mamalution

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2011-11-10T17:40:00.002-05:00

Fine- A Library Poem

2011-09-14T23:08:00.007-05:00

Fine- A Library Poem

by Jennifer Johnson

I confess.

We left them in the yard.

On the bench.

In the rain.

Atop the bowl of sunflower seeds.

We had built a fort

from sheets and twine.

We had a lunch of tomatoes and beans.

Shared water from my father’s old canteen

and talked of climbing, cake, the wind.

Our stack included:

Curious George goes to the Hospital

The Bad Day

And this one here about swamp monsters. (fittingly as it is soaked)

We read and we read (Oh how we read!)

It grew dark

and thundery.

There was rushing.

The forgetting of things.

Two days passed.

Please charge me the $17.10 to replace the books.

Please remove the snarl from your face

and the loudness in your voice

as you share our misfortune with other patrons

who are good about these things.

They do not know about our magical day.

They would never understand.

Opening Day

2010-04-24T22:18:00.022-05:00

It was opening day of the T-ball league we had joined.
The sky was sunny.
The whole town was readying itself for the big parade and opening day festivities. There would be a band.
There would be a snack bar.
There would be hoards of kids strolling the streets of Kenilworth.
There would be our family members lining the street cheering. Then the first game.

We had signed Jackson up back in February-
The call had come in the way it always does: my dear sister- with an invitation.
Our sons are so close in age- I know we both had imagined being able to have them be together at things.
So we could be together too.
I am aware that when my sister called with the T-ball news, that I felt a quick blast of no, just a whiff of it really, and that I didn’t stay with it long enough to investigate it.
I know that when I told my husband Chris his face lit up at the prospect of having his son play ball.
Somewhere in the minute between the phone ringing and my initial gut feeling, I second-guessed my no and hovered somewhere, caught between my sister’s well-meaning invitation, and my own deep intuition.

We had been through this half a dozen times- day camps, art classes, trips, and I had heretofore been able to successfully field the slight disapproval coming from my sister.
Brush it off.
Chris asked Jackson if he wanted to play and Jackson said, quite pleasantly, “no”. Chris asked again- “why not?”
"Because, Daddy, it just isn’t something I want to do" and with that, Jackson went back to drawing his volcanoes.
Charlotte, our daughter, chimed in with “I want to play!”- which was no surprise to any of us. She thrives on being with people- just being around other people's energies, she comes alive.
Not so with Jack.
Chris tried a specific question “is it that you don’t want to throw or wear a uniform?”
And, again, beautifully,thoughtfully, Jack responded “No, I just don’t want to be on a team and do baseball games”.

At this point, the phone is still in my hand. There is too much going on in this room for me to hear that original no that had arisen in me earlier.

Now comes Chris's hard sell- "Well, what if it is only practice- and you don’t have to do it if you don’t like it- would you try it?" And Jackson,for who-knows-what reason, agrees. This could be the most painful moment of the whole thing: Jackson's Yes, coming as it does after we have not listened to that first clear 'no'- both his 'no' and ours.

It takes five missed practices, nearly an hour conversation with my sister- in which I actually allow my nephew to get on the phone & ask (read: guilt) Jackson about why he doesn't want to come to the team anymore. (Wait- could this be the most painful moment to recall? Possibly.)
Chris, who is out of town the week preceding opening day, sighs heavily into the phone when I tell him we missed the practice again. My sister seems annoyed, can't see how we could have spent the $200 only to have him QUIT. She says "how can he know what he wants?"
When I say, not expecting an answer, "he just doesn't want to- what can you do?" she says, answering my non-question, "Put him in the car." I think she actually means I should PUT him in the car. Like with my body. I try to conjure an image of this and feel like I have left my own body. I feel woozy and have to hang up. I think my sister is actually disgusted with me.

For a full day, I am more than a little lost.
I reach around inside myself feeling for that original no .
Ahh...there it is. The knowledge that we would be exactly here.
That Jackson is not a t-ball team player. Not now.
That it was never going to fit for him now.
I pace the kitchen.

And then it all shifts.
I hear him first and I wander outside following the sound.
There is my son.
In the garage with his Daddy's saw, sawing furiously at a VERY thick piece of wood, just about to saw through. He has been at this a while.
He is intent.
He is working, he is playing, he is alive.
I realize then that I knew all along how my child looks when he is most alive. I know when he loves something- when he is thrilled to try something.
I know him but more than that, I know that he knows himself.
He has always been free to decide what makes him feel alive (while this has only been true for me in recent years).
He will turn 6 this May, and he is clearer about his own nos - his own knowing- than his 37 year old mother.
With this return to myself, brought about by seeing my child delight in his woodworking, I felt a huge sense of relief.
I called Chris in Hawaii- told him what I had remembered about our son, about myself, about our life, and he sighed. This time, a sigh of relief.
We don't just unschool our kids, we live a life with them that is about trusting one another's deepest experience.
We practice allowing ourselves to be known- not only to one another, but to ourselves. Here the kids are our best teachers.
Our opening is like dilation in childbirth- We go through these spaces of breathing, then there is constriction. We lose ourselves for a moment, then there is the dilation and we are moved more fully into ourselves. Into our life.

