At 11:53 in the morning, the sun has dipped low enough in the sky to almost shine directly into the kitchen, bouncing bright ball on the rippled metal roof, shining into this room, shining into my heart.
Holidays really rip at me, in a way I never could have understood as a child. I couldn't understand the complaining and moaning and loneliness inherent in the holiday season... I loved them. All the excitement and tradition suit me well.
This year, I find myself feeling a bit broken hearted.
In Craftsbury, we had this whole week off from school, which allowed me to take off with the kids, see who needed seeing, and head home. We could fit in a Christmas and Thanksgiving all at once. A few birthdays, too. And use it as the head of a winter-settling-in; the end of seasonal migration, if you will. We could get home, have a home Thanksgiving, and crochet ourselves into a warm winter season ahead. In the trouse, we'd load up the stove, and it never went out again until March.
Instead, the kiddos only had today to get ready to go, to clean, to organize their lives for the season ahead, to see friends, to cook, to do what they need to do. There is only a tiny bit of time for extended family, and we had to pick whom to see. We've scheduled our holidays as if we are putting together a paint-by-numbers masterpiece that excludes emotion by definition. This year here. That year there. Did we leave out a family? A Sibling? Friends??
And my big big boy, who seems so ready to rip away from me a bit, crumpled, his soul burning in the family-centric holiday season, the warmth hurting rather than soothing, as he finds himself torn between families. His heart broken, unable to express it except to say he needs to know he was born in love, and that love abides, even in a broken bond.
And that, my dears, brings me to tears. That brings me back to the burning pain of adoption, and attachment, and fear of screwing up. Guess what?? I screwed up!
Reading an article where Erica Jong railed against attachment parenting, I realized that our Western definition of attachment is weird and stilted. Liberated women and feminism and mothering and attachment and individuality and community and family should not be so narrowly defined, so antithetical to one another. Combine this with all the coverage the "family and marriage" Pew Study are getting, and I find myself feeling irritated and angry. Family is as family does.
And gratitude for what we have, and who we chose to have, should be top of our lists from this season.
So here it is: my heartfelt gratitude. For family. For friends. For life.
I'm even grateful for the finger marks and dog nose smudges on the sliding glass door.
And oddly, as we look ahead to the next year, I find myself grinning as we plan and collaborate and scheme about the porch/playroom in the works. We'll be knocking out the wall to the art room, which sort of makes me sad, except that I guess we'll have space in the playroom to store art supplies anyway. And why not? What better use of that space than to fill the air in our house with the joy of playing kids, games, movies, and a view of this gorgeous valley!!
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Lots to chew on
I have difficulty sitting still.
Or keeping my brain still.
Or not daydreaming about "the next big step" in my life.
What-ifs and shoulda-couldas abound in my daily thoughts. Melancholy can set in and smolder for hours or days or even weeks with such great tinder. It can even blaze up at the most inopportune moments, usually aimed at a child or a partner or a pet. Often with deep accuracy.
So it with that history in mind that I write to myself, mostly, but all of you as well... about staying rooted. Rooted to place, to personal history, to choices long since made.
The tamaracks here have finally exhausted their deep orange blaze of late autumn, leaving a pale brownish-orange in their place. The last color in the woods consists of the deep reddish oak leaves on the warmer hills, and the orangey-brown persistent leaves of the beech. Want to know if you harbor bear habitat in Northern VT? Walk around in early October, looking for large beech stands.
Why the change of subject? Just that with this understanding of the place around me, however new it feels (there are stands of oak in the more southerly parts of Calais, not so much in Craftsbury), creates a sense of place, a sense of timing, an understanding of where I have chosen to be and live.
I spoke with a good friend recently about those choices. We waxed poetic about our lifestyles, and yet, by the end of the conversation, both had tears glistening about the fact that we chose a harder life than we might've. We chose to do without, chose to live in places where work and education can be hard to pursue, especially for mothers. We chose to live 25 minutes from the nearest grocery store, and to have to choose between grocery-store crap, or not having enough funding to get through the month if we head to the co-op. We chose to live where it is cold and hard to heat one's home, where you need two, abundant, distinct sets of clothing for the cold part of the year and the warm. Where roads beat the shit out of cars, even when you can afford to care for them. Where communities can feel simultaneously inviting and isolating. Where schools are small, choices for education limited, and frustration can run deep.
