I read the books as a child. I read them to myself not as a read aloud. There was no one to say "Whoa Ginger, that's a pretty horrible thing to say about another human being." I never questioned the imagery as either good or bad. I just soaked it up. And to me the fact that the racism is just an aside is what makes it so damn dangerous. When racism is presented in such a casual way it's easy to just kind of glide over it.

This kind of insidious racism presents "otherness" as almost natural. When a book's main focus was racist I did pick up on that as a child. But when it's just part of the background, you just don't think about it as much. It's there, nothing to worry about, folks, just keep reading about prairie life. I have to wonder now how much that books contributed to my ideas about Natives, and about settlers. Or rather how I could fantasize about moving West without ever pausing to think about what happened to those who already lived in the West. I know when I was 15 and playing "Oregon Trail" I never stopped to reflect much when my wagon was attacked by Indians. It wasn't until I was much older that I realized that the move West was a violent move both physically and culturally. Not only were bodies destroyed in the destructive wave of white settlers pushing their boundaries but Natives became symbolically pushed to further and further boundaries of what it meant to be human. And this violence lies in all the Little House books.

When I sit and read these books to my children, I find that I can not let this racism lie. I have to speak on it. I do not want this "otherness" to become naturalized to my children. Perhaps they will carry with them fond memories of play but also memories that such a time was not innocent and idyllic.

Earth

2011-03-29T12:02:00.001-04:00

When I was almost sixteen, I went to live with my dad. Things were falling apart in my life, and I was a broken person. I felt very small and very lost. My voice seemed buried under a web of lies and destruction--all self created. My dad's place was the only place left for me as I had busily burnt lots of bridges, and was unwilling, and perhaps a bit unable, to build them back up. My dad was gone a lot as was my step mom so the one summer I had there was pretty lonely. There was a big husky dog that I became attached to, and the garden.

My dad drove truck but I think at heart he was a farmer (still is). When I was little, he had a farm in the County with land, a small barn, and a wonderful old farm house. He was planting organic crops long before it became trendy. I used to read his issues of Mother Earth News. He planted a garden that summer even though he was on the road most of the time, and it became my job to look after that small plot of vegetables. I watered the growing plants, picked worms and bugs off of the leaves, weeded. It was hard work, and I grumbled but the grumbling was more a pretense. There was something important about keeping those young plants alive, and it became a way to keep myself alive.

As the years went on, I begin to dream of the city. The academic life beckoned to me and I forgot about plants. I created a person who did not like the earth or to grow things. I embraced a self that loved the city and the conveince of buying food in markets. I cracked jokes about that garden that summer even though those jokes made me cringe a bit inside. I never told anyone how it was maybe that garden that kept me from killing myself that lonely summer. As I had children and became more concerned about our food, I made some tentative plans to grow things but I always let it fall away. I sometimes gave voice to my longings for maybe a small farm someday.

When we found the small house, I was very excited to see plots in the front and back yards. I began to make plans for flower bed, herb circles, and vegetable plots. I was hurting and again the call to grow something in the dirt seemed a way to heal (not I should add that I want to die, this pain is very different). I decided to start early and grow some things in containers on our patio. And as I nurtured the tiny seedlings and then replanted them in pots, I felt the calming prayer that came with each little bit of hope.

Year of Pleasures 11

2011-03-24T11:01:00.000-04:00

My beautiful old carrier, the one that carried Piper, had a big rip in the front. It didn't effect the integrity of the carrier but the carrier itself was starting to do a number on my back. Piper had not wanted to be worn much past six months whereas R loves being carried and loses all kinds of cool in the stroller. I wanted to start walking as well and since that is only likely to happen with R I had to figure out a way to carry her that wasn't going to destroy my back.

Enter the structured carrier. I have friends who swear by them but I didn't care for the look. They seemed too bulky and too...well, structured. I was a big fan of rolling my Mei Tai into a ball and tossing it into my diaper bag. I felt like they were more like the back pack carriers and that they would feel awkward being worn while doing dishes.

But then came R's escape attempt. My dear baby managed to get her foot on one of the straps that go around my waist, and using that as leverage she pushed herself up and out of the carrier. Luckily Umberto was behind me and held onto her while I got the sling off. It really freaked me out and I didn't use the sling with any kind of comfort afterwards. I asked for recommendations and kept getting "Becco." A structured carrier.

After looking at the Becco it was clear that it was designed to keep a baby inside. I knew I'd feel secure having her in a back carry (by far my favorite carry). There were other structured carriers out there but I like the looks of the Becco Gemini. It has several attractive features including a side carry option. It is designed to work from newborn to toddler. It has this option head rest that can be snapped down in case baby wants to check out the world. I swallowed deeply and ordered the carrier (it wasn't cheap).

I got it yesterday and it's amazing. Everything I wanted. I couldn't believe how comfortable it was and R loved it.

Domestic Ginger Fails Again

2011-03-23T13:31:00.000-04:00

My imagined alter ego, Domestic Ginger, is exiting almost purely in the imagination. At times she makes an appearance and sweeps through our apartment with super like powers but mostly I just stomp her down. Today for instance. I got up with great intentions but I foolishly got on the computer, got wrapped up in some issue and before I knew it it was late. I did make my grocery list and responded to some students but really I did nothing. Now R is asleep on my lap and I need to shower and get to the store before five. And as usual I sit here feeling guilty, lazy, and unmotivated.

Why oh why Ginger can you just not be productive? There are so many excuses. R hasn't really slept in three days so I'm tired. I'm emotionally upset about a few things and just want to sort of stew in my misery over them. I feel done with the old house and want to move onto the new. I feel like then I can start a whole new life in which I will be super motivated and June Cleaver like.

