in awe of the mystery

fireflies and four-leaf clovers

hunting for the four-leaf clovers as a kid, firefly tails make gold rings, the magic I so wanted to believe in as a child. . . .

a sunlit silence

From The Abyss by Theodore Roethke

Too much reality can be a dazzle, a surfeit;
Too close immediacy an exhaustion:
As when the door swings open in a florist's storeroom
The rush of smells strikes like a cold fire, the throat freezes,
And we turn back to the heat of August,
Chastened.

So the abyss
The slippery cold heights,
After the blinding misery,
The climbing, the endless turning,
Strike like a fire,
A terrible violence of creation,
A flash into the burning heart of the abominable;
Yet if we wait, unafraid, beyond the fearful instant,
The burning lake turns into a forest pool,
The fire subsides into rings of water,
A sunlit silence.


I especially love this line: "The burning lake turns into a forest pool."

words: strong enough to break a heart

people need people

cantaloupe

One summer during my college years, I ate almost nothing but cantaloupe and the great tacos sold, in those days,  on the streets of the Maxwell Street Sunday Flea Market.  In those days, people would haul a backyard barbecue grill to Maxwell Street and just set up grilling meat for their tacos. Then the city issued some regulations that shut down those street corner tacos.

This particular summer, however, very tasty, street-food tacos on Sunday and then cantaloupe all week long was about all I ate.

I did not decide to lose weight. I just loved cantaloupe. And dad would buy me all the cantaloupe I wanted.

Think like a Tree

I dwell in possibility . . . .

I dwell in Possibility – (466)

By  Emily Dickinson  

I dwell in Possibility –

A fairer House than Prose –

More numerous of Windows –

Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –

Impregnable of eye –

And for an everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –

For Occupation – This –

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise –

an exceptionally positive, joyful mother

When my daughter's father and I separated, my attorney asked me to agree, and thus pay for, a custodial evaluation by a child psychiatrist.  The way such evaluations work is that each parent spends time with the psychiatrist and the child, so the doctor can observe each parent's parenting. Even though we took him to court twice to get my ex to just show up to see my child psychiatrist, expert witness, he never did. I dutifully showed up for several sessions with my ex's expert witness, a child psychologist.

Get this. The child psychologist, the guy paid for by the father of my child, had me come in several more times than my daughter's father. In one of our meetings, that guy took Katie's developmental history from me. Midway through that interrogation, the kind I had already been through with my own expert witness, I said "Wait a minute, if you think he and I parent equally, why are you taking her developmental history from me? If you actually believe he has been just as involved in her care as me, he would know the answers to what you are asking me."

The interrogator said, seemingly unaware of the implications of what he said, "I don't think your husband knows all of Katie's developmental milestones. I think if I took her history from him, he would answer all my questions but likely make up some answers to look more involved."

I said "Are you hearing yourself?"  He noted in his report that I was defiant and resisted his authority. He had no authority over me, the fool.

I loved talking about my baby, though, so I kept on answering his endless questions.

He asked "what was her first word?"

Katie's first word, at least the first one I identified,  was a garbled attempt to say Snuffleupagus, a Sesame Street character she loved. The guy pressed me, saying 'but what was her first clear, real word?"  It was 'da'. I think 'da' is the first word of more babies than not. I think he thought I was downplaying the fact that Katie said 'da' before she said 'mommy'. Nope. I was bragging about my smart baby. It was way smart that her first intelligible word was five syllables.

My child psychiatrist watched me hang out with Katie two times, in his office. First he took me into his office alone, asking his receptionist to keep an eye on Katie, who was less than two at the time. A receptionist for a child psychiatrist probably keeps an eye on kids all the time. Katie began to cry when she heard I was leaving her. I said, repeating it three times, "I will come back for you." And then I suggested she introduce the receptionist to her Smurfette. That effort to distract her succeeded. She held up her filthy Smurfette to show the receptionist and the doctor and I slipped out. And then I did come back for her as promised.

