The day to day is lived in tiny increments. I try to start each day putting myself on a positive path, reminding myself of all that for which I should be grateful. I thank my guides and my angels that helped me sleep through the night and I pray for the continued safety of my family--for our health, peace in our hearts, love. I try to forgive myself the mistakes I will surely make throughout the day and hope that I am leaving lasting memories, good thoughts, proof of my good intentions in the hearts of my girls. That I am arming them with a sense of this dimension and the others and interconnectedness all while serving up pasta, reviewing homework, demanding clean up of the play room, and directing the nighttime program in that killer 5:30 to 8:00 block.
I am incredibly conscious of my actions, my deeds, the things I say, aware that I play a starring role in their early childhood memories and that these moments will be mined for information, for truth, that they will be distorted and contorted to tell the story of how they were loved or how they were not, maybe because those thoughts from my own childhood flood into my mind still. Most especially when I am having a particularly good or bad moment with them, I think, 'God, I hope they know how much I love them or 'Please don't let them think I didn't. ' I am present, conscious, real, and flawed all the time except for when I am not. And so it goes.
Since visiting with my husband's father this summer, we've been talking about the small ways in which he was letting go, in which he was straddling here and now and forever. Our visit provided the girls, who'd only seen him in photos or in the case of our oldest had met him just once when she was a toddler, a chance to spend real time with him. Though he had people who came every day to check and administer his medications and others who provided him with appropriate meals for all of his health issues, with us he had company. There were slow broken conversations in English and French. The girls sang songs and made drawings for him. Jean or Papi as he is called, was feeble and disconnected, a little lonely and frustrated. He'd become annoyed at times, disoriented at others, happy and full of wonder at others. We lived with him in 3-D, wandered his home looking at journals and incredible memorabilia from his travels. The girls looked at him and his home with awe.
One evening, after I'd put the girls to sleep, I started to walk down the stairs when I overheard my husband and his older brother having a pretty deep conversation with their father. A conversation full of longing and need, revelations of secrets and stories from long ago. They were pleading with him for information about their father's family, his boyhood, his hopes and dreams. They were asking for connection, drawing for memories. clues. I stayed at his desk at the top of the stairs and let the boys and their father share a moment. I feared my interruption would give everyone an unwanted distraction, an escape from that incredible connection. I hoped they'd file that memory to pull up when they needed to recall him.
These tiny moments add up to make a life. They leave an imprint, serve as mile markers. I leave little ticks and grooves in my girls' stories so that when I am gone they might say, "Wasn't that such a beautiful moment with Mom" or "I am so grateful that we had that time together or that conversation or saw that sunset/sunrise/incredible earthly moment together." I try to shore them up with self-love, self-respect, identity. I've begun to slowly trace the roots of both families that intertwined to create this branch of the larger family trees. I tell them secrets, our secrets, whisper to them about the people full of hope, love, and promise that came before them.
Before my mother's mom passed, we all spent a last summer on Hilton Head Island and I watched her sit at the edge of the ocean on the sand watching the sun set. I knew it wouldn't be long. She too. I went with my mother a couple of weeks later to move my grandparents' things from their home to the nursing home they were meant to move to. She never made it there. I knew she wouldn't. A week before my father's mother passed, I'd called her rather unexpectedly to tell her I loved her. It was Mother's Day. I chose that evening to tell her about my then boyfriend, now husband, who was, up until then a secret, whispered only in strict confidence, spoken only to help myself believe our love true. She was so tired but so present. I'd never have thought she was soon to leave us. I think of her so often, speak out loud about the mundane, ask her questions. I miss being able to ask the questions. To get the answers.
When someone dies, they are elevated to the heavenly realm, the eternal, esoteric, almost immediately. Remembering how they were in life becomes an exercise, a quiet search for moments real and true. In our mind's eye the memories are pulled and twisted in the murky quicksand of the earthly realm. They are still with us, of the earth, on this plane, only we can't find them. We are so full of longing, living in those dreamscapes, hoping to be with them, see them, hear them speaking to us as they really did, with weight and seriousness, but also humor and humanity and humanness just one more time.