So on our best days, there is a spiraling downward and inward and then a spiraling back up and outward. A dilation followed by a constriction- wherein all things are just setting, and seeping into us so we get it more deeply.
Then further dilation, spreading outward into our family.

There is pain.
But, like childbirth, it is good pain.

And so here is what happened on opening day:
Jackson spent the morning making his onion grass soup. Collecting twigs, leaves, dandelions, onion grass from the yard, mixing in a little dirt, and then coming into the kitchen for some carrots, asparagus, and some old spinach.
There was a big pot.
There was filling the pot with water from the garden hose.
There was a little boy, loving being alive.
There was his mother, no band music to accompany the scene, no banner a-waving, watching him create his own parade.

Most of all, there was the remembering: that in this, our spacious unschooling life, every day is opening day.
And all we really ever need to do is show up.

Seeing

2009-11-08T00:03:00.013-05:00

This is my first writing about Maggie, our sweet dog who came to us in 2001- just after 9/11. Maggie was my first dog as an adult. Our family had dogs my whole life for the most part, and though I adored them, I think I considered them siblings. They were mine, but they belonged to others equally. With Maggie, there was an immediate sense of connection, of belonging. I wouldn't know the depths of that connection until a few months after I lost her to cancer.

She and I met online (she under her rescue name: Autumn) and though she looked like a terrified, bony mess I fell in deep dog love with her. Who can explain the subtle connections that form between those who love-especially when they are members of different species? I surely was not the most attractive candidate out there in adoption land- however, I think I may have been the only one eyeing this mange ridden scaredy-dog and thinking what a catch she was. She had been an owner release- she and her brother were brought in and her brother was so aggressive he was deemed unadoptable and euthanized. Maggie came in starving with a choke chain collar grown into the skin around her neck. The story was that she was severely neglected, had never been in a house, and was probably protected from abuse by her brother. It was pretty horrible to hear her history. Oh, but her eyes- I felt her in my belly and in my chest when I looked at her picture on the website. I knew her.

After we'd exchanged a few emails, we made arrangements to meet at a nearby PetSmart, and after only a half an hour, we decided to make our relationship permanent (I, of course, knew it would go that way- but Chris at the time thought it was just a first meeting). We bought her a green collar, some dry dog food and then, we brought her home. The first night I spent with her she fearfully shook the twin bed we had in our tiny spare bedroom all through the night. I think I had one or two moments of doubt that first night as I realized that this maybe wasn't everything I thought it would be. She smelled really bad, couldn't accept any of the comforting I was prepared to give and thought our cats were monsters looming in the darkness. She peed when Chris or I raised our voices to one another - and we were doing lots of that in that first part of our marriage- and she seemed so anxious that I didn't know how to help her. People came over and met her and said "Oh. Are you sure she's ok?" and the most painful to hear: "This isn't shy, this is post traumatic stress disorder."

Slowly, though, she began to realize we were not going hurt her and a tiny space inside her opened up. I could see it in her eyes and her walk. We were relieved. So was she I think.

There were some medical issues- apparently, the surgeon at Animal Control in Trenton had performed her spay and left surgical material inside her pelvis. This was not realized until we had erroneously treated her for sarcoptic mange 4 times (which involves the dog being "dipped" in some horribly smelling sulphur concoction in an effort to kill these microscopic bugs). One night her belly incision simply split open and she found herself once again undergoing surgery.

When she came back to us after the surgery, we had to start all over with her. I felt her pain so much about being abandoned by us at the clinic the morning she went for the surgery- I could barely work.

Somewhere between October of 2001 and the following spring, Maggie came to life. She was estimated to be about 3 years old at that time. We moved into a great apartment together and she got to hang in the backyard with me while I read books and smoked cigarettes. My sister and I taught her to bark- (quite a sight to see I am sure) which was something she had never ever done since we had brought her home. She realized that a ball was for catching, leashes meant walks, and clementines were for sharing. Ours was the classic story of love conquering fear- and we were so glad to be with one another.

The next few years, Maggie became the den mother to many rescued or foster animals - canine and feline alike. She tolerated psycho puppies, maniac cats, dog-aggressive dogs, and two human houseguests who sang Karaoke on our porch until 2am. Both of them claimed to love her as much as we did. Maggie became all heart. She loved and was loved. She was in such deep relationship with me that I would merely think of something like a walk, and she would know. She came on trips with us, she was on my bed with me as I gave birth to my first child in 2004 and my second in 2006.

And so- you must have guessed that this part of the story was coming- in fall of 2008, Maggie had developed a limp. She was probably about 10 at the time but very young at heart. Because of her limp, we kept her home from the yearly Blessing of the Animals that was held at the park across the street from our house. (This would irrationally torture me for a long while.) Two weeks later she was diagnosed with a horrible cancer that took over her whole body. Two weeks after that, after a night in which she (and I alongside her) paced the house and cried because the pain pills weren't staving off the pain as we had been promised they would, we decided that we needed to euthanize her. We brought the kids with us to the vet's office, but the vets would only allowed Jackson to stay (mostly because he calmly refused to leave me).