The Smurfette. Her dad had given it to her. It was one of those dolls one might win at a carnival for throwing balls or something. It had painted on face and clothes, buttons for eyes and was stuffed with straw. So it could not be cleaned.  Every mindful parent knows you don't give babies dolls with buttons for eyes. They could choke on the buttons.  I never bought Katie a doll that could not be cleaned. Most of her dolls could be tossed in the washing machine.

She did not learn about Smurfs with me so she must have learned about them during her visits with her dad. And as much as I disapproved of those risky buttons, I saw that my baby clung to that Smurfette, saw that it was filthy because she kept it with her always, because it had come from her dad. I saw that she missed living with him. I saw that the Smurfette represented her dad and I let her play with it until it fell apart.

He actually once accused me of making it dirty deliberately.  He never got that it as a junky toy and inappropriate for her age.

My child psychiatrist understood why I let my baby play with a doll with buttons for eyes at her age once I told him her daddy had given it to her. He admired me for my acceptance of that crappy doll. I never once suggested to Katie that it was a piece of crap.  I actually understood that her dad had good intentions when he gave it to her. He must have noted she loved Smurfs, seen that doll and bought it for her. Maybe they went to a carnival together. She was too young to tell me what happened when she spent time with him.

She moved on to Rainbow Brite, another cartoon character but a safe doll. Not a great doll. The head was plastic. I like handmade cloth dolls and machine washable stuffed animals. Rainbow Brite had a plastic head but a soft body and no choke risks.

So I talked to the shrink alone, then I go get my baby and we hung out in his office, which he had obviously set up for such evaluations.  On a shelf almost beyond Katie's reach, he had a magnetic pin holder covered with straight pins. Radar alert. Straight pins are not safe for babies.  There was also a ball on the shelf next to the straight pins. I pointed the ball out to Katie. At first, she grumbled, signaling that the ball was out of her reach. She was not yet talking, not quite what most consider talking. I encouraged her to stretch for the ball. I said "You can reach it if you try, stand on your tippee toes, stretch out your arm and you will get the ball."

She reached and picked up the pins but she seemed to understand the pins weren't for her. She came over to me and handed them to me. I said "Thank you, Katie. That's not for babies. I will hold them. Now go get the ball."

It took her a few tries but she got the ball and then bounced it around and eventually noticed the other toys.  I had pointed out the doll to challenge her, because it was a little high. When I saw the straight pins, I realized the doctor had set up the room to see how both Katie and I handled unsafe situations. Both Katie and I handled the 'danger' of the pins well. She was only about 18 months old but I am positive she handed them over to me because she instantly saw it was not something for babies. She might not have literally thought 'not safe' but she knew it was not a toy, not intended for her. I was so proud when she rushed across the office to give it to me.

I was on my best positive maternal behavior because I am not stupid. I knew that child psychiatrist was evaluating my relationship with my baby and would be testifying before a judge about it eventually.  And he was not stupid. He knew I was on my best behavior. But he also saw that Katie and I did have a positive, joyful bond. I didn't make that part up.

That doctor wrote that I had an exceptionally positive and joyful relationship with my child.

I floated in a cloud of happiness on that phrase 'exceptionally positive and joyful relationship' for days.

To feel everything deeply, as high empaths do . . .

I don't think it is a curse to feel everything deeply.

It is only a curse if you don't work to become conscious of who you really are.

I was in my forties before I began to know that much of what I felt was stuff I picked up from others.  Now sixty, I know I take on other people's energy. As long as I work to remember that all that I feel is not always my energy, I am okay. When I slip from consciously acknowledging what is going on within me, I tend to lash out unkindly, in a fruitless attempt to unload what I am feeling. All I have to do is pause, take a few soothing breaths and pay attention, asking "what is me and what is not?" and, poof, i am clear and grounded.

In moments of high charge, I don't always do this. I can be triggered into reactivity, as all humans do.  In such moments, I sometimes hurt people, including people I love.