After a 1/2 day of school, a lunch at the pub with friends, ice cream at the parlor for dessert, ballet, homework, bath time, and dinner, the girls and I tucked ourselves in to bed for the night. The day patched together with sweet moments and a whole lot of chatter. My husband's tiny steps took him to his parents' home where he sat in silence, their presence all around him, longing for one more word. The funeral over. Attendees to the service gone home. Flowers laid. I hope that he and his brothers were able to pull up those saved moments, let them shiver through their bodies, feel the life shared with their dad coursing through them before they said goodbye to him and released him to the infinite.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Showing posts with label appreciation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label appreciation. Show all posts
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Winter birthday wishes
January 2nd usually marked the return to normalcy or a soft landing like the movie stuntmen made onto that huge pillow at the end of the holiday circus. Rather the celebration of the Christ child and the baby new year than me. While I didn't want to be forgotten completely, I was happy to get back to life as we knew it with a tiny secret tucked behind my ear, kissed there by the aliens who, in the dead of night, have always given me promises of a good future, not just resolutions but truths to which I was completely committed. I still believe in the probability of great achievement even in the face of total chaos and seemingly impossible obstacles. Though I have never been good at the holidays, what with all the celebrating and wide opened hearts on display, the arrival of the girls brought a chance for me to live them with different eyes, a more gracious heart, and a sense of wonder and hope.
Every year since I can remember, the arrival of the "winter holidays" has brought a little bit of tension, a little bit of the blues, and an eerie calm like the dead quiet of the first inches of a massive Nor'easter falling heavily on whichever sleeping town or block I was living. It feels somewhere between a whisper and the ringing in the air after a scream. I can hear my breathing. Sometimes I can see my breath. Always I am aware that I am alive even if I can't move from the cold or the fear, and am fully aware of my surroundings even if I want to run. Always I feel awkwardly alone even when surrounded by crowds of family and friends. Alone but not quite lonely. Here, but not quite here. I can't be lonely with the two people standing on my neck, whispering in my ear, chatterbugging to my face. Maybe that's why they came to me. To connect me to place, pry open my wintered heart.
2013 was hardly different from previous years--family ups and downs, community involvement, extracurriculars, doctors' visits, health checks and scares and reassurances, travel, work, parenting, craziness. I don't think I have counted my "best or worst" years since I was a child when the best or the worst was defined by gifts I received or didn't, skills I acquired or didn't, loves found or lost. Now, every year starts off full of promise, more than 1/2 full with the days firmly on one side, ahead of me. Every year I know that I will peel back the onion to find some other truth about myself, my soul's journey, my desire, and my fulfillment. I make no promises other than to try to remain open to whatever comes, to avoid (or try not to bring it all the way to insane clown posse meltdown) the panicked shut down when the world delivers what I expected but for which I had somehow been poorly prepared. At the beginning of every year I have promised myself, "This is the year for me. This is the year I will find the path, stay on it, actualize." I say this every year. I believe it every time. I don't write the directions, don't set the map in stone and quickly wander from the path...or perhaps discover the one worn in the ground, not paved.
I followed the breadcrumbs back to a language I'd almost forgotten I spoke. Many speak it more eloquently, some with grace and agility, others flexibility, but when I speak to them too, they understand. In 2013 I returned to dance. When I was a girl who hated her voice and was sure no one cared what I might have to say, there was dance. When I needed to free myself from the torment of the bad years and celebrate the joys of the good, there was dance. When I had a secret to keep, something that I needed to protect, I could dance around it, seal it in. And then I stopped, quit moving altogether, froze, and then allowed myself to believe that another form of exercise, maybe the machines at the gym, maybe an abs class, could suffice. They couldn't. Not yoga, even with all the breath and meditating and connection to the divine, warmed my soul. It was dance that first connected me to my own life force. Reclaiming it was so helpful to everything in my life.
When I was a little girl, my mother asked for the same things for her birthday, Christmas, and Mother's Day. Peace and quiet and for everyone to get along. We thought that was the craziest request on earth. "That's all she wanted?" I'd wonder. What a waste of a rub of the lamp. You can have anything three little cherubs and a workaholic husband can offer! I get it now. As I reanimate the creative back into my life, each day becomes mine to do with it what I will. I can ease myself out of the tepid pool of suburban monotony and feel passion burning me up again. I want that more than I want anything else.
I have, and have admitted, struggling with the daily expectations of raising children and running a household. I want to do them both well. Hell, I want to do everything well, but I believe that I bring more to everything in my life with the creative spirit and energy weaving throughout. At the start of every year, I remind myself of this. Somewhere along the way the priorities shift and I find myself making excuses, putting off making art, writing, dancing, and allow the minutiae of parenting and being married to be more important. I'm going to do better this year. At least I am going to try.
My husband was gone for Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years and my birthday. He has been for nearly every one of these holidays since we've been together. I have stopped allowing myself to suffer this and surely cannot let his absence during these days define the entire year. Or me. Or my life. I don't want to be defined by absence or by a "lack of." But when he returns and asks what I want for all the holidays I missed, it's not a necklace, a scarf, socks, or new boots that I am after. It is some of that quiet, some of that peace, some of the space where I can create or believe myself able again. It is solitude and my own communion with the end of the year and the start of my new one.