I felt her leave her body following the injections and I wept.

Jackson watched everything and he said he felt it too.

Charlotte, months later, came to me spontaneously one morning with giant tears and said "I never said goodbye to Maggie". She was right- she hadn't. In our heartbreak, we hadn't considered her reaction fully- otherwise I would have insisted she stay. So we cried and held eachother for many days, until we one day just said it together"Goodbye Maggie" and we cried some more together. Then Charlotte was done with that part of her experience.

A year later I am just beginning to discover all of the layers in the relationship I shared with my beloved Mags. In this way, Maggie's spirit is still with me- she teaches me still. What I learned is that it is possible to share deep loving with another being. I learned that I can just be still and still be seen. Seen on an emotional and spiritual level- not just seen with someone's eyes. I don't have to turn cartwheels or take care of anybody to get loved. That is what Maggie was trying to teach me from the first night she came home- stop doing, and just be with me. Be with me as I shake, as I fear, as I practice trust. I learned how to do it for her and I thereby learned how to give it to myself. This kind of deep loving was something that had been in short supply in my life- though some might be surprised to know that. With Maggie it didn't matter if I was smart or did something stupid. I could be useless or productive, kind-hearted in my dealings with the world or mean spirited and small minded. Over the years we were together, I lost my way a few times, felt more than scared about my life. She lay at my feet as I struggled with fears about my own health and my total scare about being sick and dying and leaving my kids without me. It was the simplicity of our contract that was so nourishing. I feel like she saw some essence in me- something I never even really saw (or forgot I knew about) in myself. My me-ness. The requirement for our relationship was this: show up, give and receive love (which is much easier when you allow yourself to be seen). In that way she reminded me of my grandmother - who I lost in 1995. She was one of the other beings in my life who truly saw me and who allowed herself to be seen by me. I think I cried as hard about losing her as I did about Maggie. Actually I think it may have all been the same big cry. From the same hole in my heart.

When we were looking for a dog, I looked at probably 600 ads. I am so glad I answered Maggie's. I am grateful for each moment that I get to remember her and feel her presence in my life. I get lots of chances to do that. When there is lightning and rain, when I throw a tennis ball to our newest canine family member and she unabashedly leaps for it, when I feel sun on my face in the fall. I am practicing what she taught me: loving fully, seeing and being seen. I- thankfully, finally- have come to realize that it was she who rescued me, not the other way around.

Love Lessons

2009-10-03T23:30:00.030-05:00

post moved

Clothesline

2009-07-25T19:14:00.007-05:00

Clothesline

Blue jeans with stubborn garden dirt
clinging to the cuffs. Waist 38.
Three pairs of dinosaur pajamas-
little wild boy stains down the front of each.
Sweet polka dot two piece
no bigger than the placemat it's pinned to.
My own favorite white tee announcing
to the family of sparrows over the garage
"not all who wander are lost"
as if the birds didn't already know.

Faded red placemats, underwear for us all.
A green and yellow gauze skirt
clings desperately to sturdy brown walking shorts.
A dozen napkins rise and flap together like doves.

Held fast by beautiful invention,
-how we love our purposeful things-
these, our random suburban prayer flags,
surrender to July heat.

We add ours to the colorful others-
in varied poignant stages of exposure-
crossing rivers and valleys in Kathmandu;
our denim and gauze variety no less sacred
for having covered our bodies
while we work & grow.
Standing in the mowed grass,
arms lifted to the noonday sun,
we arrive at this line and offer wishes for the world.
This is how we pray.

Location, Location

2009-03-29T23:10:00.006-05:00

First, the big medical update.

I don't know how to say this, but, ummm...........there is nothing wrong with me.

Yes- that's right. Nothing.

Turns out I had what could be termed an "overdose" reaction to some Chinese herbal medication prescribed for me back in May and June of 2008.

Totally fucked with my hormonal system, which in turn caused killer migraine, vertigo, anxiety, motion sickness, photosensitivity to fluorescent lighting, and last but not least, chin hair. Not shin hair, CHIN hair. One actual hair. In the same place. I will not say more about it.

So what I should say is that everything is right with me. My body was reacting just the way it should have to something weird and not ok.

I began to feel better toward the end of this year, and got confirmation of the situation from a very wonderful acupuncturist my mother in law recommended. This acupuncturist, Edith Lee, also specializes in herbal medicine. She looked at my prescription from the TCM clinic and she told me what symptoms I had probably been having. She was totally right on.

I feel such relief, I feel so sad for the lost time, I feel so amazed that I found myself in this place where I was questioning everything about how I do my life.

Thank you to the woman who wrote the wrong dosage on the label of that brown bottle. Was her name Betty? I think it was.

