restoration

Do you think Frances read my last post?

This is the book she presented to me with great pride and happiness over the weekend. Here is the author's bio, on the final page (school pictures arrived just in time):

Within this slim volume readers will find suggestions for consequences to employ should one's child behave badly, as well as positive rewards to bestow upon good children. Like stickers.

I have her to thank for Gabriel's triumphant and joyful First Pee on the Potty. How did I lure a child who has up until this morning been adamantine in his opposition to finally take off his pants and sit down? Stickers! And Frances tells me she will sleep in her room all night (rather than sneak into ours and snuggle into a sleeping bag on the floor) if she can have a sticker in the morning.

Frances' book has already cheered and aided this Mama Rabbit considerably, but the circumstance that facilitated its creation was a beautiful weekend-long visit with our friends Heather and Tom. How restorative it is to spend a long stretch of time together with dear friends!

The fall weather was gorgeous, and it provided a perfect backdrop for our cooking, walking, couch snuggling, talking and drinking wine for hours after the children were in bed.

Over dinner on Friday night I told Heather, Tom, and Mike about an interview I listened to on Being (formerly Speaking of Faith) with Joanna Macy, an 81 year old Buddhist/deep ecologist/Rilke translator. Macy recited her translations of Rilke poems* with intimate ease, as if she were speaking the words spontaneously, for the first time, and the effect was incredibly moving. 

Macy also spoke of our aversion to considering our feelings in regard to environmentalism with particular eloquence and insight. She said that our fear of pain is at the root of most of our problems, including the way we think about healing the earth. We love the natural world, and the harm we have done to it is painful to consider. Thus we flee to facts, information and argument. Our public discourse affords no space for sharing our grief. What might enable us to proceed with more compassion would be a turning towards the pain we feel, taking a look at it, acknowledging it. 

I told my friends about this idea because I found it compelling. How might we imagine a way of talking publicly that incorporates our genuine feelings? And where do we find the courage to open ourselves to the grief that must inevitably flow in when we confront the violence and hurt in the world?

Fast forward to folding laundry and chatting with Heather and Mike on Sunday afternoon. Gabriel and Tom were napping, Frances was busy in the kitchen. The fact of my persistent discontent and uncertainty about my place here in Annapolis came up. Heather sat with her typical openness and generosity between my husband and me on the couch, gently mediating and guiding the conversation. My stuckness in this regard is a subject that inspires defensiveness for both me and Mike, but in Heather's loving presence, something shifted.

At one point Mike suggested that it is destructive for me to continue to imagine the better life I might have elsewhere. Instead of saying 'if only we could...' it might be more helpful to admit to feeling sad and lonely.

Oh! How I resist such advice! But on Sunday with our friends I felt strong enough to listen to Mike instead of pushing him away. I realized that yes, I'd been driven by fear of pain, and it was not helping me at all. I have been running away from some fundamental emotional reality, and so my discontent clings to me like a tired toddler. I am always heaving it back onto my hip.

So here it is. Feeling my feelings. Yes, indeedy. Ready?

Sometimes I feel sad and lonely.

The miracle of Heather's gift? Not only did I feel able to acknowledge my pain, Mike was able to feel it with me. We three didn't talk about it much, but I was aware of a coming together, a healing, as our defensive edges softened and fell away in that quiet moment.

In the midst of all this, Frances ran in to show us each chapter of How To Tame Your Child. At first she told me - the one with the tear-streaked face - that the book was going to be my Christmas present. She was so pleased with her work! She loved that it was going to really help me, and so in the end, she couldn't wait for Christmas. 

Did she tap into the reconciliation that I felt subtly unfolding that afternoon? I think so. Because she too seemed restored by our weekend together. More herself, more whole.

Village life is my favorite kind, and being together with friends this weekend illuminated why that is in a deep, intuitive way. In loving and being loved, one can find the courage to hold both life's suffering and joy at the very same time. How I wish to give this gift to my children! I see how a village - friends, grandparents, siblings, neighbors sharing the rhythm and cares of daily life - provides the support children (and parents) need to grow, and to eventually grow wise.

