Who Knew?

Sometimes a change in life is forced on you. Just the fact that it is forced often makes most of us resistant. But, the resistance always come from an assumption that what we are changing is forcing us to give something up. If we were capable of being neutral, it would be fairly obvious that to each change, a chosen one or a forced one, there are a vast number of potential outcomes.

Earlier this week we were forced to move around our living arrangements. This is something we do often by choice, but this time it was by force. Because of the way our house is set-up we asked our youngest daughter if we might move the "sleeping room" to her room until we could figure things out. This room is much smaller than the one we previously used. Our family was previously sharing one room but two beds, one a king and the other a twin. There was no way we were going to fit both beds in to this smaller room.

We were able to move the king bed and set-up its frame. We thought we would attempt to have all of us sleep in this one bed. The first night did not go well. Often the first little while after any change is unsettled. Our oldest daughter was really upset that we had to move the bed. She would really like it if nothing ever changed.

Then yesterday, I had an idea. If I cleared the closet and placed my daughters pillow sac in it one of the girls might be willing to sleep in there. The doors were already off of the closet so it would not be separate from the room but might feel like a nice cozy little nook for one of the girls. This little nook became really comfy really quick. Filled with the pillow sac and some down comforters and more pillows than probably belonged in the space, even I wanted to sit in there.

Ari took to it immediately. I laid on the bed while she laid in the nook and we chatted. She even slept in there most of the night. Everyone slept well. And, there was at least one surprising bonus to the move. Ari likes to stay up late while the rest of us turn in earlier. Because the room she was hanging out in was across the hall from where we all were, she was more than happy to stay up on her own.

I am not sure what the house set-up will look like when we clean up the mess that prompted the move in the first place. Honestly, I am not even going in to the room we evacuated right now. But, hopefully, I will see what ever comes next with much more neutrality knowing that every change has an infinite number of possibilities and in those possibilities is potential for good things you did not expect.

Of Mice and Mold

It has been an interesting couple of days around here. On Monday night I mentioned to my friend that because we were having a few people over it would be nice to have the trampoline out. My husband overheard my conversation and I found him in the backyard putting it up. He mentioned in passing that there were some mice in the shed. He suggested washing the pads that go around the outside of the trampoline in the morning.

The next morning I went out to wash the pads and found them well past saveable. The smell was awful and the rodents had chewed holes in the pads as well. Soon after the cat started catching mice and even attempted to bring one in the house. Now, I am all for furries. We have 2 cats, 2 dogs, a guinea pig, and a fish. But, for some reason mice just set off my "OH MY GOD HANTAVIRUS" alarm. I was dealing with this fairly well. Sure when I saw the cat with a mouse in its jaws I was more than a little creeped out, but I resisted the urge to light a match and throw it in the shed.

Friends came, we had a splendid time. Friends left, we had dinner and settled in for the evening.

Wednesday was the day of Ari's first ever filling. She had a cavity and the dentist also wanted to seal some of her teeth. Now, Ari is a lot like her mom. Which means we are both incredibly resistant to new and unknown. I have had 37 years to work on this particular quality and I still find it rearing its head and having to remind myself that life is mostly about the new and unknown. She headed to the dentist with her dad and although I had planned to keep the day low-key, I felt there was some cleaning that was hollering to be done.

Mina and I armed ourselves with a bucket of soapy water, rubber gloves, spray cleaner (because spraying borders on obsession for the little one) and various rags. Our goal? Wash the walls in the "sleeping room", clean the light fixtures in the same room, and vacuum the carpets. Okay, so we all sleep in the same room. We all like it, it works for us, and I am sure soon at least one of the girls will outgrow it but for now, we have a sleeping room.

With one wall down, I moved to my next task, moving the king size bed. The bed has been on the floor. With us all in the same bed and with Mina still on the young side, falling out becomes impossible if there is nowhere to fall to. So, I lifted the edge of the mattress, then had to stop and prepare myself to lift it the rest of the way. I have only been able to lift it a couple times without help so I realized I might be in a losing struggle. As I pushed the wall up against the bed, I smelt something really nasty. It was like a mixture of musty old towels and pee. Mina described the smell simply as "smelling like butt". There on the mattress was a substance, I have yet to figure out what, and it came from the floor beneath it. I am fairly certain it is not mold but the title was too attractive. :)

The rest of the day was consumed with making new sleeping arrangements. I did this with no enthusiasm- meh- would describe the feeling well. John attempted to cheer me up- which really I found annoying because seriously is anyone going to be bouncy happy under the circumstances. I mean I was not overly dramatic or despairing, just meh.

Then a thought occurred to me. This was not anywhere near the worst day of my life. Nowhere near. This was a minor nuisance compared with the events of the worst days in my life. No one died, no one had an incurable disease, we had a place to sleep, food, hot damn my life was GOOD.

Then another thought occurred to me. I once saw a tv show where the family was remodeling their whole house, while living in it. That sucked way worse than my day. I have a friend who has been building a house for I think the past two years, that was much more work, took much more perseverance, and I bet there are days she feels like meh. In the words of my mentor, "It is a big universe and shit happens"

Valium

Ari has to have a cavity filled today. The doctor requested we give her a Valium before her visit. It took a little convincing but we wanted her to be as relaxed as possible and even though drugs in general are something we try to avoid, we felt this could make the difference between a kid who could get her dental work done and one who would fight the whole thing.

John gave her the pill and then came down the hall of our home just minutes later and said, "I would not want the kid we would get if Ari were medicated. Go look at her." She was a shell of herself. Sure she was calm and docile. But she was also so obviously numb and unengaged. I think both John and I are more appreciative than ever of who are kids are and the spirit they have.