Dear Betty-
Thank you for introducing me to Now. I am grateful. I am hoping I don't forget everything I remembered.
Yours,
Jennifer

The Labyrinth

2008-12-13T20:05:00.004-05:00

http://www.crystalinks.com/labyrinths.html

A labyrinth is an ancient symbol that relates to wholeness. It combines the imagery of the circle and the spiral into a meandering but purposeful path. It represents a journey to our own center and back again out into the world. Labyrinths have long been used as meditation and prayer tools. A labyrinth is an archetype with which we can have a direct experience. Walking the labyrinth can be considered an initiation in which one awakens the knowledge encoded within their DNA.
A labyrinth contains non-verbal, implicate geometric and numerological prompts that create a multi-dimensional holographic field. These unseen patterns are referred to as sacred geometry. They allegeldy reveal the presence of a cosmic order as they interface the world of material form and the subtler realms of higher consciousness.The contemporary resurgence of labyrinths in the west is stemmimg from our deeply rooted urge to honor again the Sacredness of All Life. A labyrinth can be experienced as the birthing womb of the Great Goddess. Thus, the labyrinth experience is a potent practice of Self-Integration as it encapsulates the spiraling journey in and out of incarnation. On the journey in, towards the center, one cleanses the dirt from the road. On the journey out, one is born anew to consciously dwell in a human body, made holy by having got a taste of the Infinite Center.

This is from a fast google search.

And here is my poem about my second labyrinth experience.

October 2008

My Charlotte sways, her music mind
talking to trees, hands in pockets.
Collecting stones, twigs, small dark things for finding later.
She is a wild sweep of circles,
footsteps turning inward and out.
waltzing onto a path, between blades of gray grass.
She is hiding from her own shadow-
Now she crosses mine.

Jackson watches, measures something only he can.
All at once he finds himself and loses himself.
If you weren’t paying close attention you wouldn’t know it happened:
a slight change in his face, mostly his brow-
a relinquishing of something old that didn’t belong to him to begin with.
Locating himself in relation to sky, tree, long stone wall.
I have always been his compass point-he, my orbiting moon.

Their father walks the path like he has done this before
But fears someone will notice he hasn’t.
If he let all the combustible joy in his chest out,
he would stumble,
and so he holds it puts one foot in front of the other.
There is song and there is calculation
there is a scared kind of wandering.
He exits triumphantly.

I enter the exit path, something pulling deep in my chest.
I watch myself intently, sparrow-walk backwards out.
Breathe.
Start over, enter at the entrance, follow all of them,
Half of me already writing this poem,
I greet myself halfway through.
I won’t let the heat out of my eyes, feel it dissolve.
I am peacefully terrified. Here we are walking,
my boots making contact with stone.

Little things

2008-12-10T00:20:00.004-05:00

Here is what I know to be true:

I am excellent at hiding.

I think my haircut is awful.

I don't know much.

I really love dark belgian chocolate.

I am susceptible to serious fears about the world.

I need more yoga.

I need more space in me.

I cannot stand most Christmas music.

I am writing this instead of really writing.

I am tired.

Do Not Try This at Home

2008-08-29T19:48:00.008-05:00

Drop in to your body for a second. If you need to, close your eyes. Start at the top of your head - or at your feet- wherever you feel like starting. In your mind's eye, begin to scan your body. You are looking for sensation. Pressure, tightness, beating, holding, tingling, heat, cold, openness, jumpiness. Maybe you are clenching a muscle. Maybe your heart is racing. Maybe you are feeling tight in your chest. Report your experience silently to yourself or out loud if you need to.

Go back to the one sensation that is the most prominent for you. Bring your awareness to that place in your body. Keep your attention on it for a few moments- allow yourself to be curious about it. Notice what you feel when you approach that place. Notice the thoughts that arise when you go near that part of you. Notice what you do to avoid going toward that place. If you feel terror about going into that space, notice that, and see if there is a part of you that feels curiosity. See if you can negotiate with the terror part and get a bit closer to the space. Maybe there is a part of you that would like to know, or a part of you that would just like to observe. Make sure you are still breathing. See if you can breathe into that part of your body that you noticed - no matter if it is in your neck or your hands or your belly. Just allow your breath to go near that place. Notice what happens to the sensation when you join your body in that space. Notice the feelings that arise when you are there. Notice the thoughts. Notice the tone of voice in your thoughts. Notice how your thoughts create a wall around the space and prevent you from looking in. Or, notice how part of you really wants to go into the center of the sensation. How the terrified (or nervous, or scolding, or judgemental) part of you wants you to just go back to talking about work, or the election or the upcoming weekend.

Look underneath the sensation. See it with your mind's eye. What is there? What does this sensation want to say? What does it most need? As you ask the sensation these questions, notice what other feelings and sensations arise within you. See if you can stay with one sensation and inquire about it. If a competing sensation or thought tugs at your awareness, notice it. Name it. Maybe it is a part of you that doesn't want this inquiry. Maybe there is a part of you that is saying stop. Maybe a part of you wants to communicate something else. Allow for this. Make room in your mind for all your parts.