Life in a condo never sounded better.
But then, life in a condo doesn't allow for different choices. My parents have to watch as the hired "landscaping" company dumps tons of un-needed nitrogen based fertilizer all around their end unit condo, watching it flow into the crappy, weird looking pond with no riparian zone, where it results in huge algal blooms. Those, in turn, attract geese. They poop. They are a nuisance. Then someone must be hired to chase them off the pond. And once a year, the pond must be "shocked" as if it is some weird sort of swimming pool (except that no one is ever allowed to do that ). I won't even get into how close this ridiculous cycle is to a local salmon and trout stream, and an estuary for Lake Ontario. Common sense never plays into how this could be handled. And my parents have to make their opinion known, do the best they can to get common sense into the equation, then watch as the procedures happen all over again. (Not that it isn't fun to watch the dude in the kayak with the dog chase geese).
But here, I watch life turn more slowly. Just to the south of us, in Montpelier, life speeds up... with a touch of self-righteous glam in certain circles. That is alright, and it is still fun to have a "night out on the town" for date night once in awhile. But really, the glow of a city is still the rat race-y cycle of life I can live without. And it isn't nearly as diverse or interesting as a big city.
So recently, I have found myself engaging with people and places closer to Craftsbury and the home that we built for ourselves there. But I know in the long run, I have to accept that we are also building a community here in Calais. We're not so far apart, and many of the people we've know over the last 8 or so years, appear in the periphery of our life here, fading in and out as we build a circle of friends here. Part of learning to live life to it's fullest is to understand your place, where you are, what your life is like, and what direction it is heading. Like simultaneously paddling the boat, without ever leaving the pond.
In a moment of sheer panic this fall about my life: career, education, what-have-you... I freaked and applied for a million jobs. I even got offered some. But in the end, most didn't pay enough for me to take them, or even to pay for childcare, and I regrettably had to turn down even a dream job. I made the final decision today.
But in all of that, I also put the "old" childcare center into my routine again. It felt very much like coming home. And like, somehow, I was not the kid I had been when I was there before...
Before I longed to jump in with both feet, as if rather than getting wet, I could walk on water... skate across the issues and daily struggles any place has. Ambition, maybe. But now, I just feel like getting wet is just what I need. I'm good at taking care of kids. What difference does it make if I am a teacher, a director, an assistant, or just a sub whose there when I can be. It is a place to offer what I do best, a place I know well, a second home, if you will. Maybe someday, I will even get to go back full time, drag my youngest two along, and be one of those mommas whose kiddos all went to the same school. Frankly, I should get a car sticker for preschool... proud parent of....
I guess my point in this disconnected conversation is that I am happy with where I am and what I am and what my life is about. It's not easy, by any means, and often we have to finesse and massage our life to make it work. But together, Colin and I, and the kids too, we cobble together a life that makes a pretty comfortable shoe. Ya know, since I'm the old lady with so many children...
Difference is, I know what to do.
Or keeping my brain still.
Or not daydreaming about "the next big step" in my life.
What-ifs and shoulda-couldas abound in my daily thoughts. Melancholy can set in and smolder for hours or days or even weeks with such great tinder. It can even blaze up at the most inopportune moments, usually aimed at a child or a partner or a pet. Often with deep accuracy.
So it with that history in mind that I write to myself, mostly, but all of you as well... about staying rooted. Rooted to place, to personal history, to choices long since made.
The tamaracks here have finally exhausted their deep orange blaze of late autumn, leaving a pale brownish-orange in their place. The last color in the woods consists of the deep reddish oak leaves on the warmer hills, and the orangey-brown persistent leaves of the beech. Want to know if you harbor bear habitat in Northern VT? Walk around in early October, looking for large beech stands.
Why the change of subject? Just that with this understanding of the place around me, however new it feels (there are stands of oak in the more southerly parts of Calais, not so much in Craftsbury), creates a sense of place, a sense of timing, an understanding of where I have chosen to be and live.