I can bear the brilliant impermanence of autumn's beauty on a walk with Heather. I can even open my arms to embrace it. Today was a good day. Thank you, friends.  









*for example, Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower:

Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

rabbit stew

In Mike's parents' beautiful home, there is displayed a small collection of framed cross-stitch scenes that Barbara created years ago, when she first became ill. My favorite depicts a cheerful mama rabbit (who is perhaps smiling through gritted teeth) proclaiming: If Mama Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy!

Actually, I think it might say ain't no bunny happy.

I did play Mama Rabbit in my second grade Easter-time production of The Magic Egg. And I do happen to be a mama now. Nonetheless the expression baffles me, which is why I find myself gazing at that image in muddled fascination every time we visit.

What can it mean? If Mama wakes up in a bad mood, watch out everyone, because she is seriously vindictive and you're going to get it? Or is it that Mama sets the emotional tone for the whole family? As in, if she is happy and energetic and displays a can-do attitude, her little ones will follow suit? And likewise, if she is grumpy, everyone else will take the cue and grump along beside her? (Such responsibility! I feel faint of heart considering that option). Could it be that when Mama ain't happy, and takes to her bed, family members' needs are no longer magically met, which leads to a lot of unhappy people wondering who else knows how to cut their sandwiches in just the right way?

The expression strikes me on a personal level as wishful thinking. Being the sensitive emotional sponge that I am, it makes more sense in the opposite direction. If the bunnies ain't happy, this mama ain't happy neither.

Today I felt unshakably gloomy, and I knew it was about deep levels of bunny unrest in our little burrow. This evening Mike and I talked about how depressed we'd both been feeling today, and it didn't take long to trace it back to our daughter. He told me about the miserable ride to school with Frances in the morning, and I told him about our miserable ride home. The last few days have been rough. We cycle through it: she is disrespectful and relentlessly contradictory, we feel angry and fed up, we give her talking-tos and time outs, the behavior continues on and on, and it is misery. Anything (homework, getting dressed, taking medicine) seems to be an occasion for conflict, and in those moments I can feel gripped by rage. But when she is gone and things quiet down, the sadness flows right in. We are out of sync, and it hurts.

Discipline is by far the most onerous and taxing part of parenthood for me. Frances seems to be disturbed or upset by something deep down, and she is often difficult to be around as a result. I see her doubt and discomfort, and see how it informs her behavior. But even when someone is sad, she still isn't allowed to do and say mean things to her family. It is wearying to think of how many times I've said "go to your room" in the last week.

I'm sure all the anger and twisted up feelings can be traced back to school. What exactly about school? Who knows. Maybe it's just too long; she's tired. Maybe it's something more.

As my children get older, the details change, but the essential challenge remains the same. I'm not in control. I can't make this one better. I can only try to facilitate conditions that will help loosen and untie the mysterious knots inside Frances. It is hard to see her struggle, and hard to feel angry at her. I miss my bunny.

baking monday

My family was not in need of more sugar on November 1st. But I simply cannot resist when Gabriel looks up at me, his big eyes happy with anticipation, and says: let's bake, Mama!

Before I've assented or thought of what we might try this time, he is urgently dragging a heavy dining room chair across the kitchen floor in order to assume his post at the counter. My able toddler crows out helpful suggestions (We need butter! Get me a spoon! I want to dump the flour!) while I search for a recipe. I have had a hankering for gingerbread lately, so we tried this and it was fantastic. (I am assuming you might also find it in the King Arthur whole grain baking cookbook, one that I have borrowed from both friends and the public library many times.)

We had already punched down the bread dough for its second rise when we started on the gingerbread. Even though they always feels irresistibly spontaneous, Gabriel's baking inspirations hit pretty regularly on Mondays. We have bid adieu to the weekend with all its socializing and freedom from routine. We are ready to settle down in Gabriel-and-Mama Land, a place whose spiritual center is the big yellow mixing bowl. We feel such pleasure and mutual affection standing before it. And it just seems right to begin the week by creating something sweet to proudly present after dinner.

Today, I put Gabriel down for his nap while the spicy gingerbread baked. I came back downstairs and shaped the bread dough into two loaves, then covered them with dish towels for their final rise. Finally I sat down to do a bit of work at the computer.