Over the weekend I did an experiment where I didn't get on the computer until the evening. It was kind of awesome how much I got done. But it also sucked because cleaning all day is not my idea of a good time. But I kept thinking that if I could just motivate myself to do this each day it wouldn't take all day because things wouldn't reach critical mass of nastiness.

But I stopped doing it Monday. In my own defense I did need to be on the computer in order to get some work done. And of course once I got on, I had to partake of my crack book addiction. And now it's Wednesday and my house is trashed again.

This is the story of my life in some many ways, and I can't help but wonder if this laziness is the reason why I didn't get accepted to a Ph.D program. And it sort of haunts me each time I look at the papers scattered over the floor, or the books that R just pulled off the shelf. Perhaps if I wasn't such a lazy scholar I would be happily looking forward to a starting a program. If I had studied to the GREs, actually applied myself I might have scored higher. If I had just put more work into my SOP. If I read more. If I hadn't procrastinated on my papers. In other words, if I could just focus on things and dedicated myself to them would I not just be better? Because somewhere I do believe that so much of the crap, failure in my life is due to me and my inability to focus on things.

Vocation

2011-03-22T14:37:00.000-04:00

When I was in Jr. High, our English teacher, no doubt ad libbing, brought in a copy of "What Color is Your Parachute." Being 8th graders, we had an uproariously good time mocking the cheesiness of the book while secretly loving the orderly way we could mark of what fit our personalities. How simple it seemed to just hit a bunch of boxes and like magic there was a career suggestion. I no longer remember what the book suggested I do but I do remember going home that afternoon with a slightly panicked feeling that "OMG the whole future is before me and I NEED TO FIND A CAREER." And it was an oppressive feeling of being trapped. It followed me for a few weeks before it disapated as new concerns, like why don't boys like me, replaced it.

But now I feel this terror again. I am almost 39 and all the plans I have made for myself have fallen apart. Not all at once but slowly over time. I wanted to be a writer from about six to 22. That didn't quite pan out. Then I thought I'd become a Special Education teacher because I seemed okay at teaching and it would get me a job. I realized that this career choice while practical filled me that kind of oppressive dread mentioned above so I changed my major the first day of classes to English. And from that moment on, even when I switched to Religious Studies, I foresaw my future as a professor. There were other silly fantasies built around this...a small cottage home, one or two children, a community of intellectuals coming over for dinner and genial discussion.

And now that dream is sort of flopping around in its death throes outside the door.

Life happened in some glorious ways to change that dream. I have four beasties not two well behaved intellectual children. No my children are wild, wonderful, creative, chaotic, clever, and wise. I do not live in a cottage some delicious New England college town. I did marry the brainy guy (bonus that he's hot), and I have read many wonderful books and have many wonderful challenging conversations. BUT....

What do I do now? I am bitter. I admit it. And it's hard to make a choice when you feel bitter. I think I wold love midwifery but worry that I am too old. That we can't afford the course. That I will never find child care for this crazy lifestyle. These worries blend into a real sense of loss that hits me when I'm teaching or talking to Horacio about some Lacain point of theory. When I'm on campus and I see the professors sitting in their offices, giving talks, having their books on display, I feel a deep sadness that this might not ever be me. But when I think about pursing a Ph.D, it feels like a heavy weight. Yes I am scared of further rejection. I do not wish to move my family again nor make H apply for programs while he is the midst of his program. I could do something else at UGA. But there is no joy in these thoughts.

Last night as I was driving home from school, I was in the midst of one those painful moments. There was a talk on campus where everyone in religious studies but me was gathered. One of those who went told me the speaker had waxed on about how a Ph.D got you into places. And oh those words brought a wave of sadness and anger and helplessness. Would I be nothing because I didn't have this degree? But suddenly from the corner of my eye, I saw that a set of office buildings near me had a for lease sign, and I thought, unbidden "If we were still going to be here that would be a great office for a midwife." And the thought lifted up on the lightest of wings.

Year of Pleasures 10

2011-03-22T11:29:00.001-04:00

Little houses. This is my new home. We signed the lease on Friday and we'll be moving in in July. I am so in love with my future little houses that I fantasy with the help of Ikea about how I'm going to get us all to fit into the little house. Umberto has decided he wants his own room so I'm using in my insomnia to plan on how I'm going to organize toys and shelves. I'm looking forward to living our principle and commitment to living in a simple way but I'm also scared. Will we kill each other with too much closeness? When I think about this morning, sitting on the couch with the beasties spread out in the living room, I think we'll be okay. We like cozy. And we have the huge lawn in front and a yard in back complete with garden beds. Our experience will take some work and some lessons in respect and the need for privacy. We will have to develop creative ways of craving out space for our projects. But I knew this was our home when we first pulled up. It's right. It fits us.

Over On the Other Blog...

2011-03-22T11:16:00.002-04:00

There is a post...trying to catch up this week...lots to write about...

Spinning

2011-03-22T11:14:00.000-04:00

This Moment

2011-03-12T00:29:00.000-05:00

Year of Pleasures 9

2011-03-12T00:27:00.000-05:00

Road tripping with the beasties. Okay so it's not always a pleasure while in the car although there are moments...like when Umberto decided the giant peach in Gaffney SC looked like a butt and we all chortled for a few minutes. There's lots of singing to punk and indie bands. But what I really love is how the kids so dig being in new places. They love walking around and seeing new things. They're game for all kinds of adventures even just exploring. And they really love hotels. I always joke that we could spend a week in the hotel down the road and they'd think it was a vacation. But I love that the beasties appreciate these moments that suspended from "real" life even if it's just for a weekend.