My birthday starts up the music, begins the lightly playing song that guides me through the year. It is wintry and quiet and moody and grey and cloudy followed by bursts of sun in a cerulean blue sky, cold as hell frozen over, that thaws into a promising spring. I've bundled up into it and survived the shortest day of the year and the longest parade of holiday celebrations. And on this day, I danced and wrote and drew a little sketch. Running head first, out the window, to the stunt man's pillow down below. To the new year. Mine.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
It Takes a Village
Lily woke up in the middle of the night with a fever boiling through her bloodstream. I knew because she was snuggled up next to me and I felt my own blood start to simmer until I realized that she was tucked in the crook of my arm. I touched her head, put my hand on her rising belly and she was on fire. I reached for her little sister on the other side of me and she, thankfully, did not feel the same. She turned over to avoid my handling of her little body and I tended to her big sister. That was the first night.
The next evening, antibiotics in hand for the raging ear infection that was plaguing my girl, we tried again. Lily on my right and Virginie on my left. Everyone tucked in and medicated or whatever was needed to allow a comfortable night's sleep and healing. We made it to 3 AM. At 3 AM, Virginie started wheezing as if she'd swallowed a balloon. She could not seem to take a full breath without this full, croupy cough taking over her tiny body. She would cough and tremble and cry, all while trying to fall back to sleep. I offered her inhaler every fifteen minutes until she could breath easier. Unfortunately, her coughing woke Lily who began pulling at one of her ears, coughing herself, and complaining of pain. For her there were pain killers and a back rub. In fact, with each one sandwiching me into the middle of the bed, I rubbed and patted them, arms outstretched, until 5 AM when I heard the last labored breath subside to soft, even whistles. Then I slept.
I've spent countless nights alone with the girls and most nights they are well, though often chatty and wake in the night. When they are sick or scared or in need, I am available for them too, will take care of what needs caring for until it is right. The good days greatly surpass the bad, but the bad ones fuel the fuzzy-brained, rain-clouded, barbed-wire pressured, and angst-filled stories of parenthood. Those nights leave me feeling so low and lonely, mostly because I am sleep deprived and insane (JEG, you know who you are), like I don't have a prayer or a hand or a friend.
This morning, my neighbor offered to take the girls for a while to play with her children. She and her husband had run their errands and handled their business and knew that I was alone for the long, holiday weekend with the girls. I tried to bow out, excuse myself, convince her that it wasn't necessary, that the girls were fine with crazy me. Though I have longed for a community, a tribe, a village to help me raise my children, I don't think I ever considered what I was really asking for. It wasn't something mythic, epic, poetic, romantic. It wasn't only a dream or an expression used in speeches when children had again been marginalized or ignored. For me, it was having someone that I trusted and that I knew cared for me and my children, take them for a bit. Nurture them. Feed them. Play with them. Entertain them. So that I might have a moment to regenerate, take a shower without a guest lecturer present, hell use the bathroom without having a conversation about only God knows what with a person sitting one foot in front of me. On the floor.
I let the girls go for a bit when a friend called requesting Virginie, the four year old. My friend's four year old was down for a full afternoon of play that involved multiple costume changes, a bath, coloring, a trip to the pool, all the cool stuff the pre-K set is into. She went. She stayed. I saw her at 6 pm. Lily, too, stayed out and I did things. Fun things, housework things, banking things, lying down things, standing up things, alone things. I later sat in the yard having an afternoon drink with my neighbor while we watched our children ride bikes and scooters up and down the drive. A family of friends who were walking by on their way to the train station, continuing on to the airport and a European vacation, stopped for a quick beer. I promised to check in on their house and their visitors. (They were doing a house trade with a family in France.)
I felt the village forming around me. I always see in my mind a Native American or African tribe of my imagining with huts configured in a circle, women working and tending to their children, men hunting and gathering, doing what they do. It is an image that comforts me, though it lives in my fantasy and is not drawn from any particular group or tribe. It's just what I want. The houses in my neighborhood are close enough for my children, young as they are, to walk from our home to a friend's without my being nervous. In the nearly two years we have lived here, we have amassed a small tribe of families to whom I would entrust my children, my home, our pet (Baby Dragon, the newt). There is a wonderful exchange of childcare, babysitting, dinners, evening cocktails, and conversations that gives me peace. The girls have learned to respect and consider other adults (and children too) and other ways in which families live and households are run. But as important, I have learned to trust, to fall into the arms of people who want to love and support me, who would allow me to love and support them, who have helped me give and receive in equal measure despite myself.