A work in progress, that's me.

Roswell NM

In 1996, I took one of the best road trips of my life. My sister was finishing her MS in Education and wanted to teach in New Mexico. The way to get a job teaching in NM is to go to teacher job fairs.

My sister had a sixteen month old daughter. She had missed a couple NM teacher job fairs before she grokked the job fair situation. She was poor, having just finished a graduate program. By the time she had figured out what absolutely had to go to teacher job fairs in NM there were two left, several days apart. 

She discussed her options with me. Flying to NM and staying in hotels for ten to twelve days was expensive but she had to go to NM if she wanted a teacher job. What to do with her baby? She couldn't take her daughter without access to child care. These job fairs were not set up with day care for interviewees.  Maybe she was setting me up to make the offer I made.

I had a much larger and more reliable car. A Toyota Camry SE. 

I said that if she would pay for the gas and Motel 6's, which are reliably clean and affordable, I would pay for all my food and provide child care.  It wasn't child care to me. I liked hanging out with my baby niece. I like hanging out with any baby.

Nobody's fool, my sister immediately agreed.

I had reasoned that she had to pay to travel to and from NM, she had to pay for hotels. I reasoned I didn't have to go and my car and free child care had some value. And I reasoned that if I paid all my expenses other than gas and hotels, it was win win win.

And it was win win win. We had a great trip.

I let my sister plan the drives, where we would stop overnight. She read about a part of southwestern New Mexico that is said to be extremely beautiful. She proposed we go there and then swing back to Portales, which is an hour north of Roswell. She allotted only an extra 24 hours to drive six or more hours each way, with an overnight stay in this beautiful part of NM.

I wanted to go to this beautiful part of NM. I love NM and had never heard of, much less seen, that it had semi-hidden, gorgeous places I had not yet seen.

they call me little buttercup

They call me little buttercup

Dear little buttercup

Though I may never know why

It's dear little buttercup

Sweet little buttercup

Dear little buttercup mine

My mom played the piano well. She could play many pieces, first try, by sight reading.

The piano was on the wall just outside my bedroom, in the dining room. On hot summer afternoons, at my nap time (so I was pretty young), mom would play the piano to encourage me to lay still in bed. I thought her playing was fantastic. I thought she was a great singer, thought she should be an opera star.

My mom played many songs with lyrics. She loved to sing. She sang with what she regarded as a operatic flourish, singing loudly and dramatically. She believed she sang quite well. Mom always said when she no longer had children to raise, she would join a choir.  After her second husband died, the one she left my dad for, she moved back to Chicago and in with one of my brothers. My brother had just gotten divorced and had custody of his two toddler sons. Mom moved in to help with the boys.

Mom's idea of raising kids was still grounded in sending children to Catholic school and getting involved in parish life. So she paid to send my nephews to the nearby Catholic school. And she joined the parish, doing what my mother always did masterfully. She lied. Mom was a masterful liar. She never made statements that were actual lies. When she joined that parish, she made a regular habit of saying her first husband had died and now her second husband had.  She never told anyone in that parish life of hers that her first husband died about fifteen years after she had divorced him and remarried. 

She took great pride, and this goes all the way back, in her claim that she had never told a lie. Her first husband had died and, in her mind, it was not a lie to say so just because he had died fifteen years after she had married in sin.  I knew, at too young an age, that lies of omission were often worse than outright lies. I trusted those lies of omissions. Some of her whopper omissions shaped, or, rather, misshaped me.

Whatever.  Mom was who she was.

My longwinded point is that when the boys got to grade school age and needed less hands-on supervision from her, she tried to join the church choir. Well, she did join it, only to discover that she did not sing very well, she was not regarded as a potential soloist, she could not sing from sheet music. She gave up on that choir quickly.  I wished then, and still do, that she had not given up. A church choir should accept any member of that church in its choir and let the human voices that show up sing. I believe my mother quit because she was confronted with the fact that her lifelong belief that she was a gifted singer and might have sung opera was an unwarranted fantasy and that realization pained her. Although I don't know. Mom, and no one else in my family of origin, ever talked about what they felt.  We were not a great family.