I spoke with a good friend recently about those choices. We waxed poetic about our lifestyles, and yet, by the end of the conversation, both had tears glistening about the fact that we chose a harder life than we might've. We chose to do without, chose to live in places where work and education can be hard to pursue, especially for mothers. We chose to live 25 minutes from the nearest grocery store, and to have to choose between grocery-store crap, or not having enough funding to get through the month if we head to the co-op. We chose to live where it is cold and hard to heat one's home, where you need two, abundant, distinct sets of clothing for the cold part of the year and the warm. Where roads beat the shit out of cars, even when you can afford to care for them. Where communities can feel simultaneously inviting and isolating. Where schools are small, choices for education limited, and frustration can run deep.
Life in a condo never sounded better.
But then, life in a condo doesn't allow for different choices. My parents have to watch as the hired "landscaping" company dumps tons of un-needed nitrogen based fertilizer all around their end unit condo, watching it flow into the crappy, weird looking pond with no riparian zone, where it results in huge algal blooms. Those, in turn, attract geese. They poop. They are a nuisance. Then someone must be hired to chase them off the pond. And once a year, the pond must be "shocked" as if it is some weird sort of swimming pool (except that no one is ever allowed to do that ). I won't even get into how close this ridiculous cycle is to a local salmon and trout stream, and an estuary for Lake Ontario. Common sense never plays into how this could be handled. And my parents have to make their opinion known, do the best they can to get common sense into the equation, then watch as the procedures happen all over again. (Not that it isn't fun to watch the dude in the kayak with the dog chase geese).
But here, I watch life turn more slowly. Just to the south of us, in Montpelier, life speeds up... with a touch of self-righteous glam in certain circles. That is alright, and it is still fun to have a "night out on the town" for date night once in awhile. But really, the glow of a city is still the rat race-y cycle of life I can live without. And it isn't nearly as diverse or interesting as a big city.
So recently, I have found myself engaging with people and places closer to Craftsbury and the home that we built for ourselves there. But I know in the long run, I have to accept that we are also building a community here in Calais. We're not so far apart, and many of the people we've know over the last 8 or so years, appear in the periphery of our life here, fading in and out as we build a circle of friends here. Part of learning to live life to it's fullest is to understand your place, where you are, what your life is like, and what direction it is heading. Like simultaneously paddling the boat, without ever leaving the pond.
In a moment of sheer panic this fall about my life: career, education, what-have-you... I freaked and applied for a million jobs. I even got offered some. But in the end, most didn't pay enough for me to take them, or even to pay for childcare, and I regrettably had to turn down even a dream job. I made the final decision today.
But in all of that, I also put the "old" childcare center into my routine again. It felt very much like coming home. And like, somehow, I was not the kid I had been when I was there before...
Before I longed to jump in with both feet, as if rather than getting wet, I could walk on water... skate across the issues and daily struggles any place has. Ambition, maybe. But now, I just feel like getting wet is just what I need. I'm good at taking care of kids. What difference does it make if I am a teacher, a director, an assistant, or just a sub whose there when I can be. It is a place to offer what I do best, a place I know well, a second home, if you will. Maybe someday, I will even get to go back full time, drag my youngest two along, and be one of those mommas whose kiddos all went to the same school. Frankly, I should get a car sticker for preschool... proud parent of....
I guess my point in this disconnected conversation is that I am happy with where I am and what I am and what my life is about. It's not easy, by any means, and often we have to finesse and massage our life to make it work. But together, Colin and I, and the kids too, we cobble together a life that makes a pretty comfortable shoe. Ya know, since I'm the old lady with so many children...
Difference is, I know what to do.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Catch up time
Hello lovelies, one and all...
I know, I know... "Where ya been, gurl?"
Far too busy for words, I guess. Especially these words. But now I am resisting the urge to rearrange the books on the shitty Big Lots shelves, or to go deal with the brussel sprouts before the chickens do, and I am writing to you. Well, me. Or whomever it may be.