What happens there in the intersection between your body, your mind and you? Where are you in all of this? Are you the sensation? Are you the thought you are having about the sensation? Or are you observing this from some other vantage point? How do you know the difference?

First Farmer's Market

2008-08-12T21:56:00.007-05:00

At the Summit Farmer's Market with Chris and the kids. Discovering Indian Cucumbers, white eggplant, breakfast radishes, pickles on sticks, puppies, farmers in trucks, holding hands, conserving money, sun protection, how to wander around aimlessly, good cheese, where things come from. A lovely slice of unschooling life and a Sunday morning well spent.

Sunday Night

2008-08-10T18:58:00.008-05:00

It is Sunday night. The kids are asleep. The cat is at the window. These tomatoes taste so sweet. I am craving chocolate.
So.
I have had a clear MRI. No structural brain issues. No brain tumor.
The 24-hour sleep-deprived EEG with photic stimulation. Normal. No seizure disorder.
The Electronystagmogram. Also normal- so no inner ear involvement. (I don't totally buy this).
Our working diagnosis: Migraine Associated Vertigo.

An excellent article.

I go for my breast check tomorrow- I think I have a cyst. I am hoping that it is nothing serious. I am trying not to think that I have been panicked about the wrong ailment. I don't feel panicked- but mainly because while I was on the Google train I discovered that breast cancer is normally not painful. My breast is very tender and the spot where I think there is a cyst was hurting. Ugh. I have no idea where things will go with this. Maybe all my dizziness and craziness was just a rehearsal for the big diagnosis just around the corner. Maybe I am just being given an opportunity to prepare my mind for some really hard shit..................

ALL ABOARD-!!!!!!!!!! Next stop- Double Mastectomy! See how it works? I bet you didn't even hear the whistle.

I am so fucking tired of being in my body- noticing every little thing. As I write this, I am realizing that this is precisely what I have needed to learn. How I have struggled with this- I never even knew what it meant until about 5 years ago. I find that when I can be in my body I am so much more able to be in relationship- with myself, those I love, those I am trying to help. I am so grateful for my Gestalt training- I think it is really enabling me to use this whole experience (at least during the parts that I wasn't freaking the fuck out).

May I take a moment to describe the exquisite focus that comes when contemplating your own death? The mixture of panic, fear, grief, anger and sometimes, in a strange way, acceptance? It is a room that you decorate with all your thoughts, fears, unfinished business. It is familiar to you and you are drawn to it, but when you are in that room nothing else exists.
It is also very hard to leave.
I will probably forget what this has felt like.
But I hope I don't.

Throughout this process, my biggest fear was leaving my kids-it still is my biggest fear really, just not as intense as it was before.
Will living with this fear help me realize how many ways and how many times a day I leave my children mentally- to check my email, to clean up some mess, to wish something is unfolding differently than it actually is? I hope so.

I was out to dinner with a neighbor couple about a year and a half ago -the woman was dealing with some crazy scary medical stuff that eventually turned out to be Lupus. They have triplets who were 4 at the time, and a 3 year old. Rather matter of factly, over a shared appetizer, she told me she knew her kids would not remember her if she died in the near future. I remember feeling as though a big giant hole opened inside my belly when she said this. I can feel it now even as I write. It is imponderable to me. Is that a word? If not, it should be. I could think of nothing to say.

So. I am still operating at about 40-60% of my usual life-energy. I have experimented with this by driving home from the doctor (the farthest and longest I have driven in weeks). I did ok. Last night, I went to Barnes & Noble. Alone. The night driving was weirding me out a bit, and being in the store I would say I felt half as weird as I felt those times in the drugstore and in the thrift shop when I actually had to leave. I am off the Prednisone. What a crazy fucking drug. It helped me function, but it was like I was putting on this mask of okayness for 6 weeks. I finally had to come off at 20 mg because it was making my heart race.

As of now, I have been taking Lorazepam for two weeks or so- only .5mg- and feeling like a total pillhead. I tried going without it this past week and was knocked on my ass by a mammoth headache the likes of which I have never seen. My doc thinks that taking the Lorazepam will help with the dizziness feeling (it does, indeed) while my body continues to come off the Prednisone. He initially prescribed it (at my request) for the fucking panic that I went into the moment I heard the words Brain MRI. I didn't take one today just as an experiment and felt mildly like shit all day. So. I continue to feel as though somebody is missing something. Although the MAV diagnosis does fit me, I am not excited about the prospect of lifelong dependence on medication.

More importantly, I am aware of how quickly I have returned to the old arrogance about my life. I finally hear that I am not going to die (OF ANY MAJOR ILLNESS RIGHT NOW) and I busy myself being pissed that I might have to do something unpleasant to be able to live fully.

