I picked him up, just like always and just like always, I felt a happiness roll up inside of me just seeing him.
"Today at school", he said.
I prepared myself for an ordinary tale of things that happen on a routine basis to my 9 year old boy.
for example;
*I got a paper-cut
*The teacher told us...
*My side hurt while running in P.E.
*Somebody passed gas.
But not this...
"Today at school" he said, "I accidentally saw heaven".
He'd been out on the playground gazing up at the sky. He described to me the clouds; big and beautiful, a little dark, stacked one behind the other. Then, some of these clouds he watched separated so that he, quite by accident,
glimpsed heaven.
"Its orange Mom", said with a secretive certainty one might imply as they shared a simple truth about what was taken in, like they'd unintentionally had a look up some girl's skirt as she climbed the jungle gym. No doubt what was seen.
"Isn't that great?" he stated more then asked.
"It is great", I replied.
"I can think of nothing better then seeing heaven, especially not on purpose".
One - Blackberries appear, navy blue and plump, begging to be picked and eaten all along the trail to the lake Two - Girl likes school Three - He loves me Four - He loves me not... Five - He loves me I woke alone and drove up early today. I sped on the freeways, navigated the winding side roads I've come to know and love. I stopped at the bakery and expertly ordered the things I find most spectacular; carrot and blueberry muffins, apple pie burritos, cinnamon crisps. I got to the house, opened the windows - I literally, just like in the story, The Night Before Christmas, in anticipation of Santa, "Opened the windows and threw up the sash..." Excited about the arrival of my father to the lake house I bought almost a year ago in the mountains. He's never been here yet and for good reason. He's not been well and it's a hard drive and can be an inhospitable landscape for anyone under the weather. But today he's coming. Count blessings once again... He came. We ate. We spoke about and thought of the ones we love who exist far away from us. We mentally brought them here, We walked to the water. We took a photograph to remind us. We laughed, reminisced about lakes before this one and times gone by. We walked some more. I effortlessly recounted my blessings as he left before darkness fell. 1) My daughter seems to be okay in school and thats huge... 2) My son is just the same as ever, but even better if possible; perfectly adorable, despite life... 3) We three found a home that we like and we moved into it... 4) My Dad survived cancer treatment and is doing well... 5) I am a decent juggler, doing okay with the hand life dealt me 6) I survived Crossfit this week, despite being lazy in regard to it all summer and I love it more then ever... 7) I have friends and family I cherish and admire far more then I can express... 8) My father was here and he loves me and I love him right back... 9) The sun is setting on the beautiful blue lake... TEN Ten is a toughie, because I feel this odd sense of emptiness or something along those lines. Ten is - I don't have a designated "boyfriend". (wtf) Ten is pathetic. Ten is a piece of _rap. Ten is a mistake Ten is possibly a blessing in disguise. Ten is maybe simply this... I cannot touch or feel the man who loves me, but there are several men who love me despite my best efforts; like my brothers and one or two who will not be present no matter what I offer up and then there is my father who loves me absolutely and so maybe I need to look to Our Father Who Art... you know where... who gives me this day and my daily carrot muffin... How about this for TEN - It's blackberry time at the lake. And how about a bonus, how about an added number like... ELEVEN - everything is possible...
The wisest folks of all seem to tell us that most people are fearful when it comes to change.
I can see that. I can see that in almost everyone I know, even the biggest, strongest, smartest.
Now that's scary.
I'm afraid to say, that I am not - I am not afraid of change.
Nope.
Not me.
I embrace it. I cause it. I look for it. I wait patiently and also impatiently for it. I need it really.
I may in fact be a little addicted to it and I've been wondering
how come.
Why do I constantly need to have change or progress or alteration?
Was I always this way?
Yes, I was, I realize, which leads me to this...
What on earth will I do when things are as they should be and change no more?
Of course things will always change, but I won't be able to keep up the pace of progression I've induced for the past decade and especially the past eighteen months or so. So... then what?
Recently in a strange turn of events, my big, bad and I do mean bad dog, well he took a bite out of me.
Yup he did.
I know. What a sh_thead.
You know what I did?
I changed him, am changing him currently actually.
I sent him away to be reconditioned by some hopefully highly capable dog whisperer.
He should come home quite tame, fundamentally altered.
Fingers crossed.
Here in my new home, settling in, I can feel myself slow down intentionally in the work that I've planned to do, in the things I am determined to change. Why? Because once it's done, well,
then what?
Maybe I am fearful of sameness, stagnation.
Maybe I'm afraid of completion.
Why?
I think I know why and the answer does in all honesty concern me, which is a softer way of saying it frightens me.
When I finally run out of things to change, I will in fact be left with the task of changing nothing other then myself.
And when I do, I will have a different answer to my own question, "Was I always this way?"