The village that we have chosen to call home has given me a place in the circle. The people we have added to our circle have given me no corners to be pushed into and no walls to hide behind. I am grateful for the connections and the community. When the nights are insufferable and days or weeks alone threaten my sanity, my village comes to my aid. It takes a village to raise a child. This one has raised up my family too.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
The next evening, antibiotics in hand for the raging ear infection that was plaguing my girl, we tried again. Lily on my right and Virginie on my left. Everyone tucked in and medicated or whatever was needed to allow a comfortable night's sleep and healing. We made it to 3 AM. At 3 AM, Virginie started wheezing as if she'd swallowed a balloon. She could not seem to take a full breath without this full, croupy cough taking over her tiny body. She would cough and tremble and cry, all while trying to fall back to sleep. I offered her inhaler every fifteen minutes until she could breath easier. Unfortunately, her coughing woke Lily who began pulling at one of her ears, coughing herself, and complaining of pain. For her there were pain killers and a back rub. In fact, with each one sandwiching me into the middle of the bed, I rubbed and patted them, arms outstretched, until 5 AM when I heard the last labored breath subside to soft, even whistles. Then I slept.
I've spent countless nights alone with the girls and most nights they are well, though often chatty and wake in the night. When they are sick or scared or in need, I am available for them too, will take care of what needs caring for until it is right. The good days greatly surpass the bad, but the bad ones fuel the fuzzy-brained, rain-clouded, barbed-wire pressured, and angst-filled stories of parenthood. Those nights leave me feeling so low and lonely, mostly because I am sleep deprived and insane (JEG, you know who you are), like I don't have a prayer or a hand or a friend.
This morning, my neighbor offered to take the girls for a while to play with her children. She and her husband had run their errands and handled their business and knew that I was alone for the long, holiday weekend with the girls. I tried to bow out, excuse myself, convince her that it wasn't necessary, that the girls were fine with crazy me. Though I have longed for a community, a tribe, a village to help me raise my children, I don't think I ever considered what I was really asking for. It wasn't something mythic, epic, poetic, romantic. It wasn't only a dream or an expression used in speeches when children had again been marginalized or ignored. For me, it was having someone that I trusted and that I knew cared for me and my children, take them for a bit. Nurture them. Feed them. Play with them. Entertain them. So that I might have a moment to regenerate, take a shower without a guest lecturer present, hell use the bathroom without having a conversation about only God knows what with a person sitting one foot in front of me. On the floor.
I let the girls go for a bit when a friend called requesting Virginie, the four year old. My friend's four year old was down for a full afternoon of play that involved multiple costume changes, a bath, coloring, a trip to the pool, all the cool stuff the pre-K set is into. She went. She stayed. I saw her at 6 pm. Lily, too, stayed out and I did things. Fun things, housework things, banking things, lying down things, standing up things, alone things. I later sat in the yard having an afternoon drink with my neighbor while we watched our children ride bikes and scooters up and down the drive. A family of friends who were walking by on their way to the train station, continuing on to the airport and a European vacation, stopped for a quick beer. I promised to check in on their house and their visitors. (They were doing a house trade with a family in France.)
I felt the village forming around me. I always see in my mind a Native American or African tribe of my imagining with huts configured in a circle, women working and tending to their children, men hunting and gathering, doing what they do. It is an image that comforts me, though it lives in my fantasy and is not drawn from any particular group or tribe. It's just what I want. The houses in my neighborhood are close enough for my children, young as they are, to walk from our home to a friend's without my being nervous. In the nearly two years we have lived here, we have amassed a small tribe of families to whom I would entrust my children, my home, our pet (Baby Dragon, the newt). There is a wonderful exchange of childcare, babysitting, dinners, evening cocktails, and conversations that gives me peace. The girls have learned to respect and consider other adults (and children too) and other ways in which families live and households are run. But as important, I have learned to trust, to fall into the arms of people who want to love and support me, who would allow me to love and support them, who have helped me give and receive in equal measure despite myself.
The village that we have chosen to call home has given me a place in the circle. The people we have added to our circle have given me no corners to be pushed into and no walls to hide behind. I am grateful for the connections and the community. When the nights are insufferable and days or weeks alone threaten my sanity, my village comes to my aid. It takes a village to raise a child. This one has raised up my family too.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
After Mother's Day
My friend A has been spending Mother's Day alone for the past couple of years. Mother's Day for her, and for many I've heard, is indeed a mother's day. A day to do with it what she will. A went into the city this year, New York City, and did a bit of shopping and visited a museum. I went to the city too on both Saturday and Sunday to visit with my parents, my sister, my brother, and their families. My parents and my sister were staying downtown in Battery Park City at a luxury hotel with gorgeous views of the Statue of Liberty. Both days were wonderful for everyone, truly. No real conflict, no stress, no heartache or heartbreak. When visits with my family are few and far between, a weekend as lovely as the one that passed is a treat.
