Summer in Review

first day of school (work) for mama!

Summer is over, and I am back to work (shh, no I’m not blogging from my desk when I should be putting together packets for the beginning of school). I decided that I was going to handle this transition differently than others, that I wouldn’t begin thinking or talking about it ahead of time. I have noticed my tendency to process, re-process, and then OVER-PROCESS impending transitions, and that actually contributes to my increased anxiety. So this time I ignored the transition. Maybe it was denial, or maybe it was really awesome coping, I’m not quite sure. And while last night I had a touch of restless sleeping, I’m going to chalk it up to that rascally 20 month old lying next to me.

To allay the back-to-work-mama guilt that started to spin my wheels around 5pm (all those ‘but I should have done this’ or ‘is it going to be hard for Potamus to go to daycare 4 days from only 2 days?’ thoughts, I decided to focus on what I HAD accomplished this summer. And it turns out that I was a pretty freaking amazing mom in the past 3 months of summer:

• Road trip to Cannon Beach
• no less than 6 trips to the zoo
• no less than 5 trips to KidsQuest Museum
• Road trip to Cama Beach State Park
• Road trip to Eastern Washington
• Splash park shenanigans
• Weekly lunch dates (with tot-in-tow) with mom friends
• Puyallup Fair
• barbecues with the grandparents
• splashing in our backyard ‘pool’
• endless bubble blowing excursions
• lunch dates to Panera
• driving around listening to Macklemore to get Potamus to take a nap

I mean, the list could go on and on. Where I failed, in my grumpy attitude toward my husband, and resenting him working 3 jobs, I also excelled in rolling with the punches in a lot of cases I re-defined my identity as a summertime-stay-at-home-mom, and am now back to work, and I will miss out on certain aspects of life with Potamus, but I will also gain a lot, as well. I’m trying to focus on what I did, the moments we snuggled, and the experiences of him hugging me voluntarily for the first time, how I’ve really gotten to see him develop into a funny little person with a personality as big as the moon, and a sense of humor to rival any tv comedian. It was a good summer. Yes it was hard, but, like labor, I remember all the good parts, all the love I felt, in betwen all the sandwich making, diaper changing, tantrum avoiding messes. In wistful moments I think of how much of a sweet baby he was at the beginning of the summer, and how a ‘short’ three months has turned him in to quite the ‘little man’ toddler. Sigh. Those hugs he gives me, though…I mean, that’s gold.

How have you helped yourself navigate tricky transitions? Tips for staying sane?

Insomnia, Inspiration, and The Moons: A Review of Poetry

I wake up from half-sleep
haunted
by images of closet-starved idea children,
beaten by electrical cords and made
to sleep in cramped corners
on cots
or coats
if they’re lucky.
When were they exiled?
Did it happen one by one?
And why do I wait, anxiously
for the sleepy pied piper to come and lull away
the rat-child-poems,
so that I can dream easily
and forget
that I drifted
or strayed
or fell
so far from the Source
of inspiration.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have gone. But I couldn’t miss the opportunity: 3pm on a Sunday. To reconnect with a few classmates from high school and the English teacher that prompted me to graduate from high school with the equivalent of 6 years worth of English classes AND THEN go on to be an English Lit major in college before realizing that I DIDN’T want to teach…before realizing that I did.

If any of that makes sense.

The amazing part was the re-connection, the re-inspiration toward all things written and being able to see myself even more infusing my class with purposeful writing that will aid in their college transition. One high school classmate lives locally, with a son, and is in social work. We instantly connected again, and I was happy that while we had been loose friends in high school, there just lacked the emotional drama of one of the innermost circle of friends might have had.

And the poet.

Powerful.

The imagery in The Moons spoke volumes, and there’s something magical about hearing the words spoken aloud by the writer creator. Almost like bearing witness when God spoke the world into existence.

And afterward, the poet, the re-acquaintance and a few others, ran between fat Seattle raindrops to a local coffee shop to indulge in their velvet foam lattes. We talked about being mothers, being working moms and trying to find balance (as I explained to one, non-mom, why I was at the reading minus Potamus, even though it was the weekend). We talked about education, for the poet’s day job is the high school version of mine. The social worker and I made loose plans for happy hour sometime in the next few weeks.

We didn’t talk about writing.

Clearly I know the poet writes, and don’t know if the Social Worker does.

What I do know, is that I do not. Not pen-to-paper soul writing like I used to.

My feelings about it are complex.

In one vein, I long to spend those hours, or scrape together seconds to jot something down (even unsafely, like, while driving down the freeway) so that the words can create something true. I wish to be less distracted by shiny blue/white screens that flash instant distraction and updates. I want to keep record, somehow, of my life both inside and outside of motherhood. And even on the way home from the reading, an entire book idea came, fully formed (in big thought) into my mind, and the “simple” act would be to somehow get it from brain to paper.

The other part of me is scared.

Because writing and mental illness are blood-brothers, and I have been trying to live a quiet, simple type life.