I went on a thrifting splurge last week which produced several fabulous items for the ease of my life. Colin already dropped the inner glass thing to the Pyrex coffee percolator, so we can't use it anymore. And all my Ebaying and craigslisting has only turned up the stems for smaller pots. So first order of business was a plug-in fifties metal percolator. Which promptly reminded me of what old office or church coffee tastes like, and why kids didn't like coffee. Ick! Colin actually says he prefers it. I think I would rather eat mud. Off the bottom of my shoe. From the pig pen. One bonus: coffee is still warm four hours later when you forgot all about it and didn't remember to finish that cup sitting on the counter. You can turn your left ankle out, cock your head to the right, put on your best Stepford Wives' smile and pour yourself a big ol' cup o' sludge, dump in the nutmeg and half-n-half, and if you are lucky, you remember to choke it down before it too cools and you have to do it all over again. But damn, that coffee pot looks cool on my Formica.
But the thrift store yielded far better results this week. A sweet pair of vinyl and faux sheepskin calf-height boots were a tad too small for me, but look smashing on Ms. Sage. I loaded up on unworn shirts and a sweet pair of "job interview" capri pants. (I have been offered a million jobs this week, and desperately need to decide what I want to do... and how much I can afford to be out of the home; I know this leaves you all salivating for more details, but I am not clear-headed enough on the subject to discuss it. So there. I'll let you all know after a really long car ride. That always clears my head).
Two sets of cafe' curtains made the removal of those hideous, busted, lead-ridden, and dangerous vinyl shades finally possible. I hung them on expandable curtains rods I bought at Big Lots in a moment of optimism... that I would just find the perfect curtains/shades/whatevers for the room instantly. And I did! They are whitish (not really cream, but not perfect white, either... I know, you just had to have the details of hue, didn't you, dahlings?). And I have hung them 3/4ths of the way up... providing us with light and privacy. Of course, I open them in the morning when light is pouring through. They soften up the living room, and it is ever so much more pleasant to hang out in here.
Especially with music on the stereo, and Nadia's bear cave under the circle table. She has been dreaming and talking about bears a lot lately (as have I), so we got a book out of the library about bears, and I threw some blankets over the round table in the living room, some cushions under it, and BLAM! BEAR DEN! Add teddy bears for bear cubs and a seal on the blue "ice" of the LR rug, and you have Arctic bear play for hours. Pretty dang rockin, if I do say so myself. Add stories and songs about bears, and what do you need preschool for?? Ya got me!
Laundry got caught up, the roof is on the barn, after much in the way of trials and tribulations and RAIN, and the house is in mostly working order.
Aidan got his early birthday/Christmas present... an incredibly amazing Magnavox stereo cabinte from way back when, with a record player and radio. He's spent hours playing old jazz standards. Gotta love that kid! And now he wants a Mob-themed, 20s birthday party, (Can you be a flapper Mom?)
Well, babies are disintegrating all around me, so it is time to go be the grown up. I'll write more later.
Maybe!
I know, I know... "Where ya been, gurl?"
Far too busy for words, I guess. Especially these words. But now I am resisting the urge to rearrange the books on the shitty Big Lots shelves, or to go deal with the brussel sprouts before the chickens do, and I am writing to you. Well, me. Or whomever it may be.
I went on a thrifting splurge last week which produced several fabulous items for the ease of my life. Colin already dropped the inner glass thing to the Pyrex coffee percolator, so we can't use it anymore. And all my Ebaying and craigslisting has only turned up the stems for smaller pots. So first order of business was a plug-in fifties metal percolator. Which promptly reminded me of what old office or church coffee tastes like, and why kids didn't like coffee. Ick! Colin actually says he prefers it. I think I would rather eat mud. Off the bottom of my shoe. From the pig pen. One bonus: coffee is still warm four hours later when you forgot all about it and didn't remember to finish that cup sitting on the counter. You can turn your left ankle out, cock your head to the right, put on your best Stepford Wives' smile and pour yourself a big ol' cup o' sludge, dump in the nutmeg and half-n-half, and if you are lucky, you remember to choke it down before it too cools and you have to do it all over again. But damn, that coffee pot looks cool on my Formica.