And yet there is this. On the one day set aside for me, a mother, I was running. Taking the train in the early morning after dressing the girls, doing their hair, making sure they'd eaten enough and had snacks for the ride in, carrying asthma meds, sippy cups, changes of clothes, toys, crayons, and coloring books. Before 8:45 am, I'd done more than most would do all day. My husband, not one for pomp and circumstance, grabbed a rose plant and card on his trip back from Dunkin Donuts, where he snagged Mother's Day sweets for the girls to inspire them to be kind to Mommy and get a move on in the morning. I gave him the words I believed he meant to share and told him that honoring his mother with roses, her favorite flower, was a pleasure and an honor. This is not a lie. I truly loved that woman. She was selfless, giving, feisty, and loving. We gave in the same way. Completely, totally, quietly wishing there were more moments for just us. After she passed, I spoke with an incredible psychic who gave me a moment with dear Paulette that still leaves me breathless.
It seems a shame there is just this one day. Only one? One day to express gratitude for the countless ways the mother of the house holds it down and keeps it running wearing lipstick and cute shit, strutting her stuff and cleaning poop. It's not just the household tasks, the bills, the drop offs, boo boos and play dates. The mother's heart is the pulse of the family, regardless of whether she is home all day or working outside of the home. When she shines there is light everywhere and when she is down the house is less comforting, scarier. Moms know this. I do anyway and I fear a cold heart stealing from my girls' childhoods, even if it is mine, so I give to them, share with them, show them love, love, love. They are too young to show me with more than affection and insanely cute hand-mades. Too young to give me my space, my time, my "room of my own" without someone else to take care of them. They are still little and my presence assures and reassures, that all is right in the world. My smile, my kind words, my listening ear tells them that there is a place in the world for them reserved by their loving mother.
They sat with me, held my hands, kissed my cheeks, and told me how much they loved me. I knew it to be true. Thanked them and counted myself among the blessed. Not just blessed to have children, but to be loved by such wonderful humans. It is intoxicating, heady, chakra spinning, and sometimes exhausting. Sometimes the love I want is quiet. Is a place for just myself. A place for my thoughts, my heart, my dreams, my heartbeat resonating just for me. It is a place where I can rejuvenate so that I can keep doing what I do. On this day, Mother's Day, I never made it to my own room, to my own space.
And like that, Mother's Day was over. We were home in time for me to get those dirty, little birds in the tub, scrub them down, read a story, and have Didier pick up some take out for everyone. After clearing plates and trays, I got the people to brush their teeth, get ready for bed, and pass out. There are photos, proof of what a wonderful weekend it was. I know it was. But I missed the chance to honor myself and after Mother's Day, there are never very many of those. For me.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
And yet there is this. On the one day set aside for me, a mother, I was running. Taking the train in the early morning after dressing the girls, doing their hair, making sure they'd eaten enough and had snacks for the ride in, carrying asthma meds, sippy cups, changes of clothes, toys, crayons, and coloring books. Before 8:45 am, I'd done more than most would do all day. My husband, not one for pomp and circumstance, grabbed a rose plant and card on his trip back from Dunkin Donuts, where he snagged Mother's Day sweets for the girls to inspire them to be kind to Mommy and get a move on in the morning. I gave him the words I believed he meant to share and told him that honoring his mother with roses, her favorite flower, was a pleasure and an honor. This is not a lie. I truly loved that woman. She was selfless, giving, feisty, and loving. We gave in the same way. Completely, totally, quietly wishing there were more moments for just us. After she passed, I spoke with an incredible psychic who gave me a moment with dear Paulette that still leaves me breathless.
It seems a shame there is just this one day. Only one? One day to express gratitude for the countless ways the mother of the house holds it down and keeps it running wearing lipstick and cute shit, strutting her stuff and cleaning poop. It's not just the household tasks, the bills, the drop offs, boo boos and play dates. The mother's heart is the pulse of the family, regardless of whether she is home all day or working outside of the home. When she shines there is light everywhere and when she is down the house is less comforting, scarier. Moms know this. I do anyway and I fear a cold heart stealing from my girls' childhoods, even if it is mine, so I give to them, share with them, show them love, love, love. They are too young to show me with more than affection and insanely cute hand-mades. Too young to give me my space, my time, my "room of my own" without someone else to take care of them. They are still little and my presence assures and reassures, that all is right in the world. My smile, my kind words, my listening ear tells them that there is a place in the world for them reserved by their loving mother.