On Friday I had written something for work that I felt confident and happy submitting. I thought I had finally "gotten it" and hit the right tone. Suffice it to say, in reading my email I discovered that I had not, in fact, gotten much of anything. I felt so discouraged. Then dark clouds began to gather over my head, then I felt that awful fear that I would never figure out what to do with myself professionally, and then it began to pour.

Despite the distracting thunderstorm of emotion, I eventually made myself settle in and address the revisions to my writing, which helped put things in perspective. But I couldn't shake the more general disorientation. Every part my life outside the home seems precarious, uncertain. None of them (ie school, church, work, neighborhood, friends) are integrated with each other. So what am I doing here anyway? When will I figure out how to become a part of this place? How can I find a way to better live out my vocation - something that remains inchoate but certainly has to do with finding points of connection and support in struggling communities - when I seem incapable of finding points of connection and support myself? 

How will I find a way to integrate the parts of my life such that I am rooting into something real and true? I don't see the way forward, yet I know I must find one eventually if this is to be our home.

And in this mood, I ran out to the mailbox to see what Frances had left in it for Miss Bernadette, our mail carrier, before it was time to pick her up from school. This is what I found:

Frances has a Hello Kitty calendar hanging in her room. In the November 1st box, a line in small text announces that today is Hello Kitty's birthday. So Frances addressed a birthday card and put it in the mailbox this morning! I wanted to laugh and cry. I know a tiny part of Frances understands that you can't send letters to Hello Kitty in Magic Land via the US Postal Service, but most of her believes that you absolutely can. Just make up a zip code.

I opened the front door with her letter in my hand and the house smelled heavenly. Like a home. The bread was now baking and the gingerbread was cooling next to an enormous bag of apples picked over the weekend. What a distance I had traveled in a few moments, between the angst over my languishing public self and the peaceful sense of domestic satisfaction I felt upon entering our house!

The daily work of creating our home and caring for my family surely brings me joy. (And frustration, yes, but what job doesn't?) There are moments when I feel downright flush with the happiness that comes from doing a good job (like yesterday, watching the kids chat with neighbors and celebrate candy in their fabulous homemade costumes). I wish I could recalibrate my insides somehow, so that those moments would be enough. So I could shake this restlessness.

But it follows me around. Thank goodness for Baking Monday, for imaginative children and a kindly mail carrier, for a husband who works very hard and supports me in both my domestic endeavors and my dreams for someday creating something out in the wide world. These gifts do not go unnoticed; they help me regain my balance when the world seems strange and daunting. Despite that voice that speaks when I am feeling small and lost, I do have a community. My family, my friends, all of you. We may be small in number, but in our own ways, we are vast with ambition and love.

a walk of one's own

At the tender age of 21, I had lived in Brooklyn with Mike for nearly a year when I took my first car ride through the neighborhood. I can't remember whose car I was in, but the vision of the buildings lining Fourth Avenue racing past from behind car windows was completely arresting. I hardly recognized it from that strange perspective!

I prefer life on foot - the scale and intimacy are more my speed. The feel of the wind and sun on my face clears out the inner muck. Arriving at my destination becomes an accomplishment. It grieves me that we spend as much time in the car as we do in our Maryland lives. Every day I drive over the Eastport bridge to pick up Frances from school and I watch the joggers and dog-walkers and tourists with a terribly envious heart. Sitting in traffic, I begin to suffer unproductive fits of the-grass-is-always-greener. I must tell you, they are not pretty, those internal what-if and why-not monologues of mine.

But yesterday I set that aside. It was a rare day in that I was able to leave early to pick up Frances, and Gabriel was still at his day care. I parked at her school, left everything in the car, and I walked. Fast. By myself!

The blue water and open sky, the warm sun, and the elemental satisfaction of moving within them melted the stress of escalating sibling rivalry at home, unfinished Halloween costumes, work to do, dinner to scrounge.

Life with children involves a lot of compromise, sacrifice even. Accepting that and finding the joy within the ever-shifting confines of family life can be a challenge for me sometimes.

But yesterday, I took a walk, and that was good enough. The limitations of my life helped me to see it for what it was - a gift.