But the thrift store yielded far better results this week. A sweet pair of vinyl and faux sheepskin calf-height boots were a tad too small for me, but look smashing on Ms. Sage. I loaded up on unworn shirts and a sweet pair of "job interview" capri pants. (I have been offered a million jobs this week, and desperately need to decide what I want to do... and how much I can afford to be out of the home; I know this leaves you all salivating for more details, but I am not clear-headed enough on the subject to discuss it. So there. I'll let you all know after a really long car ride. That always clears my head).
Two sets of cafe' curtains made the removal of those hideous, busted, lead-ridden, and dangerous vinyl shades finally possible. I hung them on expandable curtains rods I bought at Big Lots in a moment of optimism... that I would just find the perfect curtains/shades/whatevers for the room instantly. And I did! They are whitish (not really cream, but not perfect white, either... I know, you just had to have the details of hue, didn't you, dahlings?). And I have hung them 3/4ths of the way up... providing us with light and privacy. Of course, I open them in the morning when light is pouring through. They soften up the living room, and it is ever so much more pleasant to hang out in here.
Especially with music on the stereo, and Nadia's bear cave under the circle table. She has been dreaming and talking about bears a lot lately (as have I), so we got a book out of the library about bears, and I threw some blankets over the round table in the living room, some cushions under it, and BLAM! BEAR DEN! Add teddy bears for bear cubs and a seal on the blue "ice" of the LR rug, and you have Arctic bear play for hours. Pretty dang rockin, if I do say so myself. Add stories and songs about bears, and what do you need preschool for?? Ya got me!
Laundry got caught up, the roof is on the barn, after much in the way of trials and tribulations and RAIN, and the house is in mostly working order.
Aidan got his early birthday/Christmas present... an incredibly amazing Magnavox stereo cabinte from way back when, with a record player and radio. He's spent hours playing old jazz standards. Gotta love that kid! And now he wants a Mob-themed, 20s birthday party, (Can you be a flapper Mom?)
Well, babies are disintegrating all around me, so it is time to go be the grown up. I'll write more later.
Maybe!
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
September
September rollllllls across the hills now, a soft, gray, foggy blanket that covers our valley and makes me forget there is a vista just at the top of the hill. Even if it also has a big ugly house up there.
The kiddos are in school full swing now, and have each had a sick day already. Any time Big Man needs a nap... twice in one week... well, he's sick! Babies and children, toddlers and grownups, have all had boogery noses and coughing fits, but it seems to finally be evening out... like a hilly horizon settling into the plains.
N is running around today, happy to be home, after her first "full" day at school (she stayed for the afternoon this week at preschool, and rode on home with big sister on the bus at the end of the day), wearing hand-me-down Santa dress, pink and brown striped cloth tights, and dragging the old wooden sword... YEP, that sword that's been around since Aidan was three... as she walks out into the cool, cool September air. Every walk we tried to take today was thwarted by the rain, and finally I gave up, packed the babies into the car and drove sllllllllowlllllly down Dugar Brook Rd, used a snack as an excuse for a destination at the Maple Corner Store, and wound my back again. Babies asleep, we left them to their dreams, and headed off to the couch to read library books... funny stories about Mountains of Quilt and Rosemary Wells illustrated nursery rhymes.
As the sun and clouds play peekaboo over our little world, and the weather wreaks havoc on my sleep (too warm to really have the heat on, too cool to sleep real well without a million layers), I find time to think about happiness and joy and beauty and perfection and sadness and grief and love.
All at once? What are ya, crazy?
Well, no... maybe... I just... just... just find the world so breathtakingly beautiful this time of year, and my evolutionary need to hunker down and find spirit rest bubble to the surface, much like I did in a cold swim a few days ago... in my little local pond, which is only Mirror Lake to me when it is fall and still and quiet and the summer people have all gone home.
Here, in this time of year, in the harvest season, in the reap-what-you-sow moments, I find perfection and peace. It manifests in little ways: the dance of my big girl across the upper floor of the skeletal barn as she laughs and glories in her body, the wind, the music in her mind; my big boy gathering supplies for his next creative endeavor, scavenging and deftly slipping under the radar as he collects and hordes, a magpie in disguise who displays like a bower bird in the end; Little Miss N running past with her overalls and mudboots on as she chases butterflies and then runs to help Daddy hold the measuring tape; Milo man grinning at me as he bounces up and down, so proud of his new standing skill, and saying "th th theee", his tiny tongue held against those barely visible new top teeth, a new sound possible as a result of the horrifying pain (amongst other symptoms) of teething. Colin whistling as he works, the barn slowly taking shape from an idea in our heads.