They sat with me, held my hands, kissed my cheeks, and told me how much they loved me. I knew it to be true. Thanked them and counted myself among the blessed. Not just blessed to have children, but to be loved by such wonderful humans. It is intoxicating, heady, chakra spinning, and sometimes exhausting. Sometimes the love I want is quiet. Is a place for just myself. A place for my thoughts, my heart, my dreams, my heartbeat resonating just for me. It is a place where I can rejuvenate so that I can keep doing what I do. On this day, Mother's Day, I never made it to my own room, to my own space.
And like that, Mother's Day was over. We were home in time for me to get those dirty, little birds in the tub, scrub them down, read a story, and have Didier pick up some take out for everyone. After clearing plates and trays, I got the people to brush their teeth, get ready for bed, and pass out. There are photos, proof of what a wonderful weekend it was. I know it was. But I missed the chance to honor myself and after Mother's Day, there are never very many of those. For me.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
All Apologies
I do my best. I am with my girls alone a lot. Their day to day is primarily, well, entirely, my responsibility. I do my best. But there are certainly times when the stress, my emotions, the weight of it all gets to me and I let it out! That usually comes in the form of screaming and yelling and carrying on and saying stuff crazier than even my parents said when they were yelling at me. Truthfully, I feel terrible about it, especially when swear words come into play. My people know that Mommy says bad words and rather than copy me, they are trying to reform me. It takes a village, you know, to raise up everyone.
I hate it though. When I have come to my wit's end and I unleash. I hate seeing them looking at me, hoping, wondering, willing me to be better, and I am petty and tired and frustrated and mean. The difference though, between my experience and theirs is the apology. After every outburst, every lashing, every moment when I know there is a better way to handle things, we talk about it. We talk about my feelings and theirs. We talk about what made Mommy get to the crazy, especially when the crazy is not at all their fault but the fault of my being tired and overwhelmed and shocked as shit that I have woken up as the person in charge and I really just want to chill out for a second. They are learning, at the same time as I am, how to deal with their emotions and the emotions of others, how to listen, how to laugh, how to rage, how to respect, and how to love.
I never quite understood as a girl or teen or young adult or older one that one can have the full range of emotions, truly, and still be cared for, still be loved, still have a place in a family or group. I have tried to present, to represent, rather than just be myself. I do not want this for my children. I do not need them to be proper, young ladies at the expense of themselves. Of course I do not want them to be cruel or selfish, but I want them to be themselves fully, to accept and feel and express their full range of emotions. So when I laugh, I laugh hard. And when I cry, the tears are hot and if I am not hysterical, visible. And when I am angry or frustrated or frightened or at my end, I tell them,. I show them. And I apologize when I hurt them in anger, when I am make them feel small, when I take them down with me when anxiety controls my head and heart.
I feel like I am apologizing all the time. So often that I sit up at night and hope that they will come through it alright. That they will know that their mother loves them more than anything she ever had or has since they came. I tell them how I am learning this as I go, that we are all learning and often confused and sometimes selfish and once in a while irrational, but that we all come back to this. That we love each other, live to make each other happy, support each other on this journey, and are able to say we are sorry when we break the promise to love and respect each other. Saying sorry is one of the hardest things, I have found, for children to learn to say truthfully, not just mouthing the words, not just repeating what adults ask them to say, but meaning in their hearts. It is also hard for adults. There are many apologies I deserved and did not receive. I still feel the sting of not hearing those words following particularly cruel assaults and emotional betrayals. The girls will hear them from me. They will know that I am trying, that I tried, and that I have honored our pact to love, respect, and support each other on the journey.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
I hate it though. When I have come to my wit's end and I unleash. I hate seeing them looking at me, hoping, wondering, willing me to be better, and I am petty and tired and frustrated and mean. The difference though, between my experience and theirs is the apology. After every outburst, every lashing, every moment when I know there is a better way to handle things, we talk about it. We talk about my feelings and theirs. We talk about what made Mommy get to the crazy, especially when the crazy is not at all their fault but the fault of my being tired and overwhelmed and shocked as shit that I have woken up as the person in charge and I really just want to chill out for a second. They are learning, at the same time as I am, how to deal with their emotions and the emotions of others, how to listen, how to laugh, how to rage, how to respect, and how to love.
I never quite understood as a girl or teen or young adult or older one that one can have the full range of emotions, truly, and still be cared for, still be loved, still have a place in a family or group. I have tried to present, to represent, rather than just be myself. I do not want this for my children. I do not need them to be proper, young ladies at the expense of themselves. Of course I do not want them to be cruel or selfish, but I want them to be themselves fully, to accept and feel and express their full range of emotions. So when I laugh, I laugh hard. And when I cry, the tears are hot and if I am not hysterical, visible. And when I am angry or frustrated or frightened or at my end, I tell them,. I show them. And I apologize when I hurt them in anger, when I am make them feel small, when I take them down with me when anxiety controls my head and heart.