I haven't had chocolate in 4 days. In the past few weeks I have discovered some strength I didn't know I had. Not that giving up chocolate is like donating a kidney or anything. But I turned off my smoking switch back before this all began by getting fucking real with myself for the first time in a long time. Some day I may post the letter I wrote that helped me do that. Now I am giving up chocolate in the hopes that it was triggering this Migraine shit. I am just amazed at how I am managing to do this. I wouldn't have thought myself capable. I will do anything to hang around until my body can't hang around anymore. And I know I have to do everything I can to make sure that I honor this vessel that is my body.

I love being alive. I love learning how to be who it is I am. I have never been so awake in my life. I feel like I was asleep for so long.

(One of my favorite authors asked at the Omega Adventure of Being Alive conference: What if the question is not why am I so infrequently the person I want to be, but rather, why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am? A good question, no?)

I also must note that I am aware of this: Today, thousands of people- mothers, babies, children, fathers, grandmothers- are suffering in places far away from me. (Suffering is everywhere, really, though, isn't it?) I cannot do too much to alleviate that suffering- except to support people who will work toward peace and cultivate peacefulness in my own life. (Some would argue that I could do more- they are probably right.)

I am aware that my current struggle is nothing compared to what people in our world are facing right this minute. I still cannot get out of my mind one particular scene in The Translator, a book about Darfur, that describes the most horrifying of all experiences I have read about in human history. Here is the link for the book.

I know that I am here, in my red house, with my food, with my animals, my sleeping babies, and my blog and my laundry hopping in the washer. I remember when I was doing Save the Children and corresponding with the father of the child I had sponsored. The organization's guidelines for sponsors suggested not referencing family pets because this is a concept that those in extreme poverty cannot understand- how we keep and feed animals who exist in our lives for no other reason than that we feel good to have them around. I can remember finding it very hard to find anything to write that didn't make me feel like a priveleged white woman from AMERICA who is sheilded from any real suffering. But, that is what I am- at least on paper. In my heart (and I am not saying this counts for anything at all because there is no way to measure these things) I am connected to others suffering. I try to use my pain. The practice of Tonglen, which I return to every once in a while, helped me a great deal to feel as though I was connecting, in whatever small or large way, with human suffering.

This may have been my most important learning of all during this.

An article about Tonglen:

From Shambhala.org:

"THE PRACTICE OF TONGLEN
In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves. In particular, to care about other people who are fearful, angry, jealous, overpowered by addictions of all kinds, arrogant, proud, miserly, selfish, mean —you name it— to have compassion and to care for these people, means not to run from the pain of finding these things in ourselves. In fact, one's whole attitude toward pain can change. Instead of fending it off and hiding from it, one could open one's heart and allow oneself to feel that pain, feel it as something that will soften and purify us and make us far more loving and kind. The tonglen practice is a method for connecting with suffering —ours and that which is all around us— everywhere we go. It is a method for overcoming fear of suffering and for dissolving the tightness of our heart. Primarily it is a method for awakening the compassion that is inherent in all of us, no matter how cruel or cold we might seem to be. We begin the practice by taking on the suffering of a person we know to be hurting and who we wish to help. For instance, if you know of a child who is being hurt, you breathe in the wish to take away all the pain and fear of that child. Then, as you breathe out, you send the child happiness, joy or whatever would relieve their pain. This is the core of the practice: breathing in other's pain so they can be well and have more space to relax and open, and breathing out, sending them relaxation or whatever you feel would bring them relief and happiness. However, we often cannot do this practice because we come face to face with our own fear, our own resistance, anger, or whatever our personal pain, our personal stuckness happens to be at that moment. At that point you can change the focus and begin to do tonglen for what you are feeling and for millions of others just like you who at that very moment of time are feeling exactly the same stuckness and misery. Maybe you are able to name your pain. You recognize it clearly as terror or revulsion or anger or wanting to get revenge. So you breathe in for all the people who are caught with that same emotion and you send out relief or whatever opens up the space for yourself and all those countless others. Maybe you can't name what you're feeling. But you can feel it —a tightness in the stomach, a heavy darkness or whatever. Just contact what you are feeling and breathe in, take it in —for all of us and send out relief to all of us. People often say that this practice goes against the grain of how we usually hold ourselves together. Truthfully, this practice does go against the grain of wanting things on our own terms, of wanting it to work out for ourselves no matter what happens to the others. The practice dissolves the armor of self-protection we've tried so hard to create around ourselves. In Buddhist language one would say that it dissolves the fixation and clinging of ego. Tonglen reverses the usual logic of avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure and, in the process, we become liberated from a very ancient prison of selfishness. We begin to feel love both for ourselves and others and also we being to take care of ourselves and others. It awakens our compassion and it also introduces us to a far larger view of reality. It introduces us to the unlimited spaciousness that Buddhists call shunyata. By doing the practice, we begin to connect with the open dimension of our being. At first we experience this as things not being such a big deal or so solid as they seemed before. Tonglen can be done for those who are ill, those who are dying or have just died, or for those that are in pain of any kind. It can be done either as a formal meditation practice or right on the spot at any time. For example, if you are out walking and you see someone in pain —right on the spot you can begin to breathe in their pain and send some out some relief. Or, more likely, you might see someone in pain and look away because it brings up your fear or anger; it brings up your resistance and confusion. So on the spot you can do tonglen for all the people who are just like you, for everyone who wishes to be compassionate but instead is afraid, for everyone who wishes to be brave but instead is a coward. Rather than beating yourself up, use your own stuckness as a stepping stone to understanding what people are up against all over the world.
Breathe in for all of us and breathe out for all of us.
Use what seems like poison as medicine.
Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings."-by Pema Chodron.