Of course, in this time we also tend to look back, to see the beauty in yesterday. That's the time when we see only what we could have done better, what we would have done, if we only knew then what we knew now... the regret of what we have yet to accomplish, the depth of the sadness over our losses. Here is the time I remember the last time I hugged a grandfather or grandmother, the soft sadness of the loss of a dream, the regret over the pains caused others.
I heal these wounds through a walk pushing the stroller, a cuddle of a child in the middle of the night, a nice word softly spoken about those I once injured, a memory shared, and dinner on the table (an art of love, a painting of my soul, a dream of a life I know not)... and in those moments find a quiet breeze lifting my soul, my heart opening to the new, the beyond, wrapped in the beautiful gift of right now. Here.
The kiddos are in school full swing now, and have each had a sick day already. Any time Big Man needs a nap... twice in one week... well, he's sick! Babies and children, toddlers and grownups, have all had boogery noses and coughing fits, but it seems to finally be evening out... like a hilly horizon settling into the plains.
N is running around today, happy to be home, after her first "full" day at school (she stayed for the afternoon this week at preschool, and rode on home with big sister on the bus at the end of the day), wearing hand-me-down Santa dress, pink and brown striped cloth tights, and dragging the old wooden sword... YEP, that sword that's been around since Aidan was three... as she walks out into the cool, cool September air. Every walk we tried to take today was thwarted by the rain, and finally I gave up, packed the babies into the car and drove sllllllllowlllllly down Dugar Brook Rd, used a snack as an excuse for a destination at the Maple Corner Store, and wound my back again. Babies asleep, we left them to their dreams, and headed off to the couch to read library books... funny stories about Mountains of Quilt and Rosemary Wells illustrated nursery rhymes.
As the sun and clouds play peekaboo over our little world, and the weather wreaks havoc on my sleep (too warm to really have the heat on, too cool to sleep real well without a million layers), I find time to think about happiness and joy and beauty and perfection and sadness and grief and love.
All at once? What are ya, crazy?
Well, no... maybe... I just... just... just find the world so breathtakingly beautiful this time of year, and my evolutionary need to hunker down and find spirit rest bubble to the surface, much like I did in a cold swim a few days ago... in my little local pond, which is only Mirror Lake to me when it is fall and still and quiet and the summer people have all gone home.
Here, in this time of year, in the harvest season, in the reap-what-you-sow moments, I find perfection and peace. It manifests in little ways: the dance of my big girl across the upper floor of the skeletal barn as she laughs and glories in her body, the wind, the music in her mind; my big boy gathering supplies for his next creative endeavor, scavenging and deftly slipping under the radar as he collects and hordes, a magpie in disguise who displays like a bower bird in the end; Little Miss N running past with her overalls and mudboots on as she chases butterflies and then runs to help Daddy hold the measuring tape; Milo man grinning at me as he bounces up and down, so proud of his new standing skill, and saying "th th theee", his tiny tongue held against those barely visible new top teeth, a new sound possible as a result of the horrifying pain (amongst other symptoms) of teething. Colin whistling as he works, the barn slowly taking shape from an idea in our heads.
Of course, in this time we also tend to look back, to see the beauty in yesterday. That's the time when we see only what we could have done better, what we would have done, if we only knew then what we knew now... the regret of what we have yet to accomplish, the depth of the sadness over our losses. Here is the time I remember the last time I hugged a grandfather or grandmother, the soft sadness of the loss of a dream, the regret over the pains caused others.
I heal these wounds through a walk pushing the stroller, a cuddle of a child in the middle of the night, a nice word softly spoken about those I once injured, a memory shared, and dinner on the table (an art of love, a painting of my soul, a dream of a life I know not)... and in those moments find a quiet breeze lifting my soul, my heart opening to the new, the beyond, wrapped in the beautiful gift of right now. Here.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
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