I’m Sensitive: A Musical Review

Oh Jewel, where have you been in the past few years? We need more of these songs:

I was thinking that I might fly today
Just to disprove all the things you say
It doesn’t take a talent to be mean
Your words can crush things that are unseen
So please be careful with me, I’m sensitive
And I’d like to stay that way.
You always tell me that is impossible
To be respected and be a girl
Why’s it gotta be so complicated?
Why you gotta tell me if I’m hated?
So please be careful with me, I’m sensitive
And I’d like to stay that way.
I was thinking that it might do some good
If we robbed the cynics and took all their food
That way what they believe will have taken place
And we’ll give it to anybody who has some faith
So please be careful with me, I’m sensitive
And I’d like to stay that way.
I have this theory that if we’re told we’re bad
Then that’s the only idea we’ll ever have
But maybe if we are surrounded in beauty
Someday we will become what we see
‘Cause anyone can start a conflict
It’s harder yet to disregard it
I’d rather see the world from another angle
We are everyday angels
Be careful with me ’cause I’d like to stay that way

When listening to this, my mind splits in two, like those picture-in-picture TV’s, and I see myself as a little girl. A shy girl, with anxiety and depression, who felt things deeply and lived in an almost dream-land. A little girl who tried valiantly to hold onto imagination and tenderness, but was misunderstood and hardened to overcompensate for the overactive conscience and empathy. It’s easy to read Highly Sensitive People information now and see myself in the descriptions. It’s easy to understand that empathy can be used, harnessed even, for a life of work in social services, but as a kid I was sensitive and it was trampled on.

The other screen is the view of my sweetly sensitive son, who reacts strongly to tone of voice, and who loves snuggling on both mama and dadda’s lap. There may be a day where he has to harden himself against portions of the world, but it is my wish, my intention, to surround him in beauty, to tell him how good he is, to remind him that he is an amazing human being, and to do my best to not crush his sense of self.

Godspeed: A Musical Review

In high school I had the pleasure of seeing The Dixie Chicks open at The Gorge for Tim McGraw. My dad was in radio, and he got us tickets that summer, where we sat in 100 degree sun on folding metal chairs feeling hoity toity (and sweltering) compared to the minions up on the grassy free-for-all seating. While we were there for Tim, I was blown away by The Dixie Chicks and have loved them ever since. One summer, at camp, we did a skit to “Earl’s Gotta Die,” which I still laugh about with my friend to this day. So driving down the road, listening to that aforementioned burned CD, I was startled to find a Dixie Chick song that I hadn’t heard before: Godspeed, another song that made me cry, with the lyrics that cut right through all of my warrior walls:

Dragon tales and the “water is wide”
Pirate’s sail and lost boys fly
Fish bite moonbeams every night
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

The rocket racer’s all tuckered out
Superman’s in pajamas on the couch
Goodnight moon, will find the mouse
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

God bless mommy and match box cars
God bless dad and thanks for the stars
God hears “Amen,” wherever we are
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Godspeed
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

The imagery takes me forward twenty something years, imaging myself dancing with Potamus at his wedding. I’m somehow both a young mother and an old mother at the same time, both recognizing the sweetness of the moment now, where I breathe in his fading baby smell as he sleeps, and aching for the stillness of his brand-newborn days. I project myself into the future, twenty, thirty, years, with maybe a bigger pouchy stomach, but an even more tender heart from the millions of moments of mother-love that will change me. And I imagine it just being Boof and I in the house again, Scummy the dog long dead, Potamus grown with a partner of his own, maybe children or dogs or neither, and I miss this moment, the one I’m in right now.

Godspeed little Potamus.
Sweet dreams little Potamus.

 

Wild: A Review

My hips and thighs and ankles hurt. Not from hiking 1,100 miles, like Cheryl Strayed does in her memoir, Wild, but from lying still, in bed, for hours on one side, cuddled up to a smallish human being who aches for my nipple to soothe him into slumber. I often feel alone, and resonated deeply with Cheryl’s descriptions of the necessity to do her trip alone, while appreciating and loving the people she meets along the way. Very much an example of the hero’s journey, and while I’ve heard reviews that state it’s over the top, I felt she lived up to her “Queen of the PCT” title given her by her fellow travelers.

I was introduced to the author by women in the processing group I lead. One suggested we check out the advice column “Dear Sugar,” and that she had also written these things that were worth mentioning. My co-leader said she had Wild on her nightstand and was making her way through it. Fascinated with a story about the PCT, a trail that I once fantasized about hiking solo, too, I knew that I had to read her adventure, if for nothing else than to see, perhaps, a glimmer into what my life could have been like, if I had done a different solo trip than the one I actually did.

I think my three day solo adventure to Ohanapecosh, my childhood campground in the Mt. Rainier National Forest, actually prepared me for those 6 months in India. I wonder if the 6 months in India prepared me for the solo adventure of motherhood. And when I say solo, I don’t meant that I’m not mostly-happily partnered up, or that I don’t have a great network of supportive people around me to watch Potamus or go to coffee with, but because the journey to becoming and embodying motherhood is inside me, a trek I’ve only been on for a short-though-feels-like-fucking-ever time. I am on a trail, and I pass beautiful things, and hard things, and I feel like stopping and resting my feet and sleeping for 1,000 hours, but the drive to keep moving forward, the nudge from the foot in my side saying “feed me mama,” is still there. Like Cheryl, I have my own Monster…her pack, my baby. Love sometimes. Loathe others. Feels heavy and full and bears down on my hips making them ache from swaying to relieve the pressure, if only for a moment.

I am tired after reading this book. I feel like I have so many more miles to walk, through snow and rain and sunshine, and while it gives me hope, it shows me just how hard it actually is. She doesn’t sugar-coat the difficulty, from losing toes, and gaining callouses, to the intangible diffulties of overcoming fear and the cocky unprepared pride she had starting out her journey.

I would recommend it to so many of you. She will go on my shelf of spiritual and literary dashboard saints. Maybe I’ll wedge her between Donald Miller and Anne Lamott, or closer to Elizabeth Gilbert and Sherman Alexie. I feel inspired. I feel like I can hobble to bed and not feel guilty for memory foam or a down comforter, but know that my journey is hard and that is okay, because my journey is different, but that maybe I’m doing it for the same reasons or entirely different ones, and that is okay, too. Maybe, when I reach my destination, my own Bridge of the Gods, I will be healed, just like Cheryl.