I am learning about how to stay awake in my life. I am practicing being Here- not There with that thought or idea or fantasy of how I think things should be. I am seeing how we are all the same.

It is Sunday night. The kids are asleep. The cat is at the window. These tomatoes taste so sweet. I am craving chocolate. I am wanting Chris to kiss me again. I am here.

Not Knowing

2008-08-01T13:55:00.005-05:00

My brain looks normal structurally. But my doc thinks that there is some functional problem that may be causing Simple Partial Seizures. I have read all I can about this and I am really hoping he is wrong. Here is some info: http://www.neurologychannel.com/seizures/types.shtml

I am amazed by two parts of this strange experience: the first is Prednisone's ability to completely fuck with my thoughts, mood and body. I have never felt less like myself and more unable to make contact with myself. It has felt scary and I have been grieving the loss of self that has accompanied this treatment (or maybe it's the diagnosis itself causing this? ) I am now off it- hopefully permanently- and I am already feeling more able to function as myself. Completely fucking bizarre. May I say how disappointed I feel in the fact that I reverted back into dumb patient mode for a while? Fear has a way of making you want there to be some Authority. You want to be dumb and helpless so that maybe someone will actually Have An Answer.

This is a painful place to find yourself. Or lose yourself, as is more often the case.

Did I mention the breast lump issue? Well, I painted my way out of that- did this awesome lionfaced me with milk glands flowering everywhere-MUCH less stressful that running through the halls of medicine. My breasts are fine.

The second thing I am amazed by is the fears I have hidden inside me.

About a week before I came down with this whole dizziness thing, I gave up smoking. Note: I have quit smoking and picked it back up again several hundred times over the last 20 years. I really have always just wished that someone could find a way to sever the part of my brain that enabled me to pick up this round white papered stinky thing and light it on fire and then breathe it in. Um, duh.

One night though, when I was on youtube late, I found all sorts of things about mothers dying and leaving babies- even grown babies- and my smoking part was severed. I wrote this courageously fucked up imaginary letter to my kids - I don't know if I can ever show anyone this letter, but I may change my mind someday-and I felt this switch go off.

I sort of agree with some of what I have read and can see where he is coming from, but I don't totally fit the criteria.

Mostly, I find it strange that I finally discover this deep urge to NOT DIE from smoking and I encounter this weird thing that might possibly kill some part of me and make me not have any more babies.

Note: this unfinished post edited 3 years later....publishing it as is.

Freezing Blueberries

2008-07-20T21:36:00.003-05:00

On our second trip in a week to the blueberry farm in Gillette, we picked 5 more pounds. I made myself go even though I wasn't feeling ok.

I froze half of them when we got home.
I love the idea of biting into that fruit in the middle of January.
The berries were still warm when I put them on the cookie sheet to freeze.

My dizziness has remained the same.
My doctor is worried. I am freaked out.
I am operating at about 40% because of feeling so weird and off.

Brain MRI this past Friday. No answers yet about what is happening with me. Lots of scary possibilities.

I am thinking about dying. I am thinking about blueberries frozen in July and how we come to count on the fact that we will be here.

This is what I am doing-
I am playing the dinosaur game with Jackson and learning from him how to just be there playing the dinosaur game. I am pushing the kids on the swings. I am washing their faces before bed. I am sharing my breakfast with my Charlotte, watching her eat with her little 'poon (as she calls it), and I am practicing not getting on the train to the scary places in my mind.

But late at night, when I find myself on that train (and it is finding myself there because I have no recollection of actually having consented to ride), and it is picking up speed and my heart is racing, I am opening the windows and sticking my head out and feeling it all hit me at once. Full scare. No point in fighting being there if I am there. And then the train stops and I disembark and I am given a new moment. I am observing myself. Noting.

Which trains pull into the station for me lately?
There's the Google train, which gives the rider the illusion that they are actually steering the train; the train of hopeful thinking, which can quickly morph into the train of worst case scenario thinking and then back again proving that they are the same train, really (how fascinating) ; the train of sorrow and heartbreak that travels through my kids lives as they struggle without their mama- I don't like this ride at all and couldn't get off last Saturday night.

And I am trying to just sit and eat and read and hug and kiss and love and be and stay off the trains.

I am doing ok today.

The other writer in the family

2008-07-07T23:30:00.001-05:00

Dizzy Lessons

2008-07-07T22:09:00.004-05:00

If I am only going to post once a year, this had better be a good one.