It's hot and she is done in, turned off to whats outside her. She can only feel herself and herself feels overwhelmed.
She's a perfect cut of fresh beef, left on the grill too long, moving past pink to overcooked.
With all her new books and all of her new fears, we turn and we leave.
We exit the middle school gates and walk through the heat mirages clinging to the surface of hot pavement before us.
I start my car and try not to look at my daughter's tense face.
My phone rings and it's a friend in the know.
"Tell us what teachers she has", my friend asks.
I take the new school schedule from my daughter's clenched hand. I un-crumple the damp page and I read the list of hard to pronounce, foreign sounding teacher names and classes my special child will begin in just a few days.
As I accidentally murder one name after another, my friend interjects, "OH YOU ARE SO LUCKY! That last one, she's a life changing teacher!"
A cool chill runs through my overheated body and I smile in total and complete relief.
Here it is, the gift in all of this hard to handle change...
The shade spot on a sunny day.
The hidden, bubbling creek secreted in the desert.
The much hoped for but not expected break.
The cant help but sigh after a day of pursed lips.
The unforgettable teacher, the one who for no reason you can explain at the time, changes who you are and leaves you irrevocably improved in ways you will never understand until you are 48 years old and you wake up and read a letter from your mother telling you that your life changing teacher is coming to the end of her own precious and much appreciated life.
Then suddenly you know the words, but you don't want to say them, because if you do, then things are welcome to move forward.
I'm kidding myself I know, but sometimes I believe I can control the universe and the events that affect my own world.
Like... If I never say goodbye, then no one can actually leave me.
I loved this teacher.
She made me feel special.
She made everyone feel good and included and strong and comfortable in high school. Impossible ways to feel at an impossible time in young people's lives but she did it and whats more, she made it look effortless.
When I met her again near the lake where my mother lived, in my twenties, I felt as though she climbed down from the distant place she must have existed all these years, Mount Olympus - - after all, teachers are not humans.
She wasn't real until she reappeared into my life, this time we were peers, friends, drinking buddies, lovers of the lake, appreciators of beauty, complimenters of one another's talents.
She watched me as I became a wife and mother, then just a mother and not a wife.
She came thousands of miles and stayed in my home, I went happily and felt blessed to be asked into hers.
We laughed, we told truths, we opened up to one another. We ate, we drank, we sang, we lived and it was heaven to know her this way. Like children we swam, hunted and picked berries in the woods, walked, talked and played together.
She was even more of a life changer for me as my friend then she was as my teacher.
My tears blind me.
I can find but can't seem to use my words.
I can only tell you that I loved her, that I admired her and I cherished the time I spent with her. I am so much more then grateful to feel that she loved me too.
If I ever doubt that God exists, I should think of this person and what she meant to me and of my great fortune in having had her not once, but twice in my life - as my teacher and then
as my beloved friend.
How blessed I have been.
Nancy, you are my hero.
I loved you then and again and still now and I always, always, always will.
In the movie, As Good As It Gets, Jack Nicholson's character says, "people who speak in metaphors can shampoo my crotch" and I happen to agree with the sentiment. Metaphors are annoying, even more so when they're accurate.
And so my tiling problems are also relationship woes.
Bare with me.
Here we go....And the miraculous thing about miracle cures is that they rarely cure anything at all...
I globbed this gluey substance on a pointless, seeping shelf in this shower of mine and it promised to prevent leaks, but it took very little of my time and cost very little of my money and worked, well, it worked not at all.
I googled grouting and found this detailed, tedious route to caulking that gave me tiling nightmares. No kidding.
So what am I left with?
Shoot - the middle ground. How dull. Somewhere between the quick fix and the all day labor lies the answer.
Not the simplest cure, nor the most daunting task, but somewhere in between a nightmare and a quick fix rests the solution, for tile, for shower leaks, for cracking grout and for every single, ingle thing-le.
Because we're all just tiled together, we're all mosaics, bits and pieces held in place by some thick substance, added onto over time and tacked together with cement, glue, spit and love, collagen, ligaments and maybe some butter or olive oil.
We're all structures in need of repair or remaking at different times and there may well be no easy answer and the good news is, it doesn't have to be so hard to find the solution. There is this lovely place called middle ground which I can't help but liken to somewhere along the lines of "Stepford", but thats not fair at all.
When something is leaking like a sieve or squeaking like a wheel it needs attention, but knowing how much is the hard part and giving too little leads to a certain result and giving too much is almost as detrimental as too little, because giving too much takes away from who we are and leaves us with less then...
The middle ground, as lacking in passion as it seems, is really the place where you can be the most creative, the most alive and even the most in-love, in every regard. In the middle area, you're more free to experiment, not taxed too the max and not happy-go-f-cking lucky. You're in reality and you're invested, but not enslaved. When you temper things out, you can actually feel connected, be in reality, aware of your situation and then you can deal with anything.