Buddha

Somehow today Buddha came up. Ari asked if he was a real person. I told her there was a real person that was thought to be the "Buddha". I loosely told her the story of how his parents were told he would either be a great ruler or a wise man. I mentioned that his parents sought to protect him from all the sadness and misery in the world and so they would only take him to the nice parts of the kingdom and they would steer him away from old people, the ailing, and anything else that would signify that the world had suffering in it. She gave me a really shocked look and said, "Isn't that just a little overprotective. I mean what did they think he was going to do when he found out eventually those things existed."

Funny enough, that is one of the reasons we have tried to be really up front with Ari when something comes up. We then talked about what parents in our culture attempt to hide from their kids and to what benefit or drawbacks this could lead to in life in general and in the relationships between children and parents. Certainly, there are times Ari wished her dad and I were not so up front. But, since we have no desire or inclination to change who are and we just happen to be people who are not afraid of tough conversations- at least not anymore- we will continue to do as we are doing. How will it turn out? We don't know, but neither do people who do not tell their kids the truth.

Counting

Second grade was the year I really started to hate school. I am not sure why I am thinking about this today but there you have it. It could have been that my second grade teacher really did not like me. This was the truth. To be fair, I do not remember myself as a child but I imagine I was a hand full. Not only was I quick witted and sharp tongued but I also lived in a crazy house. I am willing to bet that the transition from being in charge of my house in to a setting where someone told me what and when to do things all day was not seamless.

It may have something to do with the second grade play in which I had a huge role. A role facilitated by another second grade teacher who discovered I could sing and became my champion that year. I used to wish that I was in her class and at least the play afforded me a large amount of time with her, until it was over. My role in that play would follow me for the rest of my schooling life. Even when I was graduating from high school people would still bring up that play. I did not learn until ninth grade that many of the girls in the second grade resented my part in said play. That information explained a lot about how the other girls in second grade behaved towards me.

This was also the year I got to go to Disneyland. I actually remember very little about it. My big sister, one from the United Way Big Brothers, Big Sisters program not a blood relative, was getting a divorce and we took the trip while her soon to be ex husband moved out of the house. Where I grew up you did not get divorced. You could live the most unhappy, unfulfilled, hollow life but you did not get divorced. This is actually one of the many things I love about my big sister. She could always be counted on to live her life according to her own design and naysayers be damned.

But when I think of second grade, one of the things that comes to memory first is learning to count in units. You know like by 5's, or 10's. I remember hours and days that then turned in to weeks of doing the same damn thing. We would be instructed to get out a piece of paper. Then we would fold the paper accordion style going across the width of the page making several long columns. Then we would be instructed to write out numbers using the boxes we had just created on our paper. I remember doing this so often and for so long I thought I would die of boredom.

Imagine my surprise then after this long and boring and tedious process of learning to count in units when my oldest daughter learned to count by 5's, 10's, 20's and even 100's without so much as a piece of paper or a single "lesson" on the subject.

"Spiritual"

I have to be honest, the word spiritual is one that makes me throw up in my mouth just a little. Of course, that is a vast improvement over the reaction I used to have to the word. I am not really sure why. There are many possibilities. It could have its roots in my upbringing in a fundamentalist religion, or in my dabbling in new age philosophy. Either one is a likely culprit. One at its root was about an established organization that exerted control over the people in its congregation and the other about how people can somehow magically control the universe. Maybe it is because I have never been capable of fitting the mold that either of these ideas of spiritual would bring to my mind.

When I talked this over with my mentor some time again she laughed at me, this is a very common occurrence actually. She said, "End game is living well." It has taken me this long to really chew on that and then use it.

I am an incredibly spiritual person with a goofy, some would say, sick sense of humor. I feel being spiritual is about a continuous search for truth, a journey to ones wholeness. It is no accident that my favorite nuggets of truth right now are:

If you plant flowers in the front yard and never pick up the shit in the back yard something will start to smell.

And

You can sprinkle sugar on shit and it might sparkle but it will still be shit.

You see, I am sort of in the middle of my own "coming out." It has become too inauthentic for me to not have all the parts of me together all the time. So, yes you will begin to see posts about my ongoing and life long spiritual quest to me. And yes, they will still have swear words and a slightly off color perspective.

January 24, 2011

I was in the kitchen with Mina today and I could feel my own tension level beginning to rise. I could hear the tone of my own voice starting to get shorter and more terse. I realized it would be a very good idea to go and take maybe 10 minutes and just sit.

I am often surprised by these moments of tension. They seem to come out of nowhere in the middle of something not tense. It has taken me a long time, years actually, to sit with them instead of either being so distracted by the tension and my judgments about it I don't do anything but go around and around in a circle of inner suffering or, notice the tension but don't do anything about it until I am a raging lunatic.

A conversation that occurred in one of my Yahoo groups came to mind. Some of the moms were talking about needing a "break" from their kids. I realized that this idea has completely transformed for me in the last year or so. There was a time I would get tense, I would not stop to deal with the tension, and then as my tension rose somehow in my actions and choices I made it my children's fault. Maybe I did not directly blame them and then sometimes through things I said and did, I did.

I understand now that my tension level has never been about my kids but about something that goes on inside me, something that if I sit down, slow my breathing, and get quiet, I can usually manage pretty successfully.

This quote came to mind: "The reality is, when you have taken total responsibility for your own reality, and you can see that the other is also responsible, then what you do is going to happen in sacred space." Spotted Eagle

I feel our family is really working on this aspect of having good relationships. My kids do not create my reality and I do not create theirs. Because my kids were not responsible for my tension, I was able to inform them of what I needed and why I needed it. My oldest daughter and I were able to have a really honest conversation about how I sometimes do not give her the space she needs and I got the opportunity to tell her I would really work on that.