Chris has inspired me by starting his own blog for his gardening adventures and then I felt like a loser because I am supposed to be the writer in the family. (Charlotte may share that distinction someday- she loves to tell stories and has many pens and notebooks.)

I have been suffering from dizziness. Vertigo. For coming up on 3 weeks now. I like to think that every physical manifestation of dis-ease exists as a message from my self. Like when I had shingles in December- I think I was totally running constantly from one event to another and working like crazy and staying up too late making plans for things I could never follow through on. My body, though not in the most healthy space over the last 12 months, has been an excellent teacher. I am learning to listen to the whispers instead of waiting for the yells to get what I am supposed to get.

So. Why am I dizzy? The sensation is like not being sure where my feet are. Last Monday, during a session which I should have cancelled but didn't, I had to take my sandals off and put my feet on the rug so I could get a better sense of where I was in space. I was in the chair I have been sitting in for almost 5 years yet I didn't know it with all of my being. If anyone besides Chris read these posts maybe they would be able to give me some cool metaphorical explanations for my ailment. I think, though, that Chris has been too busy being both of us to do any meaning-making.

Where else in my life am I feeling like I can't find my footing? I am deliciously IN my marriage in ways I never knew I could be. I am in Mama-hood with all of me. I am curious and I am waiting to find out what I need to take from this experience.

Significant moments so far: ending a session early for the first time (and surviving it), taking it really easy at home- letting the dog hair swirl, admitting right here to having watched The Two Coreys on A&E, eating half an apple pie by myself the first night I was on the Prednisone, and my favorite moment of all: playing really slow games with the kids. Last week we played "adventure", hiking upstairs to see the giraffes and meteorites and we sat on the futon and shared an apple from one of Charlotte' s many bags. That was my favorite moment of all.

So I am waiting for this to end and for me to come out of it with something new. I am also working really hard to realize that these glimpses into disability are opportunities for me to learn to drink up the stuff of my life that I usually run past in my effort to do the things that I have myself convinced I need to do.
Maybe that's what I am supposed to get.
More being- less doing.
More adventure- less purpose.
Slow down.
Yes.

2007-08-01T22:47:00.000-05:00

2007-08-01T22:13:00.000-05:00

I thought I would check to see if I still exist in the curious world of blogs since I haven't added anything since June of last year. Turns out I do exist. Which is nice. I have just spent about 45 minutes reading through another woman's blog- I have to figure out how to put the link in here- about her life in the Midwest on a farm. No Starbucks for miles, 8 year old daughter hauling hay, lamenting the lack of creme rinse in her life. Her writing is so funny and I feel like I would like her in real life. So weird, this whole blog universe. I am not really sure what the point of blogging is- much of it feels like masturbating in public to me. (What I imagine that would be like.) Is this important work? Does this help us become the writer we are supposed to be by forcing us to find a voice and imagine an audience? If so, is this anything but practice for real writing? Why aren't I working my poems right now? I must read more about this experience. I find that is an excellent way to avoid writing.

I can't help feeling a little weird. ( Who am I even saying this to????????UGH!?!?!?!)

From the time I was about 16 until I was about 21 I kept journals. They were diary-like (sort of in an Are You There God-It's Me Margaret-ish sense). Cloth covered flowery lined books that I filled with lies. (Are they lies if you don't know they are while you write them?)I was always aware that I was writing for an audience, though I can't say that I know who I imagined reading my words. I know I didn't write some things for fear they would be read, and I did write other things in the hopes they would be read. I know it (the writing) wasn't meant for me and I have no idea what they did for me besides provide me with the satisfaction of finishing one and starting another. Like I was saying- Look, I have filled a book about myself- I must exist. (Didn't I just ask that of my blog?)

I haven't recycled them yet but I haven't cracked one open in about 8 years. Since I got married. I don't really know what to do with them- Maybe I will decoupage a lampshade out of torn out pages from my journals. Maybe I will burn them- a funeral for my old illusions.

So, will this be the place for my new illusions? I cannot say. I like to say I am waking up. (I have actually never uttered those words, but that is how I have been feeling for about 5 years).

I will use this space though, as a space for finding out the answers to my questions and as a space to generate more questions.

I will maybe even write about my book soon- Up the Down Staircase is my working title.

Maybe this blog can be all things. I can write down what my life has looked like, I can find my voice, I can use the space to connect to the world in some way. I am sort of excited but a little skeptical.

Hopefully I will know more upon my return.

Goodnight.

earthverms

2006-06-14T22:50:00.000-05:00

Spent the last few days just being with Jackson...what a difference it makes to the way i feel about my life when i can just get down in the grass and look at earthworms with him. (he calls them "verms"). Before i became a parent i was so afraid i would lose myself in being a mother.... now i realize i am actually finding myself.

dig it

2006-06-06T20:57:00.000-05:00

not really too sure what i am supposed to be doing here, but i was led in this direction and i believe that wherever one stumbles one should dig. so here i am. digging.