So whether I'm solving a caulking issue or a talking issue, I hope to find the do-able midland.
The space between easy and hard is where you'll find me waiting for you.
Candor: being blunt, frankness, sincerity in dialog...
She can go a day without speaking in school and thats something that concerns me.
When parents ask how their children's day was, they don't typically hear a detailed litany on who smelled like what; spaghetti, tacos, wet dog, sneakers, Doritos, sour milk, bubblegum and so on.
Parents might also not hear, "I didn't say a word all day".
They also might not cope with this reality as often as I have, "No one spoke to me today."
Parents hopefully rarely have to cajole their kids as they drop them at school; "Try to say something to someone today Babe and Honey, If you know the answer, raise your hand and say it if you get called on."
Parents often have to ask their children not to talk so much.
Quietness.
Perhaps thats not such a bad thing considering what happens when she does speak freely and candidly on occasion.
Our sweet peanut of a neighbor rang the bell today and my precious pudding of a daughter answered.
"Wanna play?", asked the child from next door.
"No", said mine.
"Oh. Later maybe?"
"Maybe, but probably not."
"Tomorrow maybe?", our neighbor asked hopefully.
"Maybe, but maybe not ever anymore since we're moving and maybe I won't ever see you again".
My child turned around then and looked at me, my mouth open wide, hands wringing the dying dish towel in my hands, momentarily infuriated and also stunned by her seeming lack of compassion toward our endlessly friendly neighbor.
Door closed and lets all hope another one doesn't open any time soon.
Not until I can drill into her head how honesty though very valuable may not prove as worthwhile as kindness.
Just when I think that packing is my most daunting task, I am jolted back into my true job in life. My purpose as the mother of a child with Asperges is to help her connect with others in the best way she can manage to.
Not so easy.
I'd rather pack a castle full of crystal then tactfully find a way to educate my child on how to communicate authentically but in a not so offensive manner while remaining honest, which I recognize is one of her very best, innate character traits.
Mainstream...
So we role play and I ring the doorbell and she answers it and I, on my knees say, "Wanna play?" and she says, "Yes".
Exasperated, I tell her, "Baby you are supposed to say NO."
I want to show her how it feels to be rejected. I want her to learn how to be a little less harsh.
"But mom, I do actually want to play with you", she says, apparently confused.
And so I puzzle through this as I don't pack very much. I wonder what my life would have been like if I always said what I meant and meant what I said.
Where would I be if I said no instead of yes when no was in fact my truth?
They say that in reality we control very little in our lives.
Some believe in fate.
Some have faith.
Some look to psychics.
Many just barrel down the road before them and deal with what lies ahead.
Some hide.
Others find someone to blame for what does and doesn't happen.
Maybe we should all just say what we mean and mean what we say and do what we want when we want to and not when we don't?
Try as I might, I can't find a way to teach my child to be less honest.
Try as I might, I can't find all that much wrong with honesty, except maybe it leaves you lonely at times - and lonely is something I can't bare for her.
If I had three wishes from some genie in some bottle they'd be...
1) Let her say what she feels
2) Let her feel what she says
3) Give everyone ears to listen when she speaks
Maybe her purpose in life is to teach me and not so much the other way around.
If I could steal a fourth wish, I'd ask to speak directly to the top guy, the big boss, I'd ask him to hear me and I'd once again say, "Thank you God for lending me this girl".
I saw this heart shaped stone last week while walking away from the beach...
My hands were full. I had so darn much to carry, but I put a few things down and picked up the rock. I showed it to someone, she smiled.
A smile producing stone must be held onto.
I kept it in the palm of my hand and grabbed my bags, chair, other things and on I went, following behind another friend who pulled a gosh darn wagon full of beach things up the long, winding, steep incline.
I placed it on my kitchen counter. Left it there. Why? I don't know.
I don't know why I do a lot of things.
Yesterday I resisted the irresistible.
Pots and pans on sale, 4th of July sale, now that's something hard to walk away from, but I did.
Instead of pot shopping I ran away to the mountains for 24 little hours.
I kinda almost sorta want to punish myself for leaving my pre-moving chores undone for one more day.
Bad girl.
I should be and could be frustrated with myself and I am, but yet I'm not.
I'm not.
I'm frustrated but not with myself.
I'm frustrated by life and it's magnetism...
I'm frustrated by beauty and by water,
luck, change, altitude, dogs that bite, passing cars,
by temperature, paper, hoarseness, love and other awful things. Frustrated by how much more I miss my children once they come home. Frustrated by time and how slowly it blows by
and other amazing things.
If there were no heart shaped stones to pick up and admire, I'd be more efficient and always accomplish everything.
Maybe.
Life could stand to be a heck of a lot less irresistible...