I feel like I am apologizing all the time. So often that I sit up at night and hope that they will come through it alright. That they will know that their mother loves them more than anything she ever had or has since they came. I tell them how I am learning this as I go, that we are all learning and often confused and sometimes selfish and once in a while irrational, but that we all come back to this. That we love each other, live to make each other happy, support each other on this journey, and are able to say we are sorry when we break the promise to love and respect each other. Saying sorry is one of the hardest things, I have found, for children to learn to say truthfully, not just mouthing the words, not just repeating what adults ask them to say, but meaning in their hearts. It is also hard for adults. There are many apologies I deserved and did not receive. I still feel the sting of not hearing those words following particularly cruel assaults and emotional betrayals. The girls will hear them from me. They will know that I am trying, that I tried, and that I have honored our pact to love, respect, and support each other on the journey.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Find 100 Ways
FIND ONE HUNDRED WAYS, James Ingram
Songwriters: Benjamin Wright, Anthony Tyrone Coleman, Kathleen Wakefield
Produced by Quincy Jones
Compliment what she does
Send her roses just because
If it's violins she loves
Let them play
Dedicate her favourite song
And hold her closer all night long
Love her today
Find one hundred ways
Don't forget, there could be
An old lover in her memory
If you need her so much more
Why don't you say?
Maybe she has it in her mind
That she's just wasting her time
Ask her to stay
Find one hundred ways
Being cool won't help you keep a love warm
You'll just blow your only chance
Take the time to open up your heart
That's the secret of romance
Sacrifice if you care Buy her some moonlight to wear
If it's one more star she wants
Go all the way
In your arms tonight, she'll reflect
That she owes you the sweetest of debts
If she wants to pay
Find one hundred ways
Love her today
Find one hundred ways
Send her roses just because
If it's violins she loves
Let them play
Dedicate her favourite song
And hold her closer all night long
Love her today
Find one hundred ways
Don't forget, there could be
An old lover in her memory
If you need her so much more
Why don't you say?
Maybe she has it in her mind
That she's just wasting her time
Ask her to stay
Find one hundred ways
Being cool won't help you keep a love warm
You'll just blow your only chance
Take the time to open up your heart
That's the secret of romance
Sacrifice if you care Buy her some moonlight to wear
If it's one more star she wants
Go all the way
In your arms tonight, she'll reflect
That she owes you the sweetest of debts
If she wants to pay
Find one hundred ways
Love her today
Find one hundred ways
I spent the night out again with some wonderful friends. It is always a relief when I find friends with whom I can talk, be free, and relax and whose children are equaled loved and adored by my own kiddles. Talking about how each couple first met and fell in love, I found myself silent. Silent because my husband was out of town on business and I hoped to have him share the story with me rather than reminiscing alone, recounting and recalling by myself. We all laughed and then waxed nostalgically about life lived in the metropolis--Manhattan, Brooklyn, city versus life out in the burbs.
Looking around the table, each of us creative, talented, sharp, tired parents, in various stages of "in love" with our partners (something that anyone, but certainly any parent, will tell you is often in flux), I thought of how the heck I'd gotten here. Here in the place where I was talking about my life BC (before children) longingly, lovingly, relishing the memory of possibilities that city-dwelling afforded me. I was becoming heated, angry, hurt, completely forgetting how lonely, exhausting, tiny my life was BC. I was quietly simmering because Didier was away working, cooking for a wealthy family while they vacationed and that I was home, home alone with the people taking care of their every need, want, whim, scheduled activity, supervised or unsupervised, housework, homework, work. I was tired.
When I am alone for long periods of time, I often forget that I am not "in it alone," that it is not me against the world, that I have not been abandoned by my husband, left to raise my children alone in a cruel, darkening world. This is my stuff. This is me. I cannot and do not dare claim that this is the stuff of all mothers, but it is my bag. As I go through the routine, the day to day handling of the lives of three people, meeting basic needs and occasionally offering some spiritual guidance and emotional support, I feel alienated, isolated, stripped. It isn't that I don't feel like my children appreciate me because I know that they do in their way. It surely isn't that I would change my life. Being a mother is probably one of the most profoundly defining and yes, rewarding experiences of my life. I just think that the woman I was before the children came, before the responsibilities of caring for and guiding two souls through the universe, two people through the world, would have never believed the heightened level of anxiety, joy, panic, possibilities that motherhood would bring. When I am alone with the girls, I get into gear, click into mommy mode, and run like a well-oiled, efficient machine with moments of humanity and kindness, but mostly strict routine so that everyone can get to bed by 8 o'clock and Mommy can have a glass of wine in peace.