However. Today is her birthday and I want to remember some of my happy memories of my oddball mom.

One of my happy memories was her singing "they call me little buttercup". The whole time I have been writing this, I have heard her shrill, even shrieking but somewhat tuneless singing. I am sure she loved me but I think that singing was about my mom's longing for an audience. She never did it in cold weather. Only when the windows and front door were wide open, so half way up and down the block folks would hear her.

I loved that song. I loved having my mom give me private recitals. I always begged her to sing "Buttercup". She would begin her singing and piano playing session with "Buttercup" and finish with an even more dramatic, more flourished round of "Buttercup".

And I would lay in my bed, not sleeping, and believe myself to be a dear little buttercup. I believed my mother was wonderful. I felt much love for her. I believed she loved me very much.

I was so proud of her.  I thought her out-of-tune, loud singing was wonderful.

I'll never know why but she called me her little buttercup!  She loved me.

my baby brother has become legally blind

He can no longer drive. He can't see very well. He has no health insurance, although going blind did finally motivate him to apply. He has a low income and was eligible for his state's Medicaid. They told him it would take three or four months to kick in. HUH?

heartsore

I've been happy, sailing through the golden tunnel.

Just now, a friend brought up, talking on the phone, my daughter.  My daugher's birthday is in late June. This friend and I were scheduling a date and I said "I know June 26th is a Thursday because that's my daughter's birthday". That was okay.  Then my friend launched into a well-meaning analysis of something I had told her about my daughter. This something was a devastating episode in our shared lives, one that haunted our little family throughout her childhood.

I had told my friend only as one shares some of one's life stories from the past to get to know one another. This incident was traumatic.

I'm devastated

critical importance of kindness

kindness is an orientation?

This article, from The Atlantic, is pretty good. It reports on studies of married couples but there are useful insights into how subtle kindness can be.

I think kindness is an orientation of one's own being. If one assumes those one interacts with have a foundational orientation towards us of caring, then it is more possible to receive their behavior in a positive light, even when their choices appear unkind to us.

I am not suggesting I am always kind but I strongly claim that I try to be, being the work in progress that I am.

stop acting so small

“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”
― Rumi

mental illness signals birth of a healer

what-a-shaman-sees-in-a-mental-hospital/

This link takes you to a fascinating article. The African shaman has written several books. A friend just told me reading the book "Of Water and Spirited" changed the friend's life. This shaman says that in his culture, when people have the kinds of experiences that get labeled mentally ill in our culture, their community believes the persons having the unusual experiences is readying his or herself to become a healer.

I knew the things that get labeled as mentally ill in this culture were completely misunderstood by this culture.

I have ordered 'Of Water & Spirit" and I want to read alll this shaman's books.

nature is the cure for everything

nature's bounty meets all need, can't meet man's greed

You are the form heaven takes, our souls fire-born

this poem is by my friend, Jeff Vander Clute.

You Are the Form Heaven Takes

April 13, 2014 at 5:59pm

In early April of my waking dream,
sitting beside the dancing waves, I see!
that you are the form heaven takes
to welcome me home.

Riding the secret currents of peace,
I float amidst Earth tones
through perfumed pure lands
and kiss the hand of pristine presence.

Behind the timeworn veils
we call you
  and me,
the unsplit source light shines forth
through facets of precious, polished stone.

Meaning:
Our soul was fire-born
to fly and fall end over beginning again
into the rippling seas of love,
for we are love.

Night dawns. What miraculous fortune
to wake up stargazing
in eternal cosmic embrace:
We are the self-reflecting mirror.

The constellations of your face
twinkle and reach down
through untold distances of time
to stroke the surface waters,

slipping at last unresisted
into the depths
to pluck this heart
now ripe.