And then my husband returns as he left. In a huff, in a hurry, tired, in need of care, tenderness, compassion. And I offer it. From Mommy it is given, as it is always given. But I am not a machine and days, weeks in the pattern, in service, without a shower (or at least a meaningful one), comfort, or stillness can make a lady crazy. I remember my mother listening to this song on the radio when I was a girl. I thought it was pretty (if not a little schmaltzy) and was moved by the tenderness of a man, advising another how to care for a woman, to attend to her. I couldn't imagine, truly, that any man, except for in the movies or on Fantasy Island or the Love Boat, would even give a damn. I have been humming this song all week as I count down the days to Didier's return. He will come back and life will continue on as if he'd never left. I will release the control on the conveyor belt, set it to a different speed but keep it working, and continue loving the people, caring for them, guiding them, tending to them, but there will be no 100 ways. Not from my husband. Maybe from the girls.
While I assume that song was meant to be a love song to win over a woman unsure and insecure, it serves better the wife and mother. The woman, already committed, toiling away for her family--husband/wife/partner and kids--who recalls being that unsure woman and is now the unsung hero. I am feeling sentimental these days, nostalgic for my younger, attractive, wittier self. I wish I recognized more of her in the mirror behind my greasy-haired, head-banded, yoga pants rocking, make-up-less self. I really hope my husband does too.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Looking around the table, each of us creative, talented, sharp, tired parents, in various stages of "in love" with our partners (something that anyone, but certainly any parent, will tell you is often in flux), I thought of how the heck I'd gotten here. Here in the place where I was talking about my life BC (before children) longingly, lovingly, relishing the memory of possibilities that city-dwelling afforded me. I was becoming heated, angry, hurt, completely forgetting how lonely, exhausting, tiny my life was BC. I was quietly simmering because Didier was away working, cooking for a wealthy family while they vacationed and that I was home, home alone with the people taking care of their every need, want, whim, scheduled activity, supervised or unsupervised, housework, homework, work. I was tired.
When I am alone for long periods of time, I often forget that I am not "in it alone," that it is not me against the world, that I have not been abandoned by my husband, left to raise my children alone in a cruel, darkening world. This is my stuff. This is me. I cannot and do not dare claim that this is the stuff of all mothers, but it is my bag. As I go through the routine, the day to day handling of the lives of three people, meeting basic needs and occasionally offering some spiritual guidance and emotional support, I feel alienated, isolated, stripped. It isn't that I don't feel like my children appreciate me because I know that they do in their way. It surely isn't that I would change my life. Being a mother is probably one of the most profoundly defining and yes, rewarding experiences of my life. I just think that the woman I was before the children came, before the responsibilities of caring for and guiding two souls through the universe, two people through the world, would have never believed the heightened level of anxiety, joy, panic, possibilities that motherhood would bring. When I am alone with the girls, I get into gear, click into mommy mode, and run like a well-oiled, efficient machine with moments of humanity and kindness, but mostly strict routine so that everyone can get to bed by 8 o'clock and Mommy can have a glass of wine in peace.
And then my husband returns as he left. In a huff, in a hurry, tired, in need of care, tenderness, compassion. And I offer it. From Mommy it is given, as it is always given. But I am not a machine and days, weeks in the pattern, in service, without a shower (or at least a meaningful one), comfort, or stillness can make a lady crazy. I remember my mother listening to this song on the radio when I was a girl. I thought it was pretty (if not a little schmaltzy) and was moved by the tenderness of a man, advising another how to care for a woman, to attend to her. I couldn't imagine, truly, that any man, except for in the movies or on Fantasy Island or the Love Boat, would even give a damn. I have been humming this song all week as I count down the days to Didier's return. He will come back and life will continue on as if he'd never left. I will release the control on the conveyor belt, set it to a different speed but keep it working, and continue loving the people, caring for them, guiding them, tending to them, but there will be no 100 ways. Not from my husband. Maybe from the girls.
While I assume that song was meant to be a love song to win over a woman unsure and insecure, it serves better the wife and mother. The woman, already committed, toiling away for her family--husband/wife/partner and kids--who recalls being that unsure woman and is now the unsung hero. I am feeling sentimental these days, nostalgic for my younger, attractive, wittier self. I wish I recognized more of her in the mirror behind my greasy-haired, head-banded, yoga pants rocking, make-up-less self. I really hope my husband does too.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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